South China Sea: Deterring a Fait Accompli

Many rogue states have resorted to limited land grabs designed to unilaterally change the territorial status quo before the target could muster an effective response. China is following this pattern.

by Lan D. Ngo

While the South China Sea has experienced a period of relative calm following HYSY-981 oil rig crisis in 2014, it is unclear whether the dispute would fully stabilize in the coming years, despite continuous efforts to negotiate a binding Code of Conduct.
Russia’s bolt-from-the-blue annexation of Crimea in early 2014 reminds states that their territories could be swiftly seized by an aggressive neighbor with territorial ambitions.
Therefore, claimants to the South China Sea dispute, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, should be prepared to deter a potential fait accompli, especially when modern history shows that states increasingly choose fait accompli rather than brute force to conquer new territory.

The Logic of Fait Accompli
States that seek to expand their territories have three basic options:
(i) brute force,
(ii) coercion, or
(iii) fait accompli. 
In a brute force scenario, the aggressor first defeats the target state on the battlefield and then makes territorial demands.
Defeated militarily, the target state has no choice but to acquiesce to the victor’s demands. Alternatively, the aggressor could coerce the target to give up some of its territories.
Facing coercive pressures and in some cases, the looming threat of war, the target may decide that it would be better off acceding to the demands of the aggressor rather than risking escalation.
The problem with brute force is that it tends to be very costly in blood and treasure.
Even the weakest victims would fight back if their survival is truly at stake.
Hence a deliberately short war could quickly turn into an inextricable morass.
This is why brute force may be the only option when the aggressor seeks to conquer another state’s entire territory but makes little sense in the pursuit of limited territorial goals.
Coercion is less costly than brute force, but its track record is rather dismal, especially when the coercive demand involves territory.
Furthermore, by coercing the target, the aggressor inevitably reveals its intentions, thus giving an early warning to the target which may then engage in military preparations to blunt a possible first-strike advantage.
In other words, coercion is an ineffective tool of territorial conquest that would also reduce the range of options available to the aggressor to achieve its territorial goal.
This is why many states have resorted to fait accompli, i.e. limited land grabs designed to minimize risks of escalation.
A fait accompli allows the aggressor to unilaterally change the territorial status quo before the target could muster an effective response.
This forces the target into a tough position as it must choose between two unappealing choices:
(i) try to dislodge the invaders from the seized territory and risk escalation or
(ii) accept the territorial loss.
Every time an aggressor resorts to fait accompli, it is betting that the territorial loss for the target is small enough that it would rather give up than fight back and risk a larger conflict.
This is why decisiveness and limited scale are intrinsic features of every fait accompli.
While any fait accompli only directly involves two states, it usually has significant implications for third parties.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a territorial loss only for Ukraine, but the United States and other European countries are rightly concerned about the broader implications of Russia’s land grab. European leaders could be forgiven for believing that Crimea was just the first act and that Russia’s westward expansion would not stop in Ukraine.
Even if they can be absolutely certain of Moscow’s limited territorial appetite, many states still have strong incentives to reverse Russia’s fait accompli because failing to do so could embolden countries that also seek territorial expansion.
Yet fait accompli is a tactic designed to deter external intervention.
Brute force and coercion unfold over a lengthier period of time that allows third parties like the UN or a great power to intervene.
By rapidly changing facts on the ground, the aggressor could achieve its territorial goal before any third party could intervene.
Once faced with an accomplished fact, third parties could only intervene by attempting to roll back the aggressor’s territorial gains, which usually demands the use of force.
Since using force is costly and risky, third parties are less likely to intervene after the fait accompli had already occurred.
Thus a fait accompli usually aims at two targets simultaneously: the immediate victim and potential third party interveners.
In launching a fait accompli, the aggressor seeks to minimize two kinds of risk:
(i) risk of a protracted conflict (if the target fights back) and
(ii) risk of a broader conflict (if a third party intervenes).

After the Fact: Dealing with Territorial Loss after Fait Accompli
Assuming that states always seek to reclaim their lost territory over the long term, states facing a fait accompli have two basic options in the short term: they could immediately try to recapture the lost territory or they could wait for a more opportune moment to reclaim the lost territory in the distant future.
This decision, to respond immediately or delay, crucially hinges on two factors: the value of the contested territory and the visibility of the fait accompli.
A contested territory could be highly valuable for strategic and/or symbolic reasons.
A strategic territory usually offers immediate military advantages to the state that controls it.
The Crimean Peninsula with the Sevastopol naval base and the Strait of Malacca are examples of strategic territory.
Some territories are important because they hold symbolic importance, either because they are considered sacred grounds (e.g. Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif) or because they symbolize a larger power struggle (e.g. Berlin during the Cold War).
Leaders of a state facing the loss of a high-value territory should have strong incentives to immediately dislodge the invaders because losing such vital territory could endanger national security.
Even when security is not at stake, failing to immediately respond to such fait accompli could lead to severe political punishment as the people would not tolerate the loss of symbolically important territory.
This is why Ukraine immediately responded to recover Crimea after the Russian annexation in 2014.
What happens when the fait accompli targets a territory with little intrinsic value?
In such cases, leaders are likely to respond immediately only when the fait accompli is highly visible to the public audience.
When Argentina seized the Southern Thule island in 1976, the Callaghan government turned a blind eye toward the incident, even keeping the parliament and the British people in the dark for eighteen months before the fait accompli became public knowledge.
In contrast, when the Argentines seized the Falklands in 1982, Thatcher immediately appealed to the UN Security Council and dispatched the Navy across the Atlantic to recapture the islands.
Neither the Falkland Islands nor Southern Thule held much value in the eyes of British policymakers. The crucial difference here is that whereas Argentina stealthily took over Southern Thule, they publicly seized the Falklands.
Because the Falklands invasion was such a public event, it was a direct assault on British national honor and therefore humiliating.
Thatcher did not have any other choice than to respond immediately to Argentina’s fait accompli because failing to respond would have opened herself to attacks by her political rivals and precipitated the fall of her government.

Deterring a Fait Accompli in the South China Sea
Although China has not used military force to expand their territorial control in the South China Sea in recent years, this is no cause for complacent.
After all, China is the only claimant in the South China Sea dispute to have used force to seize islands controlled by other states.
They forcibly took the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam in 1974 and in 1988, the PLA Navy once again opened fire to seize control over a number of islands in the Spratlys controlled by Vietnam.
The 1995 Mischief Reef incident and more recently, the Scarborough Shoal standoff in 2012 remind us that Beijing will resort to force when it finds no other way to enforce its claims in the disputed area.
The risk of a Chinese fait accompli in the South China Sea is also high because many factors play to its advantage.
Given the high level of asymmetric economic interdependence, China’s neighbors like the Philippines and Vietnam will pay an enormous cost for trying to recapture an island that China seizes. Furthermore, given the clear imbalance of power in favor of China, small countries are unlikely to resort to force to dislodge Chinese invading troops, lest the response provokes a larger and more devastating conflict.
The great power most capable of deterring Chinese adventurism in the South China Sea at this point is the United States. 
Ideally, the United States would announce that it does not tolerate any attempt to solve the dispute by force, similar to its veiled deterrent threat against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
However, this is unlikely to happen any time soon as U.S. behavior thus far shows that it lacks the resolve to directly challenge China in the South China Sea.
The best way to deter China from attempting a fait accompli, for the time being, is to convince Beijing that there is no possible way they could take the islands in a swift and bloodless fait accompli. 
States increasingly rely on fait accompli rather than war or coercion because they believe it is a low-cost and low-risk alternative that could achieve similar territorial goals.
Consequently, fait accompli will become less attractive if those contemplating are convinced that the tactic actually carries more risk and costs than they previously believed.
Thus, states at risk of having their territories seized through fait accompli must convince the potential aggressors that they would definitely make an attempt to reclaim the lost territory, regardless of its intrinsic value.
To make this deterrent threat credible, leaders have to sacrifice policy flexibility and tie their hands by raising the public’s awareness about the disputed territories and therefore ensure strong public reaction should the disputed territories be invaded.
States should also garrison troops in territories that are vulnerable to a fait accompli. 
In extreme cases, they could convince their own populace to inhabit the hitherto uninhabitable islands by supplying them with all necessary wherewithals to sustain a normal life on these islands.
These measures enhance the credibility of a retaliatory threat because it precludes the possibility of stealthily seizing a piece of territory.
More importantly, it ensures that leaders of target state must respond to the territorial challenge or risk losing power at home.

