PacNet #55 – France as an “enhancer of sovereignty” in the Pacific Islands

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July 25, 2023

Emmanuel Macron is gearing up for an unprecedented journey to the Indo-Pacific, making it the first visit by a French president to Pacific Island states. This upcoming visit to Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, following a second visit to New Caledonia since his election in 2017, addresses the inconsistency between France’s growing engagement in the region and the lack of a high-level visit until now.

Above all, President Macron should seize this opportunity to enhance communication by evolving certain criticized terms such as “balancing power.” In this regard, France must better conceptualize its engagement in the region and its willingness to assume a unique role, presenting itself as a proactive power, a provider of solutions, and an enhancer of sovereignty.

According to France’s maximalist conception, the Indo-Pacific region comprises 52 states, spanning from Djibouti to Papeete, and from Pretoria to Tokyo. As a sovereign country, France boasts a significant presence in the region, with seven of its thirteen overseas territories situated there. Among them, three are in the Indian Ocean, and four are in the Pacific: New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, and Clipperton. These territories represent over 90% of France’s exclusive economic zone, giving the country the second-largest maritime domain in the world.

Over 1.6 million French citizens reside in the French territories, and in 2021, 190,000 expatriates were officially registered in countries within the region, with sizable communities in the United Arab Emirates, China, Australia, and Madagascar. Last year, the Indo-Pacific region accounted for over 35% of France’s foreign trade, excluding trade with European Union countries. France has its largest trade deficit with China and its largest trade surplus with Singapore. Additionally, the region attracts over 120 billion euros ($133 billion) of French investments.

France has built a dense and diverse network in the Indo-Pacific region. Diplomatically, 36 embassies, some with extensive geographical coverage, cover all countries in the region. In Oceania, there are no fewer than five embassies, situated in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea. For example, the embassy in Port-Vila, Vanuatu, serves as the only embassy of an EU member state in the country and also covers the Solomon Islands.

Furthermore, over 7,000 military personnel are stationed in the region, with three sovereign forces in the French territories and two presence forces in Djibouti and the United Arab Emirates. The armed forces of New Caledonia regularly participate in fisheries surveillance in the South Pacific on behalf of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency. Force projection exercises are now a regular occurrence, with the ongoing unprecedented deployment of a dozen Rafales as part of the Pégase 2023 mission, which will visit several countries.

Culturally, 34 French institutes organize events, festivals, and support artist residencies. Cooperation in education is strengthening, with direct support for the development of the University of Vanuatu, for instance. In the Indo-Pacific, there are also 169 French Alliances that promote the French language, including in Vanuatu, where French is one of the official languages and the country is a member of the International Organization of the Francophonie.

Furthermore, France plays an active role in development aid. The French Development Agency (AFD) allocated 25% of its resources for 2022 to projects in the Indo-Pacific. The AFD’s mandate in the South Pacific has gradually expanded to include regional initiatives on climate change adaptation and mitigation, and biodiversity. One flagship project in collaboration with partners, including Australia, is the Kiwa initiative, which aims to help 19 Pacific countries adapt to climate change and preserve their biodiversity through nature-based solutions.

This French contribution is reflected in the involvement of state agencies such as Expertise France, which provides detached experts to national authorities, and France Volontaires. Over 200 young people have already benefited from the Oceanian Volunteer Service Program. France has also demonstrated its commitment to humanitarian aid in the face of natural disasters, as illustrated by the FRANZ mechanism with Australia and New Zealand, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. This mechanism recently facilitated assistance to the populations of Vanuatu in 2023, Tonga in 2022, and Papua New Guinea in 2021.

As the intensification of the Sino-American rivalry in the Indo-Pacific is felt worldwide, France intends to offer additional options to the region’s states. However, it is fundamental for the country to position itself appropriately and communicate effectively. The term “balancing power,” in particular, is poorly defined, misunderstood, and even counterproductive. It creates unnecessary doubts among partners and fuels the stereotype of an arrogant country with ambitions disconnected from its actual capabilities. Two concepts could be used to better explain France’s actions in the region.

Firstly, as a proactive power and provider of solutions, France aims to be a responsible country with a unique capacity for mobilization and impetus in the multilateral framework. This international activism translates into the implementation of projects that contribute to solving global problems for the benefit of populations and the mitigation of global imbalances.

Secondly, France also seeks to be an enhancer of sovereignty. Through its actions and cooperation, it facilitates the expression of its partners’ sovereignty by presenting a distinct French and European offering that aims to enable decision-making without constraints. This approach, which involves strengthening capacities and forming coalitions, empowers partners to fully defend their interests.

As proposed in a recent paper for the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), to materialize these two concepts better, France should propose the creation of a “Pacific Islands Security Forum.” This forum would bring together citizens, experts, and officials from the region, mainly addressing environmental and human security issues, a priority clearly identified for the Pacific Island states.

This cooperation mechanism would add real value by positioning itself at the nexus of defense, diplomacy, and development, complementing existing forums such as the SPDMM and the IPESF. It would focus on the needs of the actors involved and explicitly aim to identify the levers to activate to assist them in meeting those needs. Far from being a simple forum for dialogue, this would be an action-oriented mechanism.

An annual summit could be first held in New Caledonia in 2024, then alternately in Nouméa and in one of the Pacific Island states’ capitals, starting with Port-Vila in 2025. It would bring together regional players around unifying themes, while identifying and then implementing concrete projects on the appropriate scale. Amid other initiatives, this forum would serve as a symbol of France’s dedication and resolve to collaborate with its regional partners.

Antoine Bondaz ([email protected]) is the director of the Observatory of Multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS). He teaches at Sciences Po Paris.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Photo credit:  Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Image

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP4 – US-ASEAN Digital Economy Cooperation

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Executive Summary

Long criticized for its lackluster record in economic engagement with Southeast Asia, the US is now looking to bolster digital economy cooperation with the region as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy. Both sides have already engaged in several cooperation initiatives to strengthen Southeast Asia’s digital capacities. These actions/engagements aim to help the region capture the immense benefit and respond to potential socioeconomic disruptions brought by the digital economic boom. However, US-ASEAN cooperation will have to deal with two challenges. First, China has already established a comprehensive and prevalent presence in the region’s digital economy, from hard infrastructure and customer-facing businesses to developing digital standards. Second, Southeast Asia’s diversity in economic development leads to varied capacities among its members. These attributes carry certain security complications for Southeast Asia and the US in the long run. Addressing them will require both sides to further boost cooperation, particularly in shaping regional digital standards.

Download the full volume here.


Table of Contents

Introduction

U.S.-ASEAN Cooperation on the Digital Economy

China’s Prevalent Presence in Southeast Asia’s Digital Economy

Southeast Asia’s Varied Digital Capacities

Implications

Recommendations


About the Author

Hanh Nguyen was a non-resident WSD-Handa fellow at Pacific Forum. She received her MA degree in International Relations at International Christian University, Tokyo. She was a research fellow under the Project for Human Resource Development by Japanese Grant Aid. Her research interests include Southeast Asia’s relations with great powers, Vietnam’s foreign policy and Indo-Pacific affairs. Hanh is the author of US-Vietnam Partnership in the post-COVID era: A recalibration towards intra-ASEAN integration (Pacific Forum, 2021) and Maritime capacity-building cooperation between Japan and Vietnam: A confluence of strategic interest (ISEAS Perspective, 2021). She is also the coauthor of Asymmetric interdependence and the selective diversification of supply chains (Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia, 2022), Canada’s Indo-Pacific priorities: Investing in a free and open digital economy and Digital connectivity in the Indo-Pacific: The potential for middle power cooperation on 5G technology (MacDonald-Laurier Institute, 2021) with Stephen Nagy. Her analysis also appeared in The Diplomat, Geopolitical Monitor, Lowly Institute and other platforms. She is also a Pacific Forum Young Leader.

PacNet #54 – How China sees the Wagner fiasco

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July 17, 2023

“Within a day, with not a single shot fired and not a drop of blood seen; the ‘armed rebellion’ that attracted global attention was settled.”

That’s how one Chinese news commentary described the Wagner incident that shook Russia. However, in the aftermath of the short-lived uprising, views in China remain diverse and often conflicting.

A view from Beijing

The official response from China has been muted. In a two-line statement, the foreign ministry described the incident as “Russia’s internal affair” and assured of China’s support in helping Moscow “maintain its stability and achieve development and prosperity,” reaffirming its “good neighborliness” and “Comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the New Era” with Russia. Other opinions, particularly in the media, have been more reflective of the situation.

