BBC: A Shangri-La in Name Only: Regional Anxieties Overshadow the 9th Asian Security Summit.

(I'm not quite sure whether the abridged version of the article will appear on the BBC China, BBC Vietnam or main BBC website.In many ways it's a sort of re-hash of much of what I have written for BBC World's Vietnam Bureau in the past. In any case, the link should be up soon)

Intro:

The 9th International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit, currently unfolding in Singapore, occurs at a time when dramatic happenings, such as the political turmoil in Thailand or the sinking of the Cheonan, have been given pride of place in the international media. These tragic events are expected to loom over much of the three-day summit, which opened with a key-note address by South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. The annual gathering, known more informally as the ‘Shangri-La Dialogue’ , in reference to the Singapore hotel where it is held, boasts this year a wide array of speeches and roundtable discussions, where delegations from several countries will politely exchange views on Asian security-related issues ranging from “the Security Challenges of Climate Change”, to “Humanitarian and Disaster relief in the Asia-Pacific”.

As always, however, the most interesting discussions and more salient policy decisions will take place carefully insulated from the media, in the hushed privacy of the Shangri La Hotel’s luxurious suites, and during the bevy of bilateral meetings in-between various defense ministers and officials. The American delegation, led by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, will have its work cut out for it, as it will have to reassure US friends and allies in Asia at a time when many states in the region are openly questioning Washington’s degree of commitment to their security. This intense anxiety, when coupled with a growing perception among some Southeast Asian states of an alarming shift in the regional balance of power structure, is likely to gnaw at the edge, if not at the centre, of much of the informal discussions.

I) A TROUBLING SURGE IN CHINESE NAVAL ASSERTIVENESS:

The past year has seen Asian waters roiled with tension, as China’s rapidly expanding navy has steadily upped its level of assertiveness in the region.

In the South China Sea, Chinese naval patrols circling the Spratly islands have more than doubled, and over 200 Vietnamese fishermen have been rounded up and detained off the Paracels. China’s growing maritime frictions with Vietnam over the disputed Paracels and the Spratlys are all part of a far larger pattern, one which reflects a growing Chinese assertiveness in Asia, and which has led to naval sparring not only with Hanoi, but also with Washington in the spring of 2009, and, even more recently, with Tokyo off Okinawa.

In March 2009, Chinese harassment of the US surveillance vessel the USNS Impeccable made the headlines, but formed in reality only one in a string of Sino-American naval spats that occurred in the course of the same spring; during which another surveillance ship, the USNS Victorious was similarly set upon, and a mysterious “collision” took place in-between a Chinese submarine and an underwater sonar apparatus towed by an American destroyer. During the tense diplomatic stand-off which followed these incidents, Chinese officials defended their actions by repeatedly claiming that their entire EEZ (Economic Exclusive Zone), which extends over 200 miles beyond their coastline, and covers thus a major portion of the South China Sea, implies their absolute sovereignty over the region rather than just their exclusive right to explore and exploit the zone's natural resources. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS) is an incredibly complex and subtly worded text, and the Chinese have been seeking to exploit the 'grey ' jurisdictional areas in-between traditional territorial waters (which only extend 12 miles beyond the coastline) and those falling under the purview of their self-declared EEZ, which appears to encompass the entire South China Sea, which it characterises in both its official documents and its domestic legislation as its “natural territorial waters”.

The Obama Administration reacted forcefully, brushing away the Chinese arguments of absolute sovereignty, by invoking article 58 of the UNCLOS which clearly stipulates freedom of navigation in the EEZ, and threatening to dispatch destroyers to escort US surveillance vessels. Since then, tensions have abated somewhat, although the China’s dogged refusal to sign an “Incidents of Sea Agreement between the US and China” , or even to resume the military-to-military exchanges frozen since January, means that any future incident runs the risk of spiralling out of control into a major confrontation.

Since then, the PLAN has continued to flex its muscles, engaging earlier this year in a mass joint exercise off the Paracel archipelago. Further east, a task-force of ten Chinese vessels, including submarines and missile-guided destroyers, ploughed it way through Japanese territorial waters, and reacted to its shadowing by a Japanese Maritime Self-Defense flotilla by buzzing it with a helicopter, which led to Tokyo’s deciding to lodge an official complaint.

China’s growing maritime self-confidence has been both enabled and undergirded by an unremitting expansion of its naval inventory over the past decade, which is now said to comprise at least 260 vessels, including 75 principal combatants and more than 60 submarines. In all likelihood, one or two medium-sized STOBAR (“short takeoff but arrested recovery systems”) carriers will also be launched in the course of the next decade .The Navy has come to receive more than a third of the overall Chinese defense budget, which has also been undergoing a double-digit increase for the past decade.

What are the underlying reasons behind Beijing’s naval expansion and assertiveness? While China’s decision-makers often advance the need to protect their overseas trade as a prime factor, it is also evident that as China’s economic and military clout grows, so too do its power projection aspirations.