China’s Military Seeks New Islands to Conquer

Allies in the Pacific are worried that the U.S. and Europe are no longer reliable.

By James Stavridis

A Defense Department report warns that China’s military buildup is reaching the point where it can attempt to “impose its will on the region and beyond.” 

Visiting recently with senior officials from two U.S. allies in the region, Japan and Singapore, gave me a visceral feeling of how things look on the ground (and at sea). 

“We are deeply concerned about the US long-term commitment in the region, starting with troops in South Korea – especially in the face of China and their determined military expansion,” a senior Japanese official told me.
The constant refrain was simple: The West is becoming a less reliable partner. 

These allies are dismayed by a U.S. administration that has repeatedly criticized its closest partners and accused them of freeloading on defense. 

They are also worried about weakness and distraction of a Europe facing Brexit. 

This is compounded as they watch China increase pressure on Taiwan to accept a “one nation, two systems” deal à la Hong Kong and militarize the South China Sea by constructing artificial islands.
Japan, in particular, faces a host of challenges from Beijing. 

These begin with a long and bitter history of conflict, principally stemming from the Second World War but also dating back to the Sino-Japanese War more than a century ago. 

Other areas of contention include China’s unfounded territorial claims including the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea; support for North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, who has launched ballistic missiles over the Japanese islands; massive hacks into Tokyo’s intelligence and military command systems; and the intellectual property theft that has also frustrated the U.S. so deeply. 

Singapore, given its geographic position as the gateway to the Indian Ocean, is a key stepping stone in China’s military expansion and its massive One Belt-One Road development project.

There is also a less-noticed but extremely worrisome aspect to China’s increasing boldness: It is building its naval capability to dominate farther into the Pacific -- as far as what Western analysts call the “second island chain.”
When thinking in a geo-strategic sense about China, the island-chain formulation is helpful. 

Since the 1950s, U.S. planners have delineated a first island chain, running from the Japanese islands through the Philippines, and down to the tip of Southeast Asia. 

Dominating inside that line has been the goal of China’s recent buildup in naval and missile capabilities. 

But U.S. officials warn that Chinese strategists are becoming more ambitious, set on gaining influence running to the second island chain -- running from Japan through the Micronesian islands to the tip of Indonesia. 

As with its initial forays into the South China Sea, Beijing is using “scientific” missions and hydrographic surveying ships as the tip of the spear.
Japan and Singapore are essentially anchors at the north and south ends the island chains. 

They have been integrating their defense capabilities with the U.S. through training, exercises and arms purchases. 

They are exploring better relations with India as the Pacific and Indian Oceans are increasingly viewed as a single strategic entity. 

This is a crucial element in the U.S. strategy for the region. 

But there are changes coming.
First, there are expectations that China will eye the third island chain, encompassing Hawaii and the Alaskan coast before dropping south down to New Zealand. 

This has long been regarded as the final line of strategic demarcation between the U.S. and China. Second, some analysts are beginning to talk about a fourth and even fifth island chain, both in the Indian Ocean, an increasingly crucial zone of competition between the U.S. and China.
Two obvious Indian Ocean chains exist. 

The first would run from southern Pakistan (where China has created a deep-water port at Gwador) down past Diego Garcia, the lonely atoll controlled by the U.K. from which the U.S. runs enormous logistical movements into Central Asia. 

As a junior officer on a Navy cruiser in the 1980s, I visited Diego Garcia when it was essentially a fuel stop with a quaint palm-thatched bar. 

The base has expanded enormously, becoming critical to supporting U.S. and British combat efforts in the Horn of Africa and Middle East.
The fifth and final island chain could be considered to run from the Horn of Africa – where the U.S. and China now maintain significant military bases – down to the coast of South Africa. 

Little wonder the U.S. military has renamed its former Pacific Command as the Indo-Pacific Command.
Each of the island chains will be a line contention. 

Both U.S. and Chinese war plans encompass protocols for employing land-based forces from the various islands to project power to sea.
Japan and Singapore are keenly aware of the geographic importance of the Pacific island chains, as are more distant allies such as Australia and New Zealand. 

How the U.S. Navy integrates forces with allies and partners, and develops cogent plans to use the islands should matters come to blows (as bases for long-range air, intelligence gathering, and logistic resupply) will be crucial.

The most helpful analogy may be the so-called Great Game between the U.K. and Russia for control of South Asia in the 19th century. 

But in today’s world, both the U.S. and China have broader global ambitions and larger international trade empires to defend. 

Control of the island chains, with Japan and Singapore at the most crucial points in the Pacific, can give either great power the upper hand.

China almost has Australia surrounded. But its debt-trap diplomacy has been exposed

Beijing’s island-grabbing campaign is getting close to home. It’s muscling in on tiny nations from the Indian to the Pacific Oceans.
By Jamie Seidel

CHINA’s island-grabbing campaign is getting close to home. 

It’s muscling in on tiny nations from the Indian to the Pacific Oceans. 

But Australia’s begun pushing back.
Ceylon. Savo Island. Coral Sea. Guadalcanal. Gilbert and Marshall Islands. Tarawa. Truk. Guam.
These were names plucked from obscurity by bloody battles against Japan during World War II. 

They were battles fought because these seemingly insignificant islands — some little more than coral atolls and volcanic outcrops — are important. 

They are remote outposts, rare landfalls in vast oceans. 

They sit astride shipping lanes that carry the lifeblood of South-East Asia’s and Oceania’s economies.
Those controlling these specks on the map potentially have an impact on world affairs seemingly out of all proportion.
Not since the darkest days of World War II has Australia begun to feel the pressure of isolation and constraint. 

Germany did little more than harass our shipping in the Indian Ocean, carrying troops and equipment to the Middle East and vital resources in return. 

But Japan’s overwhelming raids on Darwin and Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in 1942 brutally demonstrated just how vulnerable we were. 

And once the Pacific Islands began to fall, the links between Australia and the United States began to look tenuous as well.

A snapshot of shipping flowing to and from Australia, and through the region, from www.shipmap.org.

That encirclement of Australia was with steel ships, aluminium aircraft and the blood and sweat of tens of thousands of troops.
It’s an encirclement some analysts fear we are experiencing again.
But in place of warships and tanks, China is steamrolling across our region with promises of grand works of infrastructure — and weaponised loans.
Debt-trap diplomacy is behind a new land grab. 

It’s the lure of loans pushed on poor countries that cannot afford to repay them.
Now new regional names are registering on Australia’s radar as they teeter and fall.
Male. Manus. Luganville. Wewak.
China has showered small nations such as Vanuatu, Tonga and the Solomon Islands with concessional loans. 

The Lowy Institute think-tank estimates Beijing pushed more than $2.3 billion into to the region between 2006 and 2016.
The fates of these far-flung places could be a bellwether of our own.

The new runway of Velana International Airport in Male, Maldives. 

ISLANDS IN CHAINS
Last week, the scattering of tiny islands that is the Maldives Archipelago in the Indian Ocean opened an enormous new runway.
Velana International Airport is on the island of Male. 

The broad new airstrip was built on land reclaimed from the sea by a Chinese state-backed company, using money from … Beijing.
It followed close on the heels of another controversial Maldives-China project.
“The nation celebrated the opening of the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, hailed as the project of the century in the small Indian Ocean nation and a hallmark project of the China-proposed Belt and Road initiative (BRI),” the state-run Global Times reported in August.
“Although some said the Maldivian government will bear a heavy debt from the massive infrastructure co-operation with China, Maldivian officials said they appreciate China’s generosity.”
It was a pointed — if unconvincing — rebuttal of the ‘debt-trap’ narrative.
But Beijing is already in a position in the tiny strife-torn nation to seize both as collateral — and turn them towards military purposes.
Then there’s Manus.

The military base established on Manus Island during World War II has suddenly become of interest to both Beijing and Canberra. 

Once part of the British Admiralty Islands, it was seized from the Japanese by the United States for use as a major World War II naval staging post.
Now part of Papua New Guinea, it has once again returned to the world’s stage.
China has been showing interest.
Having airfield and port facilities there could boost its ‘Island Chain’ ambitions, and establish a prickly thorn between Australia and US facilities on the island of Guam.
But Australia has begun pushing back.
“The Pacific is a very high-priority area of strategic national security interest for Australia,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said, refusing to confirm or deny reports Australian defence officials had visited the Lombrum Naval Base on Manus to assess its potential for expansion.
Details of any future jointly-operated, upgraded facility there will not be revealed before the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Port Moresby in November.
The Maldives and Manus are just the most recent in a rapid-pace series of international power plays in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Relations between Canberra and Beijing plunged to a new low earlier this year after we criticised China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ and undue influence in the politics of countries throughout the region — including our own.
Beijing lashed back, using its state-run media to label Australia as an “arrogant overlord”.