The hawkish Global Times took shots at the “wishful thinking of the West.” Citing Chinese international relations experts Wang Yiwei and Cui Heng, the report denied that Wagner’s call to move to Moscow constituted an “armed rebellion,” instead calling it a mere display of dissatisfaction with the ruling regime. It further stated that the Kremlin’s ability to stop the revolt within 24 hours refutes any claims of Putin growing weak, calling such analysis one of the many “cognitive warfare” tactics of the West fanning “anti-Russia sentiment” or stemming from ignorance of Russian politics. A report in the People’s Daily similarly credited strong public support to the Russian government as a major factor in defusing the crisis.

However, such assurances have failed to calm Chinese investors, particularly in the energy sector, who rushed to stop shipments as the news of the revolt broke out. Others in the media display similar concerns. An editorial in the China Daily described the situation as an “uneasy calm” which displays Russia’s socio-economic and political problems and contradictions—specifically stemming from the use of private mercenaries—that have come to the fore since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While the reasons for the mutiny are assessed as ranging from heavy losses incurred during the prolonged war, failure to demilitarize Ukraine, demands for more cash, tussles with the Russian Ministry of Defense and Prigozhin’s own political ambitions; one surpasses all—the Russian defense ministry’s order to incorporate all private mercenaries under its command by July 1. Talking to China’s Observer, military expert Song Zhongping noted that Prigozhin feared losing power and, as the deadline neared, decided to wage a mutiny. While all commentaries criticize Moscow’s overreliance on private mercenaries as “getting caught in one’s own cocoon” (zuojian zifu 作茧自缚), Song stated that Wagner did play an unparalleled role in the war. Being a private military company independent of the state, Wagner took losses without impacting the legitimacy of the Russian state nor its purse.

Though Putin’s political acumen and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s diplomatic skill in handling the crisis have been hailed, many in China believe that the dust is not yet fully settled. Talking to Sina News, Geng Xin noted that the Wagner fiasco was not a “false alarm” as many “contradictions” continue to lurk.

First and foremost being the dilemma in Russia on whether it sees itself as part of the East or the West. Such a phenomenon is coupled with a poor record of economic development, with the Russian political elite’s miscalculations that a return to the former “glory” of the Soviet Union is possible. Another contradiction is the underestimation of Ukraine’s potential to fight back and the disastrous decision to go to war. Third, the lack of an effective military system which allows too much space for private mercenaries poses a major challenge. Fourth, the phenomenon of “chaos giving birth to heroes” (luan shi chu xiaoxiong 乱世出枭雄) i.e. when all political, social, and economic contradictions elevate inequality to the extent that produces men prone to revolt like Prigozhin.

Moreover, Prigozhin not only refused to surrender but openly defied Vladimir Putin by describing Wagner soldiers as “true patriots.” Talking to The Observer, Tan Dekai noted that many in Russia see Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as a product of the oligarchic system and do not think he is fit for the job. Being a war hero, Prigozhin enjoys popularity, but Russians do not favor him as a leader. The continued presence of several private military forces such as those held by Gazprom is seen as a threat for China since a divided Russia ruled by warlords would invite external forces, particularly the United States, to intervene. Another commentary in Sina News described the incident as the “biggest gray rhino” since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War, a term Xi Jinping used in his 20th Party Congress Report to refer to unexpected security threats.

Whither the Ukraine war?

Russia has clarified that this incident will not impact the “special military operation” in Ukraine. But many in China are not so sure. The Paper, a Shanghai-based publication, noted that Prigozhin has destabilized the two main arteries of Russia’s military offensive, Rostov Oblast in South and Voronezh Oblast in North. A war between Wagner and the Russian military would have been disastrous but, even with the crisis averted, dealing with the demobilized soldiers and ensuring their loyalty in Prigozhin’s absence would be an uphill task. Beijing is also worried about the misuse of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal. As Ukraine’s counteroffensive intensifies, many in China believe Putin did the right thing to negotiate with Prigozhin, but will he come out stronger? They say he would, but this is dampened by concerns of entrenched problems in post-Soviet Russian society. Analysts in Moscow share similar beliefs. Talking to Russia Today, Dmitry Trenin described the deal as nothing short of a miracle, specifically as concerns were high over a lack of opposition against Prigozhin’s march into Rostov-on-Don and on to Moscow. Vladimir Bruter noted that the incident has heavily tarnished Moscow’s international image and a prolonged warfare with Ukraine would be “too optimistic” to expect. He believes that the need of the hour is to formulate a consistent plan for the military operation.

But will Putin end the war? As of now, no. He would like to deal with the internal challenges to his authority that the incident has exposed and making a move to negotiate first would be equal to conceding defeat.

“No limits” no more?

While Beijing has reaffirmed that its “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Russia in its official statement, opinions reflect that a prolonged war with growing aggression from private military groups is bad news. The main reason behind supporting Russia remains the challenge Moscow presents to the expanding influence of Western liberal ideas that China views as a threat and Beijing’s own sovereignty concerns over Taiwan. However, it will never allow any partnership, no matter how “comprehensive,” to derail economic development that robs Beijing’s international significance and tarnishes the image of the Communist Party at home. Neither can it afford to send military troops in support of Moscow and face Western sanctions. The idea remains to engage so far as the relationship remains profitable but as the tides turn unfavorable, Beijing finds itself caught in the quagmire.

China is hence highly likely to reassess its “no limits” partnership with Moscow, but without an official announcement, just as support for Russia was never explicitly committed to. Beijing is likely to push ahead its peace plan for ending the war once again before Washington does but how well China succeeds depends on to what extent Putin agrees to listen to Beijing, for he certainly has bigger ambitions and far less at stake.

The incident however presents a flickering hope for the United States and China to restart dialogue. Analysts in China agree that ensuring stability in nuclear-armed Russia and bringing the war to an end are concerns Beijing shares with Washington.

Instability in Russia is a mounting concern which China finds hard to address on its own. If sincere attempts to end the war do spring from Beijing, the United States must be ready to work with China. However, for that to happen, Beijing must tone down its prerequisites for dialogue with Washington that have blocked all high-level attempts at thawing the ice. The Wagner incident could facilitate what diplomatic negotiations so far have failed to achieve.

Cherry Hitkari ([email protected]) is a Non-resident Vasey Fellow and Young Leader at Pacific Forum.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Photo credit: Wagner Group boss Yevgeny Prigozhin in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the funeral of one of his fighters who died in Ukraine, December 24, 2022. AP

PacNet #53 – Washington’s myopia is undercutting its Indo-Pacific partners

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July 13, 2023

An earlier version of this article appeared in The National Interest.

For more from this author, please see his recent chapter of Comparative Connections.

Over the last few weeks, Washington has been abuzz with everything India. On June 22, President Joe Biden, cabinet secretaries, and the U.S. Congress gave a rousing reception to the visiting Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. For his part, the prime minister cheered Republican and Democratic congressmen with his quip that he could “help them reach bipartisan consensus,” referring to the across-the-aisle support India enjoys in Washington.

It was certainly an apt decision to honor the Indian leader, given that the U.S.-India partnership has significantly expanded under President Biden. Both the White House and several members of the Biden administration, from the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to the Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell, have characterized it as the “most important bilateral relationship of the twenty-first century.”

However, over the last few months, some of the Biden administration’s regional policies in the Indo-Pacific have done more harm to its partners, particularly India and its geopolitical leverage in the Indo-Pacific region. 

The Biden administration’s foreign policy cut a significant departure from its predecessors until last month, returning to Washington’s old ways: myopic democratic interventions, benevolent outreach to adversarial nations, and partisan bickering. Over the last few weeks, Washington’s primary Indo-Pacific partners, India and Japan, have borne the brunt of these missteps.

President Biden, in a last-minute change of plans, canceled his scheduled trip to Papua New Guinea and Australia to address the debt-ceiling crisis in Washington, with Republicans stalling the Democrats from raising the debt ceiling levels. While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went ahead with his trip to Papua New Guinea and signed a crucial defense agreement with the Pacific Island nation, Biden canceling that leg of the tour was not the best messaging to a region increasingly falling under China’s orbit.

