WASHINGTON — No real US strategy exists right now for dealing with China, even as the country challenges the territorial status quo of nearby Asian waters, several experts said Wednesday.

“You have the option of examining the classified war plans and decide if they reflect a strategy for conducting an upper-level war,” naval analyst Ronald O’Rourke of the Congressional Research Service told Congress. “But for situations short of war, it is not clear to me we have a strategy for that.”

Such a strategy, he said “needs to involve our allies — it’s not something we can do ourselves.”

China expert Andrew Ericson of the Naval War College noted “the US has an implicit collection of approaches that together constitute a strategy. … But they would be more effective if they were brought together.”

Two other experts were more direct.

“We don’t have that strategy today,” declared Jim Thomas of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

“No such strategy exists,” said Seth Cropsey, a Navy official during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. “And forming one is difficult.”

The observations came at a hearing late Wednesday called by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., chairman of the House Seapower subcommittee, to discuss China’s growing naval power. Ongoing efforts by China to assert territorial claims on a number of islands and near-island chains and the recent declaration of a new maritime air defense identification zone were cited as indications of the country’s increased confidence backed by the expanding naval capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy.

“While naval modernization is a natural development for any sea-faring nation such as China, it is clear the modernization is emboldening the Chinese government to exert their interests by bullying their neighbors and pushing back the United States in the Asia-Pacific region,” Forbes said.

“We also must understand how to engage with the PLA Navy in a manner that is constructive for all parties involved and demonstrates respect and adherence to established international norms of maritime conduct,” he said.

All four witnesses at the hearing noted the difficulty — and the need — for developing a coherent approach to China’s naval prowess.

“Fundamental issues hang in the balance,” Erickson said. “If not addressed properly, China’s rise as a major regional maritime power could begin an era in which the US military lost unfettered access to a key region.”

“It’s clear that Chinese leaders are ambitious,” noted Cropsey, “and that their diplomatic policy and their military armament are moving them toward great power status, or at least regional hegemony, in a series of small steps designed to achieve those ends with minimal resistance from their Pacific competitors, America’s allies. And the US is not taking this possibility as seriously as it should.”

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