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping looks on during bilateral talks at the Maldives President’s Office in the capital island Male, where he sought backing for a “21st century maritime silk road”. 

WAKING DRAGON
It’s about Xi Jinping’s grand vision.
He sees China’s influence extending far beyond its own borders.
In 2013, he detailed his grand scheme to revitalise the ancient Silk Road and sea spice routes.
It would ‘restore’ China’s position at the centre of a trade hub extending to Europe and Africa.
The Belt and Road Initiative — as it has become known — demands a networks of ports, airfields, roads and railways spanning the globe.
Chinese state-owned companies now control about 76 ports in 35 countries — including Darwin. 

And while Beijing openly insists it only wants to use these ports for commercial purposes, its warships and submarines have already been seen docked in several.
Now Xi wants another ‘Silk Road’ — this time extending into the Pacific.
Ministers from Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and Fiji were among those invited to Beijing in 2017 for the launch of the Belt and Road project. 

They were offered access to $55 billion in loans.
This sparked alarm in Australia, the US and Europe.
Beijing’s loans do not come cheap.
“Such indebtedness gives China significant leverage over Pacific Island countries and may see China place pressure on Pacific nations to convert loans into equity in infrastructure,” the Lowy Institute’s recent Safeguarding Australia’s Security Interests report warns.
“It’s not ‘win-win’ for China and the recipient, but simply ‘win’ for China, which not only gets access to local resources and new markets, and forward presence, but can coerce the recipient state to pay a ‘tribute’ to Beijing by ceding local assets when it can’t pay back its debts,” the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Dr Malcolm Davis notes.

Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka is an example of Beijing’s debt-trap diplomacy. China has won a 99-year-lease on the facility, and a 70pc controlling stake in its management.
An editorial published by the state-run Global Times says South Pacific nations had been ‘bewitched’ by Western countries including Australia and the US “who sought to gain political leverage in the region”.
“Unlike Western aid, which always comes with political and economic conditions, Chinese aid has been widely welcomed by South Pacific nations as it has no political conditions,” it quoted research fellow in Australian Studies Yu Lei as saying.
But China does not openly declare its international aid projects in the same way other nations such as Australia does. 

This has raised a degree of anxiety about exactly how much it is spending, where — and why.
Now, China’s taking a leaf out of the US playbook.
It wants strong military facilities spaced around its ‘sphere of influence’.
It calls that sphere the Second Island Chain — a rough line from Japan in the north to Papua New Guinea in the south.
But as Beijing’s dominance over the First Island Chain (including Taiwan, the Spratlys, and Paracels) of the South China Sea seems all but complete, a ‘Third Island Chain’ appears to be emerging — extending from the Maldives in the west to Fiji in the east.
“The most troubling implication for Australian interests is that a future naval or air base in Vanuatu would give China a foothold for operations to coerce Australia, outflank the US and its base on US territory at Guam, and collect intelligence in a regional security crisis,” Rory Medcalf, the head of the National Security College at the Australian National University, wrote in a recent Lowy Institute report.
It’s a similar story for the Maldives, potentially cutting Australia’s fuel supplies and trade links to Singapore, India and Europe.

United States, Indian and Japanese warships exercise together. Concern at Beijing’s expansive ambitions have drawn regional powers together. 
GAME OF THRONES
China’s rapid expansion has not gone unnoticed.
In a speech to Australia’s Parliament in 2011, then US President Barack Obama announced a ‘pivot’ back to the Asia-Pacific. 

Existing military facilities would be reinforced and strengthened. 

Forces would be based in Darwin.
It wasn’t all about troops.
Fresh efforts would be made on the diplomatic and economic fronts. 

Chief among these was the proposed (now abandoned) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
“This allowed Washington to counter Beijing’s concerns that the pivot was primarily a military move aimed at containing a rising China,” the Lowy Institute says. 

“However, the decision by the Trump administration to abandon the TPP has given US strategy in the Indo-Pacific more of a military character.”
President Trump’s attitude towards international agreements and treaties has unsettled South-East Asia. 

Will he be true to his nation’s word? 

Or would he pull the US out?
It’s a question that has prompted the region to look to strengthen its own relationships.
Generally, the Melanesian states have been seen as Australia’s area of responsibility while the US and New Zealand watch over the Polynesian islands.
In recent decades, that influence has weakened.
“Being the dominant traditional power has not always made Canberra popular in Pacific Island nations, despite being the region’s largest provider of aid,” the Lowy Institute notes. 

“However, failing to forge stronger regional partnerships now, in the hope that the current geostrategic dynamics will not change, contains significant risk.”
Things haven’t been getting better.

Australia has been ‘showing the flag’ in the Indo-Pacific, sending its new helicopter carrying assault ships on visits as a demonstration of its military — and disaster relief — capacity. 

The Pacific Islands have repeatedly expressed dismay at the deep state of denial Australian and US politicians are in over the looming global warming crisis.
After all, their low-lying islands are already falling victim to rising sea levels.
President Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement earlier this year was called “pretty selfish” by the former president of Kiribati. 

The Prime Minister of Tuvalu went further: “I think this is a very destructive, obstructive statement from a leader of perhaps the biggest polluter on earth and we are very disappointed as a small island country already suffering the effects of climate change.”
China, at least, pays lip-service to the international threat.
So, with this issue at least, it has stolen the moral upper ground.
And then there are the promises of Xi Jinping.
He’s been touting his ‘Chinese model’ as a “new option for other countries who want to speed up their development while preserving their independence.”
But his real purpose, says Dr Davis, is more ominous.
“Chinese ambitions don’t end at the reunification of Taiwan and China on Beijing’s terms or control of the South China Sea. China is clearly emerging as a hegemonic power, exploiting both soft-power inducements and hard-power threats to reassert itself as a new Middle Kingdom, and overturning what it sees to be a century of humiliation. Part of the ‘China Dream’ is ensuring that its periphery is secure through a belt of vassal states that accede to Beijing’s interests.”

A Chinese H6K takes off into a golden dawn. Beijing has been proudly boasting of its position as a new world power. 

DRAGONS AT THE GATES
The US Pentagon is alert — and alarmed.
“China is using its economic penalties, influence operations, and implied military threats to persuade other states to heed its political and security agenda,” the US National Security Strategy of December 2017 reads. 

“Chinese dominance risks diminishing the sovereignty of many states in the Indo-Pacific region”.
That includes Australia.
Beijing has been doing all it can to expand its status as a maritime power. 

It now has 43 attack submarines at its disposal — that’s more than the United States. 

It’s also been launching surface ships at an unprecedented rate, some 24 new destroyers and 31 new frigates since 2000 alone.
While formidable, it’s not likely to rival the US for another 20 years.
But it will be powerful enough to project significant power wherever it desires.
“China’s confidence on the international stage has been bolstered by its perceived successes in the South China Sea where it has occupied, and physically enhanced, a series of uninhabited reefs,” the Lowy Institute report warns.
Now China is pursuing a military and diplomatic strategy which “seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global pre-eminence in the future”, the US National Defense Strategy of 2018 states.
China’s actions are “undermining the international order from within the system by exploiting its benefits while simultaneously undercutting its principles.”

F-35B Lightning IIs with US Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 211 fly over Wake Island, one of a series of military bases retained after World War II. China wants its own ‘buffer zone’ of islands in the Pacific and Indian Ocean to protect its interests. 

And that brings it head-to-head with the US along the ‘Second Island Chain’.
At its heart is the island of Guam. 

It is a US territory and major defence facility.
The free compact states of Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia all operate under a post-war agreement with the US, allowing a base on the Marshall Islands and the veto over any military access by any other nation. 

From the outset, this was intended to provide the US with a Pacific ‘buffer zone’ between itself and Asia.
Now China wants a ‘buffer zone’ between itself and the US.
At the bottom of the ‘Second Island Chain’ is Papua New Guinea, and the island of Manus.
Australia’s moves to thwart Beijing’s ‘Belt and Road’ projects are a sign of growing ‘push-back’ from the West.
But Beijing is determined — and persistent.
“Powerful drivers are converging in a way that is reshaping the international order and challenging Australia’s interests. The United States has been the dominant power in our region throughout Australia’s post-second world history. China is challenging America’s position,” Australia’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper reads.