Nonetheless, Prime Minister Modi went ahead with his travel itinerary as scheduled and turned it into an opportunity to showcase India’s position on the global stage. New Guinea’s president hailed Modi as the leader of the Global South. Taking an implicit jab at the United States and China, the island-nation leader said, “we are victims of global powerplay, and you [Modi] are the leader of Global South. We will rally behind your leadership at global forums.” Prior to Biden’s cancellation, the Indian government had decided to accommodate his visit and cut short their visits as a courtesy to the incoming American presidential delegation.

While this was a minor setback for a coordinated approach toward Chinese expansionism in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean challenge is a more geopolitically complex Gordian knot.

In mid-May, Blinken threatened Bangladesh with sanctions if the Indian Ocean state did not host free and fair elections in the 2024 poll. Suppose the United States were to follow through with its threat. In that case, India and Japan will be in a quandary as they have consistently positioned Bangladesh as a gateway connecting the Indian subcontinent to Southeast Asia for supply chain and infrastructure connectivity initiatives. Geographically, Bangladesh is nestled between India’s state of Bengal to the west and India’s northeastern provinces to the east, bordering a thin strip of land the connects the rest of India to the northeast (also known as the “chicken’s neck”). Thus the densely populated country’s interaction with the rest of the world is directed through India or the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean.

Both New Delhi and Tokyo have invested in infrastructure in the region and have long-term plans to invest in Dhaka’s growth. Recently, Japan and India agreed to jointly develop the Matabari deep-sea port in Bangladesh to serve as a “strategic anchor” in the Indian Ocean. Though often underreported, Japanese investment plays a vital role in South Asian development. It is also undeniably India’s Northeast region’s major infrastructure and development partner. Through the Bay of Bengal-Northeast India Industrial Value Chain, the Japanese government envisions increased connectivity between India’s landlocked northeast and Southeast Asia, creating a single economic zone and an alternative trade connectivity project to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida articulating his government’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy in New Delhi in early March this year, called for increased integration of India’s Northeast with Bangladesh to transform the region into a single economic zone.

Moreover, Japan is attempting to capture the businesses moving out of the pricier markets of Southeast Asia, using the Bay of Bengal region. Japan’s regional strategy has neatly complemented the Modi government’s policies. Modi transformed the older “Look East” policy into an “Act East” policy of increasing strategic and economic engagement with Southeast Asia as a countervailing force to China’s involvement in the region. 

Tokyo has slowly and steadily supported this transformation. A case in point is Tokyo and New Delhi hosting the India-Japan Act East forum to discuss cooperation on a range of projects that will increase connectivity in India’s Northeast to Southeast Asia.

India’s Northeast has a history of civil unrest and strife, making it a challenging region for development. Furthermore, its landlocked topography and poor infrastructure limited its connectivity to both its neighboring countries and the rest of India. Only parties interested in the long game or have a vision for the region could invest in that part of the world, and in this case, it is Japan.

Interestingly, as an extension, both Japan and India are engaging the immediate eastern neighbor to Bangladesh and India, Myanmar. Sanctioned by the United States, Myanmar has limited partners on the world stage. Nonetheless, Japan and India have continued engagement with the military junta to prevent the nation from falling entirely under China’s influence.

However, once again, Indo-Japanese interests are affected by America’s sanctions.

Earlier in May, India-Myanmar inaugurated the Sittwe port in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. India supported this port to enhance sea lane connectivity between India’s eastern states and Myanmar. However, since the sanctions, Indian companies have either had to depart Myanmar altogether or face global scrutiny for working with the military junta-led government.

As satellite images released earlier this year indicated, increased activity on the Great Coco Islands of Myanmar had the markings of Chinese military involvement. Situated less than thirty miles north of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, any potential militarization of the Coco Islands by the Chinese could pose a significant threat to India’s security in the Indian Ocean. In this geopolitical equation, India cannot afford to disengage from Myanmar. And yet, America’s economic statecraft is undercutting India’s vital regional partnerships.

Henry Kissinger, who celebrated 100 years last May, summed up this dynamic well, “it may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” It is undoubtedly proving so for Japan and India, but more so for New Delhi in the Indian Ocean. 

Against the backdrop of these measures comes the Biden administration’s attempts at thawing relations with China. While Biden departs from his predecessors as the only recent president to not ask for Kissinger’s advice, he is beginning to walk in the footsteps of a grand strategist by making attempts to mend ties with China.

From the dialogue in Vienna to Blinken rescheduling his trip to Beijing for last month to the official abandonment of economic “decoupling” for the less confrontational “de-risking,” Washington’s approach to China shows signs of softening. While members of IPEF agreed on moving ahead with a supply chain agreement in Detroit, in the same week, on the sidelines of the APEC meeting, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai met with her Chinese counterpart to discuss trade and economic ties. Washington’s blow-hot and blow-cold approach does not assure allies and partners of the consistency of its priorities and policies, particularly partners that it courts for strategic competition with China.

Furthermore, Washington’s skewed sanction policies toward democratic backsliding in a few states while calling for engagement with authoritarian China raise questions about the motives of such policies. While the United States has sanctioned Chinese officials allegedly involved in human rights abuses in Xinjiang, it continues to do massive business with Beijing. This selective condemnation only further isolates partners and strengthens Chinese engagement with the sanctioned nations.

Director for Regional Affairs at the Pacific Forum, Rob York, called this misbegotten strategy “a holdover from America’s unipolar moment that we [America] need to outgrow. America’s moral authority, and the benefits of aligning with Washington, are no longer assumed but must be competed for, and sanctions must be employed far more judiciously than they have been.”

This type of awakening to multipolar realities of the world order should inform Washington of the pitfalls and shortsightedness of its foreign policies. America’s sanctions and other tools of economic statecraft should not be used for democratic interventions but to deter its enemies. If not, the United States will have few allies in its strategic competition with China.

Akhil Ramesh ([email protected]) is a Senior Fellow at the Pacific Forum and author of the US-India chapter for Comparative Connections: A Triannual E-Journal of Bilateral Relations in the Indo-Pacific.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Photo: President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi walk along the Colonnade to the Oval Office after a state arrival ceremony Thursday on the South Lawn of the White House.Stefani Reynolds / Pool via AP

PacNet #52 – 2023 Issues & Insights half-year index

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July 12, 2023

Issues & Insights is Pacific Forum’s publication series that includes special reports (SR), conference reports (CR), and working papers (WP). These in-depth analyses cover a range of topics and are published on an occasional basis. The following have been published in 2023 and are available online here.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR1 — Toward a Unified NATO Response to the People’s Republic of China

By Rob York

Following the Cold War’s end there were those who questioned NATO’s continued relevance. Such views may have found little currency among scholars of foreign policy and security, but among the general public it was not unheard of to wonder why, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 its rival organization did not also become defunct, especially given the Russian Federation’s friendlier tilt in the decade that followed. On the part of the United States, by the 2010’s a fatigue had settled in among much of the populace over US foreign commitments, especially regarding partner countries not perceived as pulling their own weight. By the middle of that decade, that fatigue had begun to manifest itself in US election results.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and its brazen invasion of Ukraine last year may not have succeeded in bringing Ukraine to heel or establishing Moscow as a great military power again, but it did accomplish two other things. For one, it demonstrated for the world what the countries separated by the Atlantic could achieve—even indirectly—by helping partners (even non-NATO members) acquire the means to defend themselves. For another, and for all Putin’s claims to the contrary, it showed that nations near Russia’s western border have a very good reason for wanting NATO membership. Putin, more so than any mainstream American or continental European security scholar, has demonstrated the alliance’s continued relevance in providing for the security of countries that desire self-determination and alignment with the liberal, rules-based international order.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR2 — The World After Taiwan’s Fall

By David Santoro and Ralph Cossa

Let us start with our bottom line: a failure of the United States to come to Taiwan’s aid—politically, economically, and militarily—would devastate the Unites States’ credibility and defense commitments to its allies and partners, not just in Asia, but globally. If the United States tries but fails to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan, the impact could be equally devastating unless there is a concentrated, coordinated U.S. attempt with like-minded allies and partners to halt further Chinese aggression and eventually roll back Beijing’s ill-gotten gains.

