INCSEA agreement with China would artificially elevate status of their navy to that of U.S.

In short, the Soviet Navy was a true global blue water navy. Its ships operated around the world with impunity and erased the image that the USSR was solely a continental power. The PLA Navy has not achieved a similar global status. In this regard, INCSEA also gave the Soviet Navy something the Red Army didn't have - a bilateral relationship with its U.S. counterpart. Since the Soviet Union had traditionally been considered a land power, INCSEA elevated the prestige of the Soviet Navy at home and abroad.³⁰ An INCSEA agreement with the PRC would significantly enhance the stature of the PLA Navy by suggesting it was a naval power on par with U.S. and former Soviet Navies. It would also force the U.S. Navy to treat the PLA Navy as an equal, something which it clearly is not. Perhaps more importantly, however, the prestige gained by signing an INCSEA agreement could lead the Chinese government to allocate a larger percentage of the defense budget to the PLA Navy. In 2010, the PLA Navy was already receiving more than one-third of a defense budget that has experienced double-digit growth for the last twenty years.³¹