The Royal Australian Navy Anzac Class Frigate HMAS Stuart is observed through periscope on board the RAN Collins Class Submarine HMAS Sheean. While isolated, Australia is highly dependent on its shipping lanes to the northeast and northwest. 

LOOK TO YOUR MOAT
The 2016 Defence White Paper made the situation pretty clear: “Australia cannot be secure if our immediate neighbourhood including Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Pacific Island Countries becomes a source of threat to Australia. This includes the threat of a foreign military power seeking influence in ways that could challenge the security of our maritime approaches or transnational crime targeting Australian interests …”
Three of Australia’s five main maritime trade routes pass through the Pacific. 

The two largest are in the Indian Ocean.
Our trade with the US passes near New Caledonia and Fiji. 

Those to and from Japan, Taiwan — and China — largely go past New Britain and Papua New Guinea, or through the Solomon Islands, Bougainville and New Britain.
In the west, our trade funnels past Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Indonesia.
If there is trouble in the Pacific, trade will have to divert through the Torres Strait to Indonesia’s Suda and Lombok Straits.
If there is trouble in the Indian Ocean, exports from Western Australia — such as gas and iron ore — would have to take a long detour through the Tasman Sea.

HMAS Adelaide berthed at the Port of Suva in June. 

“Australia’s reliance on maritime trade with and through South East Asia, including energy supplies, means the security of our maritime approaches and trade routes within South East Asia must be protected, as must freedom of navigation, which provides for the free flow of maritime trade in international waters,” the Defence White Paper notes.
“The Government will work with Pacific Island Countries to strengthen their ability to manage internal, transnational and border security challenges … This includes working to limit the influence of any actor from outside the region with interests inimical to our own.”
Australia is gifting 19 new patrol boats to 12 Pacific Island Nations. 

The project, which includes maintenance and support and costs $2 billion over 30 years, has seen the first boats delivered this year. 

They are part of a co-ordinated project including RAAF surveillance and visits by RAN warships.
The Solomon Islands has recently signed a security treaty with Australia. 

Security partnership understandings have been negotiated with Tuvalu and Nauru. 

Kiribati is in talks.
Australia has also been showing the flag.
One of our new helicopter-carrying assault ships, HMS Adelaide, joined three other warships on a 13 week Indo-Pacific Endeavour exercise.
Just in case our Pacific partners had forgotten.
Restoring Australia’s place in its region will take considerably more effort, the Lowy Institute warns. We must offer government services, access to labour markets, and assist with defence “in return for an undertaking that foreign military forces or installations would not be allowed in these countries. This would mitigate the risk of China gaining access to dual-use facilities in these nations in return for debt reduction, while safeguarding the sovereignty of these independent nations.”

A Chinese H6K strategic bomber flies over disputed coral reefs in the South China Sea. Beijing is looking for similar island bases in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. 

ISLAND CHESSBOARD
PACIFIC OCEAN
While not having ‘traditional’ trade links to justify its interest in the region, China has aggressively stepped forward with the promise of cheap loans into a region somewhat disillusioned by Australia and the US.

1. FIJI: After a 2006 military coup, Australia — among others — imposed sanctions on Fiji until it returned to democratic rule. China places no value in such systems of government. So it stepped in, offering loans for infrastructure projects built by Chinese labourers. While not entirely welcomed by the populace, it gave Beijing powerful influence among Fiji’s leaders.
2. PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Its military officers have also been invited to China to attend training courses.
3. SAMOA: Beijing is increasingly pressuring this island nation to repay its debts. Like many others.
4. SOLOMON ISLANDS: Earlier this year, Prime Minister Turnbull promised the Solomons (and Papua New Guinea) that Australia would pay for a new undersea internet cable in order to brush aside the state-controlled Chinese telco giant Huawei, as well as relieve the island nations of the financial burden.
5. TONGA: In 2013, 64 per cent of Tonga’s foreign debt was owed to China. That amounted to 43 per cent of its annual GDP. Previously, Tonga has said it may have to seek a write-off of this burden by allowing Beijing to establish a naval base on the island.
6. VANUATU: Vanuatu owes Beijing some $US1.7 billion. Earlier this year, reports that China was seeking a ‘permanent military presence’ on the island sparked dismay in Australia. Both Vanuatu and China denied any such proposal had been made. But Prime Minister Turnbull sounded unconvinced: “We would view with great concern the establishment of any foreign military bases in those Pacific island countries and neighbours of ours,” he said. The country’s newly built $85 million Luganville wharf, which was funded by China and seems more suited to navy vessels than cruise ships.

INDIAN OCEAN
Beijing is already well advanced in its moves to establish a network of naval and air bases in the Indian Ocean. 

The number of ships and submarines it has stationed there has been steadily growing. 

But China needs more. 

Chief on its shopping list are major airfields capable of supporting its long-range reconnaissance aircraft and bombers. 

It also needs submarine support facilities and logistics infrastructure extending from the northeastern Indian Ocean to the west.

1. DJIBOUTI: In 2017, Beijing opened its first overseas military facility. This is in Djibouti on the shores of the troubled Red Sea. It’s already been openly tussling with a neighbouring US facility, allegedly blinding its pilots with lasers.
2. MALDIVES: This archipelago in the central Indian Ocean underwent a coup earlier this year, installing Abdulla Yameen -- who has been implicated in several corruption scandals and is seen as a close friend of Beijing -- as president. But elections this week has seen him deposed. How the Maldives will pay for a major Chinese-funded and built airstrip, and an equally ambitious bridge project, is yet to be seen. And there’s an abandoned British naval facility ripe for the pickings on the island of Gan.
3. MYANMAR: A naval base on the Indian Ocean side of the chokepoint Malacca Strait would give China the ability to project power across the region and the Bay of Bengal. Beijing has built a new port at Kyaukpyu — and taken a 70 per cent controlling stake in it after Myanmar defaulted on repayments.
4. PAKISTAN: China is in advanced talks with Pakistan to build a base on the Arabian Sea, near the city of Gwadar.
5. SRI LANKA: An inability to repay $6 billion in debt to China has already given Beijing a windfall in Sri Lanka. A controlling 70 per cent stake, along with a 99-year-lease, in the port of Hambantota has been given to a state-run Chinese company in an effort to pay-down the burden. This port sits close to the major Indian Ocean sea lanes.
6. THAILAND: China is pushing Thailand for the construction of a 100km canal on the scale of Panama, linking the South China Sea with the Bay of Bengal and bypassing the crowded Strait of Malacca. India fears the economically unviable Kra Canal will quickly fall under the control of Beijing, dramatically improving its ability to influence the balance of power in the Indian Ocean. Thailand, under pressure from all sides, is yet to accept — or reject — the project.

Malaysia wrestles with Chinese colonialism

By Shibani Mahtani

A saleswoman talks to visitors at the Country Garden Holdings property showroom in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Malaysia’s new government has moved to block or amend rules for major Chinese projects.

FOREST CITY, Malaysia – On a recent morning, cleaners rushed to sweep around the models showing the future dreams of Forest City developers: residential skyscrapers, malls, parks, a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course.
The hopeful buyers, busloads of Chinese for a Chinese-built project, were guided around the showroom. 

They all got the pitch about how a new city of 700,000 people – “jade carved out of the ocean” – would rise out of coastal palm plantations and reclaimed land just north of Singapore.
But there was one important element left out of the glowing promises for Forest City.
Malaysia’s new government, led by senior statesman Mahathir Mohamad, has swiftly moved to block or amend the rules for major Chinese-led works in the country, canceling a slew of projects including a $20 billion railway and two gas pipelines totaling $2.3 billion.
For the $100 billion Forest City project, it could mean no sales for foreigners, effectively killing the target Chinese market for the planned development.
The tougher line by Malaysia – and the 93-year-old Mahathir – marks perhaps the most powerful slap yet at China’s fast-moving economic expansionism in the region and beyond.
Beijing calls it the “Belt and Road” initiative. 

Critics, like Malaysia’s Mahathir and others in Asia, call it an attempt by China to become the unchallenged economic big brother in the region and indirectly influence political affairs through its spending.
There are also long-term fears that Chinese-funded projects will leave countries with decades of debt – on the hook to maintain the ports, railways and other points on what many call Beijing’s modern Silk Road.
“You don’t want a situation where there’s a new version of colonialism happening because poor countries are unable to compete with rich countries,” Mahathir said during a visit to Beijing in August.
The blowback from Malaysia is particularly worrisome for Chinese leaders.
Malaysia is wealthy and strategically located, making the projects more important to China’s broader agenda of developing new trade routes. 