This is not a hypothetical assessment. Taiwan has been increasingly under the threat of a military takeover by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, even today, is under attack politically, economically, psychologically, and through so-called “gray zone” military actions short of actual combat. The U.S. government, U.S. allies, and others have begun to pay attention to this problem, yet to this day, they have not sufficiently appreciated the strategic implications that such a takeover would generate. To address this problem, the Pacific Forum has conducted a multi-authored study to raise awareness in Washington, key allied capitals, and beyond about the consequences of a Chinese victory in a war over Taiwan and, more importantly, to drive them to take appropriate action to prevent it.

The study, which provides six national perspectives on this question (a U.S., Australian, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and European perspective) and fed its findings and recommendations into the second round of the DTRA SI-STT-sponsored (and Pacific Forum-run) Track 2 “U.S.-Taiwan Deterrence and Defense Dialogue,”[1] outlines these strategic implications in two alternative scenarios. In the first scenario, China attacks Taiwan and it falls with no outside assistance from the United States or others. In the other scenario, Taiwan falls to China despite outside assistance (i.e., “a too little, too late” scenario).

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP1 — Why Gender Balance Matters for Equity and Peace in the Indo-Pacific 

By Maryruth Belsey Priebe

Who shows up at events and conferences matters. Public and closed-door events are where successes and failures are analyzed; where conceptions about security, what it means, and how we can achieve it bump up against one another; and where problems are solved in novel ways. The greater the diversity of perspectives, the more powerful the outcomes. But within the security sector, predominantly all-male panels—or “manels”—suggest a lack of gender diversity, resulting in the exclusion of women, people of non-binary identities, or both. Manels represent a more serious lack of gender inclusion at leadership levels, making it difficult for women to gain recognition through promotion to senior decision-making positions. The following is a discussion of Pacific Forum’s work to study more than nine years of programming with a goal of understanding historical trends in order to implement and measure policies to increase the number of women attending and speaking at Pacific Forum events. The analysis identified room for improvement, and marks a jumping-off point for Pacific Forum’s work on mainstreaming gender within institutional programming.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP2 — Digital China: The Strategy and Its Geopolitical Implications 

By David Dorman and John Hemmings

Over the past few years, there has been growing concern inside the United States, Europe, and in the Indo-Pacific on the strategic direction behind China’s technology policies. Beginning with the debate over 5G and Huawei, this debate has covered Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum teachnology, and semi-conductors – a foundational technology. And despite a large number of policies in place – Made in China: 2025, Cyber Super Power, and the New Generation AI Development Plan – few in the West have known China’s overall digital grand strategy.

This report discusses the rise and current state of “Digital China,” a strategy supported by General Secretary Xi Jinping to make China more competitive against the West through digital transformation. It has become the overarching strategy for digital development in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, surpassing other initiatives like the Digital Silk Road and 5G. Digital China aims to challenge the existing global system and has profound implications for China’s development, great power competition, and international norms. The Party leadership has incorporated “data” into its digital economy, creating a concept called “Digital Marxism.” The strategy also seeks to foster innovation through the digital transformation of tools, talent, and learning as a means to facilitate China’s rise as a global power and challenge to the West.

The US and its allies have begun to effect strategic counter-effect to the myriad of PRC technology policies, there is almost zero understanding or public discussion of this digital grand strategy. Whether inattention, mistranslation, or obfuscation, Digital China has been mostly missed by the West over the past decade.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR3 — Strategic Competition and Security Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

By Carl Baker

There is a growing acceptance among countries in the Into-Pacific region that strategic competiiton between the United States and China is changing perceptions about security and the adequacy of the existing security architecture. While some have characterized the competition between the two as a new Cold War, it is clear that what is happening in the region is far more complex than the competition that characterized the original Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. First, the economic integration that has taken place since the early 1990s makes it much more difficult to draw bright ideological lines between the two sides. Further, the Asian context of the emerging competition is one where the two competitors have grown to share power. As the dominant military power, the United States has been the primary security guarantor in Asia and beyond. China, on the other hand, has emerged over the past decades as the primary economic catalyst in Asia and beyond. Currently, each side seems increasingly unwilling to accept that arrangement.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR4 – A History of Shared Values, A Future of Shared Strategic Interests: US-Australia Relations in the Indo-Pacific 

By Rob York

Authors of this volume participated in the inaugural U.S.-Australia Next-Generation Leaders Initiative, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State through the U.S. Embassy in Canberra. With backgrounds from academia, public policy, civil society, and industry, the cohort brings rich insights on the past, present, and future of the U.S.-Australia relations. This program was conducted from February 2021 – September 2021.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, CR1 – South China Sea, East China Sea, and the Emerging US-Japan-Philippines Trilateral 

By Jeffrey Ordaniel

The U.S.-Japan-Philippines Trilateral Maritime Security Dialogue conducted in December 2022 confirmed that there is very little difference in threat perceptions regarding the East and South China Seas. The three countries view China’s increasingly assertive claims to the territories and maritime zones in the two bodies of water as antithetical to their shared vision of a free, open, rules-based Indo-Pacific. China’s reapid military expansion, including unprecedented nuclear weapons and missile buildup, reinforces the urgency of the threat. Japanese and Philippine interlocutors worry that as China approaches nuclear parity with the United States, the region’s strategic environment will worsen. American participants emphasized greater and tangible demonstration of alliance commitments and agreed that some risk-taking is required to push back against Chinese coercion. There was a consensus about the challenge of addressing Beijing’s gray zone activities that have so far succeeded in seizing territories and maritime areas in the South China Sea and establishing regular intrusions into Japanese waters in the East China Sea. Participants struggled to find a strategy to blunt China’s salami-slicing tactics while avoiding escalation and armed conflict.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP3 – Understanding JI Resilience and Australia’s Counterterrorism Efforts in Indonesia

By Tom Connolly

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) remains one of Indonesia’s longest standing state security threats. It has survived major organizational transformations, state security crackdowns, and international military operations in its pursuit of an Islamic caliphate in Indonesia that could extend to incorporate Malaysia, Singapore, and the southern Philippines. Jemaah Islamiyah rose to prominence for its role in orchestrating the 2002 Bali Bombings, which prompted the United States and Australia to engage Jakarta with the shared goal of destroying the organization and its links to al-Qaeda. Security pressures from Indonesian security services and international forces led to the dismantling of much of Jemaah Islamiyah’s leadership by 2007, which pushed it into a state of hibernation, where members focused on consolidating numbers and religious outreach. The emergence of the Islamic State and its Southeast Asian affiliates in 2014 occupied much of the Indonesian security services’ resources, which gave space to Jemaah Islamiyah to regenerate its strength with renewed vigor. The 2017 discovery of a JI military training program in Syria re-alerted Indonesian counterterrorism authorities to the risk posed by the group, and successive waves of arrests and crackdowns ensued. Although the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many terrorist groups ceased offensive operations and maintained a low profile, Jemaah Islamiyah began to infiltrate Jakarta’s state apparatus, civil society, and academia to promote its political objectives. Jemaah Islamiyah’s long history in Indonesia has proven it to be adaptable, patient, and persistent in pursuit of its objectives. Although it is not currently engaged in military operations, JI’s long history in Indonesia has shown the group is adaptable, patient, and long-term in its thinking. Observers suspect that leaders in Jemaah Islamiyah are biding their time and seeking gaps in state authority that they can exploit to pursue their organizational goals.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR5 – ROK-US Alliance: Linchpin for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific

By Rob York

The US-ROK alliance in 2023 celebrates its 70th anniversary, and in both countries remains broadly popular. Previous doubts that both countries have had about the other’s commitment have largely given way to a sense of shared opportunities, and shared challenges. Not only is there an ever-more belligerent North Korea, with its growing nuclear and missile arsenals, but the People’s Republic of China uses both military and economic means to coerce other countries and Russia has demonstrated a willingness to upend norms, redraw borders, and dare former partners (including Seoul) to risk its ire.

This is also an era of the minilateral, as the US seeks to move past its previous hub-and-spokes alliance system in Asia and draw its partners into closer cooperation. South Korea, especially under its current administration, demonstrates increased interest in becoming a regional player, with its recent gestures toward old frenemy Japan representing a key test: historical differences between the US’ two closest partners have prevented a “normal” relationship from emerging despite many similarities in political systems, values, and interests, and Korean public opinion remains skeptical of the Seoul-Tokyo rapprochement. Furthermore, there is always a chance that issues complicating US-ROK relations in the past—conduct by US military personnel in Korea, trade disputes, environmental concerns related to US bases—could resurface.