Indeed, for many in Beijing’s increasingly vocal strategic community, control over the area circumscribed by “the first island chain”, (a natural boundary formed by the Aleutians, the Kuriles, Japan's archipelago, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Borneo); and over the offshore gas and oil deposits, strategic waterways, and straits it encompasses is considered an absolute prerequisite for the PLAN’s gradual transition from “off-shore defense” to “far-seas operations”, and , in so doing, from regional influence to global reach.

There has also been speculation in certain quarters that the PLAN wishes to establish a ring of defended maritime ‘watch towers’ or bastions near Hainan in order to ensure the protection of its “second-strike” nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet newly based at Sanya. Absolute control over the strategically placed Paracels and Spratly islands would thus facilitate such a defensive configuration.

II) A PAX AMERICANA INCREASINGLY BROUGHT INTO QUESTION:

As China seeks to expand its maritime influence, many Asian nations are concerned that the US will no longer be able to provide its traditional security umbrella in the region, and that the regional balance of power will tilt slowly, but inexorably, in China’s favour. This anxiety stems largely from the fact that the US Navy, which today numbers about 280 ships, pales in comparison to the 600 or more during the Reagan era. While US ships have vastly improved in terms of capability, there comes a time, say some, “when lack of quantity affects quality”.

While China has been churning out submarines by the dozen since 1995, the US submarine flotilla has been withering away, from 87 attack submarines in 1991 to 53 today. The latest Quadrennial Defense Review’s proposal for a 313 ship navy calls for an even smaller force of 41 submarines.

This disquiet over the widening ‘quantity gap’ in-between both navies in the Asia-Pacific region has been compounded by the fact that America’s traditional technological edge may falter when faced with an asymmetric attack from a stealthy Chinese submarine, or from the recently inducted ‘carrier-killer’ DF 21 ballistic missile.

The vulnerability of US carriers, particularly since October 2006, when a Song class SSN suddenly surfaced in the midst of the USS Kitty Hawk’s screen of escorts, has become an abiding concern, not only for American naval planners, but also for their Asian partners. Lee Kuan Yew, the founder and ‘minister mentor’ of Singapore, and one of the more staunch advocates for sustained US engagement in the region, recently stated that after the closure of the Subic Bay base in the Philippines in 1992, and the threatened closure and/or relocation of the base at Okinawa, the US could not overly rely on its carrier groups to maintain the balance of power in the region. Permanent US bases remain a key component of the ‘pax americana’ , or regional status quo.

III) THE NEW QUEST FOR MILITARY SELF-RELIANCE:

Fearful of the potential security vacuum induced by a decline in the US force presence, several Asian states have been bolstering their naval arsenals, and cultivating ties with potential future balancers. India, for example, which has been pursuing an ambitious ‘Look East’ policy since the early 1990s, and which boasts an increasingly capable blue-water navy, has become a prime defense partner for many states in the region, particularly those most wary of China’s rise, such as Vietnam, with which it entered into a strategic partnership in 2007.

Delhi’s growing economic prowess and savvy military diplomacy, involving port calls, multilateral and bilateral naval exercises, and numerous tailor-made smaller initiatives; means that even though it is likely to remain a power largely constrained to the greater Indian Ocean Region, it already has gained a strong strategic foothold in Southeast Asia, much to its transhimalayan neighbour’s displeasure.

Parallel to their engagement of India, Asian states have been pursuing strategic autonomy by ramping up their level of military, and specifically naval, acquisitions. Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and South Korea are all acquiring new submarines. Vietnam, for its part, has embarked on a particularly ambitious strategy of sea denial, investing a significant portion of its 3.6 billion dollar annual defense budget in the 1.8 billion dollars acquisition of six state of the art Kilo class submarines from Russia.

Both Japan and Australia have explicitly linked their naval procurement plans to those of the PLAN. The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force has thus decided to invest in new anti-submarine and helicopter-carrier systems and Australia recently highlighted the need to buttress its blue-water capabilities in its latest white paper, released in May 2009. The document differs from its predecessors by clearly articulating that Canberra can no longer rely on the United States to provide it with a reliable security guarantee.

This observation has led to Australia’s most ambitious naval expansion plan since the Second World War, with the scheduled acquisition of eight new anti-submarine warfare frigates, two landing Helicopter Dock ships, and a doubling of the amount of submarines in its inventory.

Conclusion:

Washington seems to be latching onto the fact that it needs to reassure its allies and get back into the game. The Quadrennial Defense Review calls for a gradual transfer of naval forces, so that more than 60% of the US Navy is stationed in the Asia Pacific. As China’s naval strength balloons outwards, this percentage is likely to grow. If the US surface and sub-surface fleet continue to dwindle however, this may not prove sufficient. In order to repair its damaged credibility in the region, not only will the Pentagon have to invest in more platforms; it will also have to considerably boost their anti-submarine warfare abilities, as well as enhance their missile-defense systems.

In short, if dignitaries in Washington wish to avoid inadvertently triggering a naval arms-race throughout the Asia Pacific, they would do well to convince nations such as Singapore, Australia, and Vietnam, that the US Navy is there to stay, and, what’s more, is up to the task. This is the difficult task Secretary Gate’s team will have to face over the next few years, and which is undoubtedly being pursued at this very moment in the gilded halls of the quixotically named Shangri-la Hotel.