China also cannot come down too hard on Malaysia, one of its largest Asian trading partners.
To rub it in, Mahathir announced the policies at a joint news conference with Li Keqiang during his talks in Beijing.
Days after his return to Malaysia, he took aim at Forest City, announcing that no foreigners will be allowed to live there even as crews rush to complete some residential towers before buyers move in later this year.
This was a surgical strike against Country Garden PacificView, China’s largest property developer by sales. 

About 80 percent of buyers of the 18,000 units so far have been Chinese. 

Sales galleries for Forest City are scattered all over China.
Signs across the island are in Mandarin, and a branch of a Minnesota-based private school there offers only two languages: English and Mandarin.
The project is tantamount to “building a huge Chinese city in Malaysia,” said Lim Guan Eng, Malaysia’s finance minister. 

“That leads to questions about not only our national sovereignty but the social contract, [which will] have to be worked out or there will be imbalances.”
Country Garden says it has “complied with all laws and regulations with the necessary approvals to sell to foreign purchasers” and is “in talks” with the prime minister’s office.
The company “is unable to provide any information as discussions are in the initial stage,” a spokesman for Country Garden said. 

Malaysia’s Housing Ministry has also formed a committee that will “review whatever terms that were agreed to previously” and decide how to move forward.
Privately, though, the Chinese developer is worried it may be too late.
Speaking to The Washington Post, a Country Garden official said his company “was kind of forced” to bill its projects as part of Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s broad “Belt and Road” initiative in a bid to gain Beijing’s support.
Promotional banners at Forest City’s showroom boast of the support the project has from the Chinese embassy in Malaysia and senior Chinese government figures. 

Forest City’s website describes the duty-free zone as the “standard demonstration zone of ” ‘One Belt One Road’ in Southeast Asia.”
Mahathir, in a campaign speech before his opposition coalition reclaimed power in the May elections, said he would rather the Forest City project turn into an actual forest, with baboons and monkeys living there instead.
Malaysia does not “want to see the Chinese taking over Malaysian land,” said the Country Garden official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media. 

“They hate the way we do business. It is clear that the price of the property is too high for Malaysians, and [we have] specifically marketed toward the Chinese.”
“Things,” he added, “have been tense.”
Malaysia is not the first country to turn against Chinese-backed projects. 

Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar and other nations are working to scale back efforts pushed by Beijing, some under new political leadership.
“The domino effect certainly is something to worry about,” said Tan Chong, a professor at Jinan University who studies the relationship between China and Malaysia.
“It does serve as an alarm to other projects,” he added. 

“We need to have contingency plans.”
China has responded by trying to "gently" reframe the Belt and Road Initiative. 

In a recent speech, Xi described the projects not in economic terms, but rather as a diplomatic tool that could unite much of the world.
China “should be considerate of image issues” around Belt and Road, said Yanmei Xie, an analyst in Beijing.
In Forest City, the contrast is stark.
Country Garden says it has awarded contracts to 150 local companies and created 1,200 job opportunities for Malaysians since beginning in 2014. 

Company officials claim buyers from almost 30 countries have purchased Forest City property.
It is hard to see anything but Chinese links at the city-in-progress.
Sales strategies included offering free trips to Malaysia and Singapore to Chinese nationals who purchased Country Garden property back home, according to multiple buyers interviewed by The Washington Post.
Showrooms were set up across major Chinese cities and, in 2016, a new flight route was launched between Guangzhou and Johor Bahru, adjacent to Forest City’s headquarters in Foshan.
In August, a Forest City branch of Shattuck-St. Mary’s school, a hockey powerhouse in Minnesota, opened in Forest City. 

Sixty percent of 78 students enrolled here are Chinese. 

Tuition for a day student between grades 6 and 12 average $24,000 per year – about four times the average annual wage in Malaysia.
The school’s Olympic-size pool, tennis courts, basketball court, yoga studio and boarding facilities – all deserted on a recent visit – were built for 1,000 students.
“The people who are working in the area can’t afford to live here,” admitted one salesperson, declining to be named as he was not authorized to speak to media. 

“The majority of our buyers are foreign, and we are worried it would be an empty city if they don’t come.”
The shift in sentiment in Malaysia have spooked Forest City buyers, some of whom have sold businesses back in China and moved their families in the hope of a better education for their children or to have a second home for retirement.
“I thought it was a good investment, and I could live there in the future,” said Zhan Xinwu, a 24-year old from Shenzhen who bought a two-bedroom apartment in 2016, using all his savings for the down payment.
Even if he chose not to live in Malaysia, he hoped to sell the flat in a few years for a profit, but thinks that might be “impossible” now.
The Country Garden official said Malaysian government officials now are pushing them to market their project to Vietnamese, Indonesians and those from the Persian Gulf states to diversify Forest City’s residents, and change perceptions that this is a Chinese-developed project for the Chinese market.
“We aren’t very good at doing that,” he admitted. 

“We basically rely on the Chinese market.”

U.S. Was Right to Give China’s Navy the Boot

Let’s make readmission to the vast Pacific Rim exercises a reward for better behavior.

By James Stavridis

The vast annual military operation known as the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (simply RIMPAC in Pentagon jargon) just concluded on the beaches of Southern California with a huge demonstration of an amphibious assault, which involves sending troops ashore from warships at sea — a highly complex maneuver whether D-Day or present day.
The exercise is held every two years all over the Pacific Basin, and is the largest international maritime exercise in the world. 

It is globally regarded by naval officers as the Olympic Games of naval power. 

Run by the U.S. Pacific Fleet, which is headquartered in Pearl Harbor, it normally includes warships and troops from every branch of the U.S. armed forces, and those of than 20 foreign nations.
As a junior officer, I participated in several of these huge war games, and found them profoundly important for national security. 

They have been held since the early 1970s, and include nations not only from the Western Pacific rim — Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and so on — but also from the Pacific coast of South America, including Mexico, Peru, Chile and Colombia.
India, an emerging maritime power, had a significant operational role for the first time this year. Several European allies with interests in the Pacific, including the U.K., France and Germany, also send ships. 

Israel sends a small staff contingent.
Some wags would say that the most important business is done at the big cocktail parties, and that the most dangerous moments are the photo shoots at sea (where the huge fleets come together undertaking very precise and scary formations, with the added degree-of-difficulty of challenging language barriers).
But in truth, RIMPAC is an incredibly important opportunity to for allies together to practice complex maneuvers: amphibious landings, long-range aircraft strikes, counterpiracy, antisubmarine warfare, counterterrorism, anti-air missile shoots, and humanitarian responses to large natural disasters.
It is also, above all, a visible signal of the most important militaries of the vast Pacific Basin being willing to share training, tactics and technology. 

With some 50 ships from a couple of dozen nations sharing and learning from each other, the opportunities to improve warfighting capability are rich. 

We are able to exercise our powerful tactical ballistic-missile submarines, which can launch Tomahawk missiles. 

And through exercises like this we can also find the best way to operate our new Littoral Combat Ships — frigate-sized warships capable of working in relatively shallow seas — in tight regional conflict.
But this year, in a break with recent tradition, China was “disinvited” in May because of its militarization of a variety of artificial islands in the volatile South China sea, where it is sending troops and setting up combat-aircraft, runways and missile systems. 

There was also a distinct undercurrent of opposition to China’s presence by the Donald Trump administration, which sensibly criticizes Beijing for trade practices and theft of intellectual property.
While I’ve repeatedly criticized Trump for his dealings with allies and foes, cutting Beijing “out of the pattern” this year was the right decision. 

It deprived China of not only the chance to observe and learn about allied naval practices, but also of the prestige of engaging with the top navies in the world. 

The increasing involvement of India — the obvious strategic counterweight to China — as well as this year’s addition of Vietnam — a growing naval actor deeply concerned about Chinese dominance in the South China Sea — sends a powerful signal.
All of this underlines how important military exercises are to our ability project power; maintain sea control (and therefore ensure shipping lanes around the world remain open); and exert influence on allies, friends and partners. 