All of these issues present challenges for the alliance that will require addressing. In that light, the Pacific Forum, with the generous support of the Korea Foundation, has launched the “ROK-US Next Generation Leaders Initiative” program, bringing together young burgeoning scholars and analysts from both countries to discuss pressing issues in the alliance the way forward. This edited volume contains edited papers on pressing topics—extended deterrence, North Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and much more—by rising scholars we expect to see addressing these issues in the years to come. Their active engagement, we believe, will help the alliance endure another 70 years, will providing for the security and prosperity of both countries.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR6 – Pressing Security Concerns in Southeast Asia: Next-Generation Perspectives

By John Hemmings

Southeast Asia is a pivotal sub-region of the Indo-Pacific. Spanning 1,700,000 square miles, its total population is 676 million – around 8.5% of the world’s population – and has a collective GDP of US$3.67 trillion (as of 2022). Over the years, it has been associated with both economic dynamism and significant security challenges. As authors in this volume note, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, disagreements over water rights in the Mekong Delta, and the current conflict in Myanmar highlight fault lines not only between Southeast Asian states themselves, but also between great powers such as China and the United States. There are many more – the EU, India, Japan, Australia, and South Korea – that pay close attention to developments in the sub-region. Maintaining peace and stability in a region that plays host to one-third of global sea-borne trade, hosts major undersea internet cables, and is a major thoroughfare for energy supplies from the Middle East to the advanced manufacturing hubs in China, Japan, and South Korea is both challenging and complicated.

The primary mechanism for engagement with Southeast Asian countries is through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its associated bodies. ASEAN promotes the principle of “ASEAN centrality” to prevent major power interference in the region and retain influence over security cooperation. However, the evolution of institutions and processes associated with ASEAN is lagging behind the pressing nature of regional challenges.

The “ASEAN Way” of informal consultation, non-interference, and consensus has fostered internal cohesion but hindered collective responses to conflicts. ASEAN’s influence is also vulnerable to great powers that can use their leverage to break consensus. While some believe ASEAN will adapt over time, others are skeptical about its ability to maintain its role in regional security.

The essays in the collection cover a broad range of security issues, including traditional and non-traditional ones. Traditional security topics include the South China Sea dispute, the political crisis in Myanmar, and dealing with rising Chinese influence. Non-traditional security issues encompass climate change’s impact on the Philippines and Timor-Leste, human trafficking in Vietnam, and Thailand’s brain drain challenge.

The essays reflect the diverse perspectives and challenges in Southeast Asia. They cover issues that range from well-covered topics to unique perspectives on local variations of international issues. The collection aims to spark regional conversations and discussions on these pressing security issues.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR7 — Southeast Asia’s Clean Energy Transition: A Role for Nuclear Power?

By David Santoro and Carl Baker

To bring clarity on these developments and their implications in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Forum commissioned several Southeast Asian scholars to write analytical papers on the energy transition that is underway in the region, which are compiled in this volume. Each chapter looks at the current and possible future energy landscape of a specific Southeast Asian country and focuses especially on the place and role of nuclear power in it. This “nuclear focus” is important because, for decades, most Southeast Asian countries have expressed on-and-off interest in nuclear power but never brought it online. Interest is now picking up again, especially for SMRs, so if this time one or several Southeast Asian countries successfully went nuclear, it would be a first.

It is good timing, therefore, to devote attention to how Southeast Asian countries are thinking about nuclear power in today’s context, for multiple reasons, including those related to safety, security, and safeguards.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

2023 Issues & Insights Half-Year Index

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July 12, 2023

Issues & Insights is Pacific Forum’s publication series that includes special reports (SR), conference reports (CR), and working papers (WP). These in-depth analyses cover a range of topics and are published on an occasional basis. The following have been published in 2023 and are available online here.

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR1 — Toward a Unified NATO Response to the People’s Republic of China by Rob York

Following the Cold War’s end there were those who questioned NATO’s continued relevance. Such views may have found little currency among scholars of foreign policy and security, but among the general public it was not unheard of to wonder why, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 its rival organization did not also become defunct, especially given the Russian Federation’s friendlier tilt in the decade that followed. On the part of the United States, by the 2010’s a fatigue had settled in among much of the populace over US foreign commitments, especially regarding partner countries not perceived as pulling their own weight. By the middle of that decade, that fatigue had begun to manifest itself in US election results.

Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and its brazen invasion of Ukraine last year may not have succeeded in bringing Ukraine to heel or establishing Moscow as a great military power again, but it did accomplish two other things. For one, it demonstrated for the world what the countries separated by the Atlantic could achieve—even indirectly—by helping partners (even non-NATO members) acquire the means to defend themselves. For another, and for all Putin’s claims to the contrary, it showed that nations near Russia’s western border have a very good reason for wanting NATO membership. Putin, more so than any mainstream American or continental European security scholar, has demonstrated the alliance’s continued relevance in providing for the security of countries that desire self-determination and alignment with the liberal, rules-based international order.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR2 — The World After Taiwan’s Fall Edited by David Santoro and Ralph Cossa

Let us start with our bottom line: a failure of the United States to come to Taiwan’s aid—politically, economically, and militarily—would devastate the Unites States’ credibility and defense commitments to its allies and partners, not just in Asia, but globally. If the United States tries but fails to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan, the impact could be equally devastating unless there is a concentrated, coordinated U.S. attempt with like-minded allies and partners to halt further Chinese aggression and eventually roll back Beijing’s ill-gotten gains.

This is not a hypothetical assessment. Taiwan has been increasingly under the threat of a military takeover by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, even today, is under attack politically, economically, psychologically, and through so-called “gray zone” military actions short of actual combat. The U.S. government, U.S. allies, and others have begun to pay attention to this problem, yet to this day, they have not sufficiently appreciated the strategic implications that such a takeover would generate. To address this problem, the Pacific Forum has conducted a multi-authored study to raise awareness in Washington, key allied capitals, and beyond about the consequences of a Chinese victory in a war over Taiwan and, more importantly, to drive them to take appropriate action to prevent it.

The study, which provides six national perspectives on this question (a U.S., Australian, Japanese, Korean, Indian, and European perspective) and fed its findings and recommendations into the second round of the DTRA SI-STT-sponsored (and Pacific Forum-run) Track 2 “U.S.-Taiwan Deterrence and Defense Dialogue,”[1] outlines these strategic implications in two alternative scenarios. In the first scenario, China attacks Taiwan and it falls with no outside assistance from the United States or others. In the other scenario, Taiwan falls to China despite outside assistance (i.e., “a too little, too late” scenario).

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP1 — Why Gender Balance Matters for Equity and Peace in the Indo-Pacific by Maryruth Belsey Priebe

Who shows up at events and conferences matters. Public and closed-door events are where successes and failures are analyzed; where conceptions about security, what it means, and how we can achieve it bump up against one another; and where problems are solved in novel ways. The greater the diversity of perspectives, the more powerful the outcomes. But within the security sector, predominantly all-male panels—or “manels”—suggest a lack of gender diversity, resulting in the exclusion of women, people of non-binary identities, or both. Manels represent a more serious lack of gender inclusion at leadership levels, making it difficult for women to gain recognition through promotion to senior decision-making positions. The following is a discussion of Pacific Forum’s work to study more than nine years of programming with a goal of understanding historical trends in order to implement and measure policies to increase the number of women attending and speaking at Pacific Forum events. The analysis identified room for improvement, and marks a jumping-off point for Pacific Forum’s work on mainstreaming gender within institutional programming.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP2 — Digital China: The Strategy and Its Geopolitical Implications by Dr. David Dorman and Dr. John Hemmings

Over the past few years, there has been growing concern inside the United States, Europe, and in the Indo-Pacific on the strategic direction behind China’s technology policies. Beginning with the debate over 5G and Huawei, this debate has covered Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum teachnology, and semi-conductors – a foundational technology. And despite a large number of policies in place – Made in China: 2025, Cyber Super Power, and the New Generation AI Development Plan – few in the West have known China’s overall digital grand strategy.

This report discusses the rise and current state of “Digital China,” a strategy supported by General Secretary Xi Jinping to make China more competitive against the West through digital transformation. It has become the overarching strategy for digital development in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, surpassing other initiatives like the Digital Silk Road and 5G. Digital China aims to challenge the existing global system and has profound implications for China’s development, great power competition, and international norms. The Party leadership has incorporated “data” into its digital economy, creating a concept called “Digital Marxism.” The strategy also seeks to foster innovation through the digital transformation of tools, talent, and learning as a means to facilitate China’s rise as a global power and challenge to the West.