It also shows why Trump’s decision to stop U.S. military exercises with South Korea — in return for a few vague promises from North Korea — is a bad idea.
Such military exercises have three principal functions, and RIMPAC is at the top level of such events:

• First, they provide a strategic context to our overall policies in a given region, and no region is probably more critical than the Western Pacific. This is all the more vital because the Trump administration made a significant mistake by pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Leaving aside the economic issues attendant to that call, it was a major geopolitical foot fault. We can mitigate some of the damage that decision inflicted on our leadership role in the region by conducting robust, meaningful exercises like RIMPAC — while excluding China.
• Second, warfighting “practice sessions” give us real insight into not just allied military capabilities, but also those of adversaries. They help reveal the surveillance and intelligence-gathering abilities of opponents like China: how capable they are and what their evaluation of us is all about. That is prime-grade intelligence.
• Third and finally, RIMPAC is a “carrot” that over time may be applied to China. 

Overall, this year’s exercises were a resounding strategic success, and a tactical treasure trove of information. 

We should continue to exclude China, hold our opponents close, add new partners, and make inclusion in RIMPAC something that Beijing so wants to be part of it will change its ways.

The China Threat Cannot Be Ignored

Lyle Goldstein does not advocate Beijing taking Taiwan over, but the policies that he promotes would lead to that result.

by Gordon G. Chang

The United States is provoking China by supporting Taiwan, at least according to Lyle Goldstein of the Naval War College. 

Writing on this site , he thinks America’s policy is exceedingly dangerous, even likening the United States to the Soviet Union. 

He sees a “Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse.”
The Naval War College scholar suggests that the Pentagon decrease U.S. forces near China and move away from “offensive doctrines” that could result in escalation and ultimately war.
Goldstein raises critical issues. 

He’s right to tell us war can start over Taiwan. 

That, however, will almost surely happen if Washington follows his advice and abandons the island republic to an unappeasable Chinese state.
There’s no mystery how Goldstein could get Taiwan so wrong. 

His perceptions of the situation are factually off-base. 

For instance, he dismisses the disputes between Beijing and Taipei as “family quarrels on the other side of the planet.” 

There is one incorrect assumption and one wrong implication embedded in these nine words.
First, the people of Taiwan do not believe those on the other side of the Taiwan Strait are part of their family. 

At one time, the leaderships of the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China were linked by the same race, culture and language.
Chiang Kai-shek, who lost the “Chinese civil war,” fled to Taiwan in 1949 with the remnant of his forces. 

The refugees considered themselves Chinese, and, to secure their hold on the island, Chiang led years of brutal persecution of the local population and suppression of Taiwanese culture and language.
Even before Chiang’s party, the Kuomintang, lost power in a series of lopsided electoral defeats this decade, surveys consistently showed more than 60 percent of the population considered themselves to be Taiwanese only while only low single digits self-identified as Chinese only. 

The younger the citizen, the higher the likelihood of self-identification as Taiwanese. 

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping may talk about “Chinese compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan strait are of the same family, whose blood is thicker than water,” but statements like that are rejected by the overwhelming majority of those living in Taiwan.
In any event, more than 70 percent of the island’s population do not believe they are part of “China.”
It is true that Taipei formally maintains it is the legitimate government of China, but Beijing, desperate to keep the bonds between the island and “the mainland” intact, pressures Taiwan to not drop that decades-old claim. 

Those identifying themselves as Taiwanese would almost certainly move to change the name of their country to “Taiwan” absent Chinese intimidation.
So Taiwan and Beijing may quarrel, as Goldstein puts it, but the tussle is certainly not an intra-family one.
Second, Goldstein is correct that Taiwan is “on the other side of the planet,” but his implication that the island is not any business of the United States could not be further from the truth. 

Since the last decades of the nineteenth century, American policymakers have drawn their western defense perimeter not off the coast of California or even Hawaii but off the east coast of Asia. 

Taiwan, at the northern end of the South China Sea and the southern end of the East China Sea, is smack dab in the middle of that first line of defense.
Taiwan helps bottle up the Chinese fleet and air force in China’s peripheral waters—Adm. Ernest King is reputed to have called the island “the cork in the bottle”—and anchors Japan’s defense in the south. 

There are Japanese islands south of Taipei, and on a clear day one can see Taiwan’s mountains from Japanese soil. 

Because Japan is America’s “cornerstone ally” in Asia, defending Taiwan is, in a real sense, defending America.
As the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York told the National Interest, “Taiwan has longed played a strategic role in the Asia-Pacific, and the security of the region is of vital importance to the United States.”
Goldstein’s arguments are wrong on other critical points. 

“China is actually not seeking military conflict with its neighbors, nor even with Taiwan,” he writes. 

“In other words, Beijing’s intentions, even within the maritime sphere, are reasonably benign.”
Yes, Beijing, like all other aggressors in history, would prefer to take without fighting. 

Yet its tactics, when it thinks it can get away with them, often involve the use or threat of use of force.
Its attempt to sever the towed sonar array from the unarmed USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea in March 2009 was an act of war as was the December 2016 seizure of a U.S. Navy drone off the coast of the Philippines and outside Beijing’s audacious nine-dash line. 

The seizure of Scarborough Shoal in early 2012 was an act of aggression, and the blockade of Second Thomas Shoal and moves against other features in the South China Sea and East China Sea are hostile.
The dangerous and fatal encounters Beijing engineers in South Korea’s exclusive economic zone are belligerent. 

So is China’s repeated violation of Japanese air space over and waters surrounding the Senkakus. 

Continuous interference with the U.S. Navy and Air Force in international waters and airspace is unwarranted and often reckless. 

China’s periodic aiming of lasers at the eyes of American pilots, tantamount to attempts to bring down their planes, is not, at least in my book, “benign.”
These actions accompany Beijing all-out assault on legal norms, most notably its unsupportable rejection of the July 2016 arbitral award in Philippines vs. China, a Hague arbitration pursuant to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Furthermore, Goldstein ignores the trend of China’s expanding territorial ambitions. 

Once, it maintained ambiguity over the sovereignty of the waters inside its nine or ten dashes on official maps of the South China Sea. 

Now, it issues official statements about peripheral seas as “blue national soil.” 

There is also an August 2011 official statement , quantifying the country’s territorial waters, that can only be read as a claim to most of the South China Sea.
Similarly, Beijing once acknowledged Japanese sovereignty over the Senkakus. Now, Beijing claims them as the Diaoyus. 

This decade, state media has been supporting state institutions that have been laying groundwork to a sovereignty claim to Japan’s Okinawa and the rest of the Ryukyu chain.
Yes, the People’s Republic is neither the Third Reich nor the Russian Federation, but the dynamic is the same: aggressors do not stop until they are stopped.
Goldstein has causation backwards when he thinks Washington is triggering another Cuban Missile Crisis. 

“Handbags are snatched because women carry them provocatively; pogroms kill because Jews wear yarmulkes; rape is caused by sexy clothes; and oh, yes, World War II was sparked by Czech threats to Germany,” Arthur Waldron of the University of Pennsylvania told the National Interest last week. 

“Surely Professor Goldstein understands that China is an aggressive state?”
Whatever Goldstein understands, he sees the wrong solution. 

He spends much of his National Interest piece touting China’s operational capabilities and making them look almost “insurmountable,” as James Fanell, a retired U.S. Navy intelligence officer and now a leading analyst of China’s naval forces, told me. 

“American, Taiwan, and Japanese military planners should be developing lethal counters to Chinese avenues of attack,” Fanell recommends. 

As he points out, “direct and unambiguous military deterrence by the U.S.” can keep the peace.
“Taiwan is emphatically not a ‘core interest’ of the U.S. and Chinese leaders are all too aware of that glaring truth,” Goldstein writes, concluding his National Interest piece. 

He would be right if he wrote that American policymakers have yet to make it clear that Taiwan is a core interest.
Yet it is, in reality, core to the United States, and not only because it anchors America’s western perimeter. 

It is core these days because Beijing has been continually attacking not only U.S. democratic institutions but also the concept of representative governance itself. 

China’s rulers, unfortunately, have launched an assault on everything not both communist and Chinese.
Goldstein surely does not advocate Beijing taking Taiwan over, but the policies he promotes would surely lead to that result. 

He is wrong on most assumptions he makes, and so his conclusion, that Taiwan is not important, is therefore fundamentally wrong. 

As the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York notes, the United States and Taiwan share values, making it “even more crucial for us to work together to defend our values and ensure peace and stability of the region.”
And the peace and stability of the world. 

Not since the early 1950s—and maybe not even then—has the safety and security of Taiwan been so critical to the United States and to the international system.

China Will Lose The South China Sea Game

By Panos Mourdoukoutas 

China wants to control the entire South China Sea. 

Every inch of it. 

That’s why will lose all of it, one day.
In the South China Sea game, China is one player playing against all the rest: The Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

China is also playing against the navies of US, Japan, France, the UK, and Australia. 

These navies seek to enforce the freedom of navigation in the vast trade waterway. 

Close to $5 trillion in merchandise moves through every year.
Why is China playing against everyone else? 

For a couple of reasons. 

One of them is that the waterway is very important to its vision -- becoming the next global economic leader.
It’s the beginning of China’s maritime silk road.
“Insofar as China is concerned, its maritime silk road begins from the South China Sea,” says Vijay Eswaran, Malaysian entrepreneur and Chairman of QI Group of Companies.

“It sees itself playing a more significant role in maritime trade in the future.”
Another reason is that China sees the South China Sea as its own property. 

“China viewed the South China Sea (SCS) as its own,“ adds Vijay. 

All of it, and the resources that are hidden beneath, which China wants to exploit. 

That’s why it is building artificial islands.
And that feeds Chinese nationalism, needed to support and reinforce the political status quo.
What about the overlapping claims from neighboring countries? 

 “China does not see any of the other overlapping claims from the neighboring countries to the South China Sea as a threat,” adds Vijay.
And it uses intimidation to make sure that this won’t happen. 

When China lost a United Nations-linked tribunal international arbitration to the Philippines on the South China Sea disputes a year and a half ago, Beijing took a couple of steps to make sure that Duterte wouldn't do anything with it.
The first step was to threaten Duterte with war should he dare to enforce the ruling. 

The second step was to promise a generous investment to help the Philippines deal with its many problems.
And it worked. Duterte quickly flip-flopped, and forgot all about the ruling, as was written in previous pieces here.
More recently, China applied “Duterte's model” to intimidate Vietnam. 

Last July Vietnam announced that it will stop its oil exploration efforts, following a stark warning by Beijing that it will attack Vietnamese oil and gas bases.
Still, there are multiple navies that are prepared to challenge China’s ambitious mission. 

“It is the potential Western influence, i.e. the US, France and the UK and their navies, that are having more of an impact on Chinese policy in the region.“
Is China prepared to fend off this challenge? 

It’s hard to say.
What isn’t hard to say is that countries that play a game against all end up losing.
That’s what happened in neighboring Japan in the past, and it could happen to China in the future.
Meanwhile, investors in the financial markets of the region should closely watch any developments that will bring China closer to an open confrontation with America and its allies.

Lawmakers seek $7.5 billion to counter China’s expansionism

By Joe Gould

Chinese troops march during a Pakistan Day military parade in Islamabad on March 23, 2017. The U.S. Congress wants to increase funding to counter Chinese influence in the Pacific. 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. should forge stronger military ties with Taiwan and add $7.5 billion in national defense spending in the Pacific region in order to counter Chinese influence in the region, according to a legislative proposal from four U.S. senators.
The bipartisan Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA, would authorize $1.5 billion annually for five years to deter and defend against China. 

A mix of State Department and Defense Department funds would bolster the U.S. military presence and readiness in the region, improving defense infrastructure and critical munitions stockpiles.
The bill would also support regular arms sales to Taiwan, and fund the enforcement of freedom-of-navigation and overflight rights — moves to defy Beijing’s calls to keep out of the contested South China Sea.
CNBC reported this month that China had installed anti-ship cruise missiles and surface-to-air missile systems on three of its outposts in the South China Sea.

China’s deployment of long-range missiles to its artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea could further consolidate and enhance the country’s physical control over the region.

The bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Cory Gardner, chairs the Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity. he said the idea had originally come from Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain, R-Ariz., and that he would work with appropriators to see it funded.
“This is not a new concept, and this is as close as we’ve come to an Asia-Pacific security initiative,” Gardner told reporters Tuesday.
The other sponsors are the subpanel’s ranking member, Sens. Edward Markey, D-Mass.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Todd Young, R-Ind. 

The name of the bill recalls the European Reassurance Initiative, a pot of money to bolster European capabilities against Russia—since renamed the European Deterrence Initiative.
On Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Randall Schriver and Deputy East Asian and Pacific Affairs Alex Wong, appeared before Gardner’s subpanel, where they endorsed the legislation’s goals.
“With the help of Congress and the funding provided, we’re trying to build a force that’s appropriate to the longer-term challenges with China’s military modernization program, and trying to work with allies and partners to make sure they are adequately equipped and prepared for those long-term challenges,” Schriver said.
The U.S. is already boosting allies’ maritime domain awareness and maritime capabilities. 

The bill would augment foreign military financing and international military education and training programs, both with the idea to help partners “to resist coercion and to deter and defend against security threats.”
The bill explicitly excludes Myanmar, whose military has been accused of human rights violations, and Philippine counternarcotics activities, which have been linked to extrajudicial killings

War with China and war with Russia would have some overlapping qualities, but the Pentagon needs to figure out how and where to invest to deal with both.

In written testimony, Schriver emphasized the fiscal 2019 budget proposal’s investment in joint, integrated fires to “reach inside an adversary’s anti-access and area-denial envelope with advanced, long-range munitions.”
The Pentagon’s implementation of the National Defense Strategy calls for dispersal equipment and “survivable, sustainable logistics” to help in a potential conflict with China.
Schriver said the competition with China was not only a military rivalry with the U.S. 

The U.S. is seeking to partner with all nations that respect national sovereignty, fair and reciprocal trade and the rule of law.
“It’s a competition of ideas and values and interests. I think many more countries, including the most significant and influential counties in Asia outside of China support these concepts,” Schriver said.

Chinese Expansionism

China unhappy over US carrier visit to VietnamBy CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
A Vietnamese passenger boat sails past U.S aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson as it docks in Danang bay, Vietnam on Monday, March 5, 2018. For the first time since the Vietnam War, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is paying a visit to a Vietnamese port, seeking to bolster both countries' efforts to stem expansionism by China in the South China Sea. 

Beijing is unhappy with the first visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier to a Vietnamese port since the Vietnam War and is monitoring developments, a Communist Party newspaper said Wednesday.
However, the Global Times said the USS Carl Vinson's visit was unlikely to alter the balance of power in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety and has been fortifying with military structures on man-made islands.
"China's vigilance and unhappiness are inevitable, but we don't think that the USS Carl Vinson's Vietnam trip can stir up troubles in the South China Sea," the paper known for its hard-line nationalist views said in an editorial.
The visit "will not generate any special tools to pressure China," while the U.S. sending warships to the South China Sea will "only waste money," the paper said.
Vietnam and China have extensive overlapping claims to islands and resources in the sea, and U.S. officials say the port call is a sign of the U.S. commitment to the region and U.S.-Vietnam ties.
"Carl Vinson being here, me being here, this is about Vietnam. This is about our relationship with Vietnam, both from a military relationship and from a comprehensive partnership relationship," Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, commander of the U.S. 7th Fleet, told reporters in a conference call Tuesday from the Vietnamese port of Da Nang, where the ship docked Monday.
Sawyer and other officials have not linked the ship's visit to China's activities in the South China Sea, but he did note Washington's concerns over China's moves to put teeth behind its territorial claims and unanswered questions about China's purpose in its rapid military expansion and upgrading.
"My view on that is both those, land reclamation and the militarization, cause angst within the region. And the angst that it causes is really because of lack of transparency," Sawyer said.
"It's not quite clear what's going to happen down there. And I think that angst and that lack of transparency is potentially disruptive to the security and stability of the region. And that, that causes concern," he said.
The visit by the USS Carl Vinson with more than 5,000 crewmembers marks the largest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since the Southeast Asian nation was unified under Communist leadership after the war ended in 1975.
Accompanied by a cruiser and a destroyer, the ship is visiting as China completes work on air bases, radar stations and other infrastructure that could prove key in a military conflict in the Paracel islands and seven artificial islands in the Spratlys in maritime territory also claimed by Vietnam.
The ship's mission includes technical exchanges, sports matches and visits to an orphanage and a center for victims of Agent Orange, a toxic defoliant sprayed by U.S. forces to deny cover for Communist fighters during the war. 

It marks a fine-tuning, rather than a turning point, in relations. 

The U.S. Navy has staged activities in Vietnam for its Pacific Partnership humanitarian and civic missions in nine of the past 12 years.
Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also claim waters and islands in the South China Sea that China says belong to it.

Sina Delenda Est

US aircraft carrier to dock in Vietnam for first time since 1975 amid tension over China’s rising sea power
By Nicola Smith, in Taipei and Danielle Demetriou, in Tokyo

Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to dock in the Vietnamese coastal city of Danang in March.