The US and its allies have begun to effect strategic counter-effect to the myriad of PRC technology policies, there is almost zero understanding or public discussion of this digital grand strategy. Whether inattention, mistranslation, or obfuscation, Digital China has been mostly missed by the West over the past decade.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR3 — Strategic Competition and Security Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific by Carl Baker

There is a growing acceptance among countries in the Into-Pacific region that strategic competiiton between the United States and China is changing perceptions about security and the adequacy of the existing security architecture. While some have characterized the competition between the two as a new Cold War, it is clear that what is happening in the region is far more complex than the competition that characterized the original Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. First, the economic integration that has taken place since the early 1990s makes it much more difficult to draw bright ideological lines between the two sides. Further, the Asian context of the emerging competition is one where the two competitors have grown to share power. As the dominant military power, the United States has been the primary security guarantor in Asia and beyond. China, on the other hand, has emerged over the past decades as the primary economic catalyst in Asia and beyond. Currently, each side seems increasingly unwilling to accept that arrangement.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR4 – A History of Shared Values, A Future of Shared Strategic Interests: US-Australia Relations in the Indo-Pacific by Rob York

Authors of this volume participated in the inaugural U.S.-Australia Next-Generation Leaders Initiative, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State through the U.S. Embassy in Canberra. With backgrounds from academia, public policy, civil society, and industry, the cohort brings rich insights on the past, present, and future of the U.S.-Australia relations. This program was conducted from February 2021 – September 2021.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, CR1 – South China Sea, East China Sea, and the Emerging US-Japan-Philippines Trilateral by Jeffrey Ordaniel

The U.S.-Japan-Philippines Trilateral Maritime Security Dialogue conducted in December 2022 confirmed that there is very little difference in threat perceptions regarding the East and South China Seas. The three countries view China’s increasingly assertive claims to the territories and maritime zones in the two bodies of water as antithetical to their shared vision of a free, open, rules-based Indo-Pacific. China’s reapid military expansion, including unprecedented nuclear weapons and missile buildup, reinforces the urgency of the threat. Japanese and Philippine interlocutors worry that as China approaches nuclear parity with the United States, the region’s strategic environment will worsen. American participants emphasized greater and tangible demonstration of alliance commitments and agreed that some risk-taking is required to push back against Chinese coercion. There was a consensus about the challenge of addressing Beijing’s gray zone activities that have so far succeeded in seizing territories and maritime areas in the South China Sea and establishing regular intrusions into Japanese waters in the East China Sea. Participants struggled to find a strategy to blunt China’s salami-slicing tactics while avoiding escalation and armed conflict.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, WP3 – Understanding JI Resilience and Australia’s Counterterrorism Efforts in Indonesia by Tom Connolly

Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) remains one of Indonesia’s longest standing state security threats. It has survived major organizational transformations, state security crackdowns, and international military operations in its pursuit of an Islamic caliphate in Indonesia that could extend to incorporate Malaysia, Singapore, and the southern Philippines. Jemaah Islamiyah rose to prominence for its role in orchestrating the 2002 Bali Bombings, which prompted the United States and Australia to engage Jakarta with the shared goal of destroying the organization and its links to al-Qaeda. Security pressures from Indonesian security services and international forces led to the dismantling of much of Jemaah Islamiyah’s leadership by 2007, which pushed it into a state of hibernation, where members focused on consolidating numbers and religious outreach. The emergence of the Islamic State and its Southeast Asian affiliates in 2014 occupied much of the Indonesian security services’ resources, which gave space to Jemaah Islamiyah to regenerate its strength with renewed vigor. The 2017 discovery of a JI military training program in Syria re-alerted Indonesian counterterrorism authorities to the risk posed by the group, and successive waves of arrests and crackdowns ensued. Although the COVID-19 pandemic meant that many terrorist groups ceased offensive operations and maintained a low profile, Jemaah Islamiyah began to infiltrate Jakarta’s state apparatus, civil society, and academia to promote its political objectives. Jemaah Islamiyah’s long history in Indonesia has proven it to be adaptable, patient, and persistent in pursuit of its objectives. Although it is not currently engaged in military operations, JI’s long history in Indonesia has shown the group is adaptable, patient, and long-term in its thinking. Observers suspect that leaders in Jemaah Islamiyah are biding their time and seeking gaps in state authority that they can exploit to pursue their organizational goals.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR5 – ROK-US Alliance: Linchpin for a Free and Open Indo-Pacific by Rob York

The US-ROK alliance in 2023 celebrates its 70th anniversary, and in both countries remains broadly popular. Previous doubts that both countries have had about the other’s commitment have largely given way to a sense of shared opportunities, and shared challenges. Not only is there an ever-more belligerent North Korea, with its growing nuclear and missile arsenals, but the People’s Republic of China uses both military and economic means to coerce other countries and Russia has demonstrated a willingness to upend norms, redraw borders, and dare former partners (including Seoul) to risk its ire.

This is also an era of the minilateral, as the US seeks to move past its previous hub-and-spokes alliance system in Asia and draw its partners into closer cooperation. South Korea, especially under its current administration, demonstrates increased interest in becoming a regional player, with its recent gestures toward old frenemy Japan representing a key test: historical differences between the US’ two closest partners have prevented a “normal” relationship from emerging despite many similarities in political systems, values, and interests, and Korean public opinion remains skeptical of the Seoul-Tokyo rapprochement. Furthermore, there is always a chance that issues complicating US-ROK relations in the past—conduct by US military personnel in Korea, trade disputes, environmental concerns related to US bases—could resurface.

All of these issues present challenges for the alliance that will require addressing. In that light, the Pacific Forum, with the generous support of the Korea Foundation, has launched the “ROK-US Next Generation Leaders Initiative” program, bringing together young burgeoning scholars and analysts from both countries to discuss pressing issues in the alliance the way forward. This edited volume contains edited papers on pressing topics—extended deterrence, North Korea, China, Russia, Japan, and much more—by rising scholars we expect to see addressing these issues in the years to come. Their active engagement, we believe, will help the alliance endure another 70 years, will providing for the security and prosperity of both countries.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR6 – Pressing Security Concerns in Southeast Asia: Next-Generation Perspectives by John Hemmings

Southeast Asia is a pivotal sub-region of the Indo-Pacific. Spanning 1,700,000 square miles, its total population is 676 million – around 8.5% of the world’s population – and has a collective GDP of US$3.67 trillion (as of 2022). Over the years, it has been associated with both economic dynamism and significant security challenges. As authors in this volume note, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, disagreements over water rights in the Mekong Delta, and the current conflict in Myanmar highlight fault lines not only between Southeast Asian states themselves, but also between great powers such as China and the United States. There are many more – the EU, India, Japan, Australia, and South Korea – that pay close attention to developments in the sub-region. Maintaining peace and stability in a region that plays host to one-third of global sea-borne trade, hosts major undersea internet cables, and is a major thoroughfare for energy supplies from the Middle East to the advanced manufacturing hubs in China, Japan, and South Korea is both challenging and complicated.

The primary mechanism for engagement with Southeast Asian countries is through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its associated bodies. ASEAN promotes the principle of “ASEAN centrality” to prevent major power interference in the region and retain influence over security cooperation. However, the evolution of institutions and processes associated with ASEAN is lagging behind the pressing nature of regional challenges.

The “ASEAN Way” of informal consultation, non-interference, and consensus has fostered internal cohesion but hindered collective responses to conflicts. ASEAN’s influence is also vulnerable to great powers that can use their leverage to break consensus. While some believe ASEAN will adapt over time, others are skeptical about its ability to maintain its role in regional security.

The essays in the collection cover a broad range of security issues, including traditional and non-traditional ones. Traditional security topics include the South China Sea dispute, the political crisis in Myanmar, and dealing with rising Chinese influence. Non-traditional security issues encompass climate change’s impact on the Philippines and Timor-Leste, human trafficking in Vietnam, and Thailand’s brain drain challenge.

The essays reflect the diverse perspectives and challenges in Southeast Asia. They cover issues that range from well-covered topics to unique perspectives on local variations of international issues. The collection aims to spark regional conversations and discussions on these pressing security issues.