The US navy is to dock in the Vietnamese coastal city of Danang in March, in the first visit of an American aircraft carrier to the country since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.
The USS Carl Vinson will arrive in Vietnam during the navy’s multinational disaster response exercises in the Indo-Pacific region, but its presence is also being widely perceived as an attempt to counter China’s military influence in Asian waters, where the East and South China Seas are the scenes of escalating territorial disputes.
Vietnam, which borders China, has long resisted its power and influence, but Beijing’s insistence that it controls almost all of the South China Sea has threatened competing territorial claims, including from Hanoi.
China’s assertion has also challenged US naval supremacy in the western Pacific, prompting Washington to attempt to woo Asian allies with the idea of closer military ties.
US aircraft carriers were a common sight off the coast of Vietnam in 1960s and 1970s, during the war. Relations between the two nations were normalised in 1995 and Washington lifted an embargo on weapons sales to Hanoi in 2016.

The news comes as the Japanese government is reportedly considering the deployment of surface-to-ship missile units across southern Okinawa to counter China’s rising maritime powers.
Officials are exploring plans to deploy a unit on the main Okinawa island in addition to other smaller islands in the region, with a view to bolstering its defences against Chinese vessels, government sources told Japanese media.
The deployment plans, which are expected to be detailed in the new National Defence Guidelines to be drafted by the end of the year, reportedly focus on advanced Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles with a range of more than 62 miles.
There are reportedly plans to install missile units on both Okinawa island and the smaller island Miyakojima, which would ensure that they can cover the strategically-located Miyako Strait which runs between them.
An administrative command centre was also likely to be set up on Okinawa’s main island to manage surface-to-missile units deployed across the region, according to Kyodo news agency.
The Miyako Strait in the East China Sea has emerged as a regional hotspot of tension, with Chinese naval vessels regularly fuelling tensions by passing through its waters every year over the past decade.
Miyako island also lies to the southeast of a disputed group of islands in the East China Sea known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, which emerged as a growing source of bilateral tension between the two nations.
Reports of the missile unit deployments coincide with a growing number of incidents involving increasingly assertive Chinese vessels venturing into waters close to the disputed islands.
Last week, three Chinese patrol ships reportedly entered Japanese territorial waters near the disputed islands, while last month, the Japanese government confirmed that a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine also had sailed around them.

Sina Delenda Est

USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier sails through South China Sea in defiance of China
By Adam Harvey

Deep in the South China Sea the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, has a point to make.
"It shows resolve, and gives decision space to our leaders," the ship's commanding officer, Captain Doug Verissimo, said.
"When they put a carrier strike group somewhere it helps to show that the United States is interested.
"We don't have a lot of these, so when you put one in a certain area it has some influence.
"Of course it also gives our diplomats time and space to negotiate and make decisions, ultimately to try and prevent any type of armed conflict."
The Carl Vinson is the flagship of a strike group from the US Third Fleet.
The other vessels are here — but you can't see them.
The Carl Vinson is the flagship of a strike group from the US Third Fleet. 

Somewhere over the horizon, guided missile cruisers and destroyers form a protective shield around the aircraft carrier.
No-one on board will say it so bluntly, but the ship is sailing through the South China Sea to send a deliberate message: these waters aren't China's alone.
China has built airstrips and ports on reefs and shoals throughout the sea in defiance of a ruling from an international tribunal in the Hague.
"We want to keep laws and norms in place that we don't change the map along the way, to avoid frictions," Captain Verissimo said.
"As you change maps it creates new frictions and new issues."

The ship's aircraft includes FA18 Super Hornets, EA 18G Growlers and Nighthawks.

He doesn't mention it by name, but the only nation trying to change the map out here is China, which has drawn a so-called "Nine Dash Line" around waters it claims as its own.
It doesn't want anyone going near any of its artificial islands.
The strike group's commander, Rear Admiral John Fuller, won't reveal where he's planning on sailing during this mission but it's clear he's not charting his course using China's map.
"I will say our navigation is very good and we know where international law says we can operate and I know where international law says we can't. And we're going to do what international law says we can do."

The ship's commanding officer describes the Carl Vinson as a floating city — it has a dental surgery, gyms, a Starbucks cafe, armed guards, Friday night karaoke and even a chapel that holds services for Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists … and Wiccans.
There's a permanent crew of 3,000 — and another 2,000 people on board associated with the ship's aircraft: about 70 planes, including FA18 Super Hornets and Hornets, EA 18G Growlers, Nighthawk helicopters and surveillance aircraft.
There are 3,000 permanent crew on board USS Carl Vinson and another 2,000 for the ship's aircraft.

I'm on board of the Vinson along with media from the Philippines — the nation with perhaps the most to lose from Chinese expansion in the South China Sea.
China's already blocked Filipino fishermen from the lucrative fishing ground around Scarborough Shoal.
The US is making a big deal of this trip because it wants to show Filipinos that it stands with them in keeping the South China Sea open.
The ship is moving between an old ally and a new one … and another nation concerned about China's island-building in these waters.
The Carl Vinson began this leg of its journey in Manila and it'll drop anchor next off Danang, Vietnam.
It'll be the first visit from a US aircraft carrier since the end of the Vietnam War.
This time the fighter jets will be stowed away.

Sina Delenda Est

CHINA SHOWS OFF AIR FORCE IN DIRECT CHALLENGE TO INDIA MILITARY POWER IN ASIA
BY TOM O'CONNO 

The Chinese military has published photos of recent air force drills that at least one expert quoted in ruling party media identified Tuesday as a direct message to neighboring India.
Tensions between the two Asian powers have once again risen after they threatened to come to blows over a border dispute last summer. 

Officials have swapped provocative words in recent months, reigniting a potential crisis as rhetoric turned into military preparations. 

In the latest move, China’s armed forces, known as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), published Friday rare images of Chengdu J-10 and Shenyang J-11 fighter jets landing in Tibet, the western region that borders India, after exercises that Chinese military expert and commentator Song Zhongping linked to recent escalations.
“Strengthening the 3.5-generation fighter jets or even stationing more advanced fighters in the Western Theater Command has been urgent for the PLA,” Song told Chinese Communist Party organ The Global Times in an article then posted to the official China Military Online.
“With India importing new jets, China will continue strengthening its fighter jets in the Western Theater Command,” he added.
A Chengdu J-10 fighter jet attached to an aviation brigade of the air force under the People’s Liberation Army Western Theater Command taxies on the runway during an aerial combat training exercise in western China on February 13.

Song noted that such upgrades to China’s defenses have often been first implemented in its southern and eastern commands. 

The western command, however, has received more attention as the rivalry with India heated up.
China and India have long quarreled over stretches of territory along their shared border and this even exploded into a war between the two in the early 1960s. 

One region, known as Doklam or Donglang, which borders India’s Sikkim State, Chinese Tibet and the Ha Valley of the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, revived hostilities last summer. 

India argued that Chinese construction near the trilateral border area last June threatened Bhutan’s claim to the region and deployed troops to confront the Chinese military in the area.
The standoff lasted nearly a month and a half and was believed to have resolved after both sides withdrew. 

Xi Jinping was seen shaking hands with his Indian counterpart Nehru Modi on the sidelines of the September 2017 BRICS Summit in Xiamen, China. 

This detente, however, has been undermined by recent statements from both sides claiming they won last summer’s dispute and could take on the other in a future fight.
During a regular press conference Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang criticized a visit earlier that day by Modi to the nearby disputed Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claimed as part of southern Tibet. 

Geng said China was “firmly opposed to the Indian leader’s visit to the disputed area” and would “lodge stern representations with the Indian side.”
Soldiers assigned to a brigade of the People’s Liberation Army 78th Group Army conduct a combat readiness training exercise in full battle gear during the 2018 spring festival holiday, in northeastern China, on February 15. China and India have long quarreled over stretches of territory along their shared border.

The Chinese military has also used recent remarks from Indian generals to justify its own urgent transformation into a force fully prepared to fight a war between states. 

Xi’s ongoing, massive bid to revolutionize his armed forces had the dual purpose of modernizing China’s military power and streamlining it to make it capable of protecting not only Chinese borders but also Chinese interests abroad. 

Xi has also sought tight ties with Pakistan, a crucial Chinese economic ally—and India’s longtime foe.
Following last week’s air force drills in Tibet, the Chinese military continued training through the week-long Chinese New Year, or spring festival, holiday. 

The Chinese navy and army were also pictured conducting maneuvers aimed toward realizing Xi’s goal of preparing his armed forces to handle any external threat.