 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR7 — Southeast Asia’s Clean Energy Transition: A Role for Nuclear Power? by David Santoro and Carl Baker

To bring clarity on these developments and their implications in Southeast Asia, the Pacific Forum commissioned several Southeast Asian scholars to write analytical papers on the energy transition that is underway in the region, which are compiled in this volume. Each chapter looks at the current and possible future energy landscape of a specific Southeast Asian country and focuses especially on the place and role of nuclear power in it. This “nuclear focus” is important because, for decades, most Southeast Asian countries have expressed on-and-off interest in nuclear power but never brought it online. Interest is now picking up again, especially for SMRs, so if this time one or several Southeast Asian countries successfully went nuclear, it would be a first.

It is good timing, therefore, to devote attention to how Southeast Asian countries are thinking about nuclear power in today’s context, for multiple reasons, including those related to safety, security, and safeguards.

PacNet #51 – 2023 PacNet Commentary half-year index

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July 7, 2023

The comprehensive half-year index includes each PacNet commentary published from January through June 2023 below. Click here to request a PacNet subscription.

  1. Taking the US-India relationship to the next level by David Santoro and Akhil Ramesh
  2. The Indian Coast Guard, the Quad, a free and open Indo-Pacific by Dr. Pooja Bhatt
  3. The 118th Congress and China policy – Continuity over change in defending America by Robert Sutter
  4. The Japan Coast Guard’s role in realizing a Free and Open Indo-Pacific by Capt. Kentaro Furuya (JCG)
  5. Australia’s Maritime Border Command: Grappling with the Quad to realize a free and open Indo-Pacific by Kate Clayton and Dr. Bec Strating
  6. Comparative Connections summary: January 2023
  7. Dealing with increased Chinese aggressiveness – PART ONE by Ralph A. Cossa
  8. Dealing with increased Chinese aggressiveness – PART TWO by Ralph A. Cossa
  9. The US Coast Guard: Provide public goods for a free and open Indo-Pacific by James R. Sullivan
  10. The inconvenient trust: Aspirations vs realities of coexistence between “the West” and China by Stephen Nagy
  11. What China’s challenge to NATO is, and what it isn’t by Rob York
  12. It’s up to the National Unity Government to forge “Union Spirit” in Myanmar by Shwe Yee Oo
  13. After China’s Party Congress, steeling for competition with the West by Kim Fassler
  14. South Korea’s Indo-Pacific pivot strategy by David Scott
  15. For India and ASEAN, an opportune reorientation by Dr. Shristi Pukhrem
  16. The world after Taiwan’s fall – PART ONE by David Santoro
  17. The world after Taiwan’s fall – PART TWO by David Santoro
  18. China has a digital grand strategy. Does the president know? by Dr. David Dorman and Dr. John Hemmings
  19. Rare earths realism: Breaking the PRC’s global refining monopoly by Brandt Mabuni
  20. How feminist is Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy – PART ONE: The Good by Maryruth Belsey Priebe and Astha Chadha
  21. How feminist is Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy – PART TWO: The ‘Needs Improvement’ by Maryruth Belsey Priebe and Astha Chadha
  22. The refresh of the Integrated Review: Putting Britain at the heart of the Atlantic-Pacific world by James Rogers
  23. Japan’s new strategic policy: Three overlooked takeaways by Thomas Wilkins
  24. How to help Korea-Japan rapprochement endure by Rob York
  25. Bangladesh’s remarkable journey and challenges ahead by Md Mufassir Rashid
  26. The UK integrated review and integrated deterrence by Brig Rory Copinger-Symes and Dr. John Hemmings
  27. Why China’s Middle East diplomacy doesn’t herald a new world order by Henry Rome and Grant Rumley
  28. A principled approach to maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific by Ariel Stenek
  29. Toward a resilient supply chain to counter Chinese economic coercion by Su Hyun Lee
  30. Now is the time for a US-Japan-Taiwan security trilateral by Masatoshi Murakami
  31. Time for a shift on the Korean Peninsula by Daniel R. Depetris
  32. Europe’s China confusion does the world a disservice by Brad Glosserman
  33. Myanmar’s Coco Islands: A concern not to be ignored by Shristi Pukhrem
  34. The rise of ISKP in South Asia: A threat to regional stability by Neeraj Singh Manhas
  35. Mekong water usage tests China’s claimed good-neighborliness by Denny Roy
  36. How Biden can make the most of his Pacific Islands trip by Michael Walsh
  37. Comparative Connections Summary: May 2023
  38. EU holds the key to US-China rivalry by Stephen Olson
  39. AUKUS: Enhancing Undersea Deterrence by John Hemmings
  40. Decoding the infrastructure development on Myanmar’s Coco Islands by Shwe Yee Oo
  41. ASEAN unity and the Russia-Ukraine crisis by Shakthi De Silva
  42. Coast Guard cooperation: Heading off a troubling storm? by John Bradford and Scott Edwards
  43. Indo-Pacific middle powers: Rethinking roles and preferences by Alexander M. Hynd and Thomas Wilkins
  44. What happens in Crimea will determine Taiwan’s fate by David Kirichenko
  45. G7 attendance highlights South Korea’s growing stature by Jennifer Ahn
  46. Bangladesh’s Indo-Pacific outlook: A model for maintaining balance by Doreen Chowdhury
  47. Breaking the US-China logjam by Daniel R. Depetris
  48. A work in progress: The Indo-Pacific partnership for maritime domain awareness by Ahana Roy
  49. China’s military engagements with Cuba: Implications of a strategic advance in Latin America by R. Evan Ellis
  50. Despite Blinken’s trip, the US’ slide toward war with China continues by William Overholt

Photo: President Joe Biden speaks with Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi at the G20 Summit by Wikimedia commons. 

PacNet #48 – A work in progress: The Indo-Pacific partnership for maritime domain awareness

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A year ago, the four leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”) convened in Tokyo and released a joint statement launching the Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA). This initiative’s primary objective is to enhance maritime security and domain awareness by equipping Indo-Pacific nations with emerging technologies and training support to enhance their real-time maritime awareness capabilities. Though not explicitly stated, this initiative’s aims to combat illicit maritime assertiveness and maintain the regional status quo are aimed at China. However, the idea of the IPMDA as a purely anti-China initiative causes concern for regional states who wish to partake in the initiative, consequently creating further challenges for effective implementation.

Consequently, a year later, the IPMDA remains in its nascent stage, despite heavy media coverage and multiple statements by Quad governments. Notwithstanding strong concerns over China’s militarization of the Indo-Pacific region, exploitation of offshore resources, and the presence of maritime militia, the IPMDA’s progress has been inadequate. Quad countries must take into account a number of factors for the successful operationalization of this partnership. Furthermore, for this initiative to succeed, Quad countries must reassure others in the region that it is meant to be inclusive, not focused exclusively on constraining Chinese activity. The inclusivity aspect is necessary to combat the perception of regional partners that the IPMDA is only directed at deterring China’s maritime manoeuvres in the region, since most regional states do not share an interest in constraining China.

What is IPMDA?

The IPMDA provides a common framework to operationalize the maritime strategic partnership among Quad countries and their Indo-Pacific partners. Essentially, the IPMDA initiative focuses on monitoring regional maritime spaces, securing open sea lines of communication (SLOCs), and providing capacity-building measures for regional partners. The initiative’s explicit call for maritime domain awareness supplements the Quad’s implicit strategic interest in curbing Chinese belligerence in the region, especially the South China Sea.

Officially, the IPMDA offers “near-real-time, integrated, and cost-effective maritime domain awareness” to partners in the Indo-Pacific. It aims to combat challenges from natural disasters to human and weapons trafficking to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and dark shipping. To tackle the challenge of vessel identification, the initiative will employ a commercial satellite-based tracking service that would enable countries to counter dark shipping—vessels operating with their AIS (automatic identification systems) transponders turned off—and successfully deliver a “faster, wider and sharper” maritime picture of regional partners’ exclusive economic zones and prevent illegal activities in ungoverned maritime spaces. Furthermore, the initiative will make use of partners’ existing Information Fusion Centers, such as those in India, Singapore, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands (who, notably, signed a security pact with China in April 2022) for information-sharing. This real-time maritime intelligence gathering and dissemination would pave the way for an effective multilateral collective security apparatus reflecting the national maritime strategies of like-minded Indo-Pacific states.

The IPMDA is not the first US-led maritime security framework, but it is the first time the United States has incorporated Southeast Asian, the Pacific Island, and Indian Ocean region countries into a single structure. However, East Asia has not been included (perhaps due to the fact that the United States and Japan already have a well-oiled maritime domain awareness mechanism in the East China Sea). Furthermore, the IPMDA fails to cover the western Indian Ocean region and island nations like Seychelles and Mauritius. Exclusion of these regions’ geographical scope leaves a fractured maritime domain awareness picture in the Indo-Pacific, as it does not comprehensively take into account all Quad partners’ maritime concerns. For example, India’s maritime security concerns of open and secure SLOCs, piracy, terrorism, IUU fishing, and weapons trafficking in the western IOR are not accounted for under the IPMDA’s purview. This showcases that while the IPMDA covers more ground than its predecessors, limitations detrimental to effective maritime domain awareness remain.

How can the IPMDA progress?

For the IPMDA to succeed, all participating countries must commit to bridging the extensive gaps in current information-sharing, capacity-building, and coordinated action practices, as well as resolving challenges like technology interoperability, resource accessibility, and vessel identification. The IPMDA is crucial as a deterring mechanism for illegal activities in maritime spaces; for promoting a rules-based international order in the high seas; for providing low-cost surveillance technologies to regional partners with limited resources; and for strengthening maritime cooperation and dialogue with stakeholders.

Quad countries must look into the several bottlenecks the IPMDA will face. Vessel identification is a persistent issue—vessel identification in itself requires significant data and many Indo-Pacific countries are ill-equipped to police their territorial waters effectively. To tackle this issue, the IPMDA must employ a twin-pronged approach: investing in publicly available information-sharing systems and identification technologies, as well as training maritime law enforcement personnel to remotely patrol and surveil international waters. The IPMDA must also consider the issue of asymmetrical resource accessibility and asset management by partner nations. To mitigate this, the Quad countries should equip maritime domain awareness collaborators with interoperable technologies like radar systems and data regulation processes and undertake multilateral maritime exercises in the region to demonstrate joint capability. Policymakers and security strategists must also balance their interests of maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific with that of constraining China’s antagonistic presence in the Indo-Pacific to not stretch the bandwidth of partner nations.

There is still a long way to go in actualizing the IPMDA in an inclusive and sustainable manner. For the effective implementation of the maritime domain awareness picture, Quad countries must tackle concerns which can potentially burden partners in the Indo-Pacific region. No nation would want to needlessly invoke the ire of China, but many are interested in alternatives to Beijing’s assertive presence in the Indo-Pacific region when it serves their national interests and promotes shared maritime principles.

Quad countries must consider that countries in the Indo-Pacific are driven by pragmatic concerns vastly differing from each other, especially in the face of the China threat. For example, within the ASEAN itself, countries like Indonesia and the Philippines have different concerns related to China. Indonesia and the Philippines have had joint naval exercises with the United States, but Indonesia’s approach to the Indo-Pacific is based on the notion of ASEAN centrality and inclusivity—including China, in contrast to the US Indo-Pacific strategy. All partners must find commonality, and on multiple levels, to effectively implement the IPMDA.

In lieu of attempting to carve a new mechanism to deploy the IPMDA, Quad countries should work with existing regional collaboration institutions to successfully implement a maritime domain awareness strategy. For example, while the IPMDA specifies which information-sharing centers will be used for data collection on maritime activities, there is no mention of building linkages with existing information-sharing centers, like in Madagascar. Similarly, for an organization like ASEAN, which must balance dealing with both China and the United States (and by extension the Quad), a focus on capacity-building and developing human capital through the IPMDA will only serve its own interests. On the other hand, the initiative would reassure Southeast Asian countries of the Quad’s commitment to promoting regional maritime security as well as pave the way for them to regard the IPMDA’s objective of building capacity as genuine, and not just a façade for Quad partners to act on anti-Chinese sentiments.

Although the Quad’s IPMDA initiative is a step in the right direction, it is too early to determine its efficacy. The Quad must begin immediate engagements with regional stakeholders to address deficiencies in the current IPMDA initiative and support holistic and robust maritime domain awareness in the Indo-Pacific. What remains to be seen is how swiftly member nations can come together for this initiative, which will determine its efficacy. How the IPMDA will impact regional security dynamics, and how China will respond to such a multilateral initiative, are a few of the many questions requiring further examination.

Ahana Roy ([email protected]) is Research Associate at Organisation for Research on China and Asia (ORCA), New Delhi. 

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Photo: 2022 Quad leader meeting in Tokyo, Japan by the Prime Minister’s Office of Japan. 

Issues & Insights Vol. 23, SR6 – Pressing Security Concerns in Southeast Asia: Next-Generation Perspectives

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Introduction

Southeast Asia is a pivotal sub-region of the Indo-Pacific. Spanning 1,700,000 square miles, its total population is 676 million – around 8.5% of the world’s population – and has a collective GDP of US$3.67 trillion (as of 2022). Over the years, it has been associated with both economic dynamism and significant security challenges. As authors in this volume note, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, disagreements over water rights in the Mekong Delta, and the current conflict in Myanmar highlight fault lines not only between Southeast Asian states themselves, but also between great powers such as China and the United States. There are many more – the EU, India, Japan, Australia, and South Korea – that pay close attention to developments in the sub-region. Maintaining peace and stability in a region that plays host to one-third of global sea-borne trade, hosts major undersea internet cables, and is a major thoroughfare for energy supplies from the Middle East to the advanced manufacturing hubs in China, Japan, and South Korea is both challenging and complicated.

The primary mechanism for engagement with the individual countries in Southeast Asia has been through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its attendant bodies, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the East Asia Summit (EAS), and the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM). Meanwhile, ASEAN member states have promoted the principle of “ASEAN centrality” as a means to prevent major power interference in the sub-region and to retain influence over security cooperation within Southeast Asia and beyond. As a result, the acknowledgement of ASEAN centrality has become a “boilerplate” for strategy and policy documents related to regional security. One example of this is the inclusion of the principle in the 2021 U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy. However, the increasingly pressing nature of challenges confronting the broader region, their speed and intensity, are beginning to outpace the evolution of institutions and processes associated with ASEAN.

The ASEAN Way – an emphasis on informal consultation, non-interference, and consensus as the basis of major decisions – has been integral to creating internal cohesion and harmony within ASEAN decision-making and is an enabler of socio-political integration. On the other hand, it has also stymied efforts to develop effective collective responses to conflicts and has made ASEAN hostage to great powers able to use their influence over members to break consensus. While defenders of ASEAN point to its successes and remain confident that it will adapt to regional issues over time, others are increasingly skeptical that ASEAN can retain its status as the gatekeeper of regional security agenda.

It is in this context that Pacific Forum carried out this extended study with support from the Luce Foundation to investigate Southeast Asian perspectives on the “biggest threats or most pressing security issues, now and in the foreseeable future.” We asked a group of our Southeast Asian cohort of Young Leaders (ages 21 to 35), what problems were most pressing to them, and asked them how they thought their countries should address these issues, noting which third-parties would be most important for them to leverage in doing so. We believe this publication, which cuts across a broad range of security issues, is a fair representation of the eclecticism and diversity that characterize the region itself and hope that our readers will find them as useful as we have here at Pacific Forum.

The collection starts with traditional security issues and then moves to more non-traditional security issues, though this does not reflect any internal emphasis or prioritization on the part of the editors. The first essay, by Siu Tzyy Wei, is entitled “Caught in the Middle: The Measured Voice of Brunei’s Foreign Policy Amidst the South China Sea Dispute.” Beginning with the South China Sea is appropriate for any collective study on the region, but Brunei’s position as a “silent claimant” presents a perspective not often heard. The author’s assertion that it is China and external powers – AUKUS and the Quad are mentioned – that are adding pressure to the South China Sea and adding a dangerous complexity, compelling Brunei’s “neutrality,” a striking claim given the threat to Bruneian sovereignty. The second essay moves to another flashpoint, the political crisis in Myanmar; a national issue that has reverberated around ASEAN as well as further abroad in Washington and Brussels. Appropriately titled “The Coming of the Raging Fire: The Revolution in Myanmar,” Thiha Wint Aung analyzes the lead-up to the political crisis and concludes by calling for the international community to explicitly support the people’s “armed resistance” against the military. The third essay presents a bold national case for a region-wide issue: dealing with rising Chinese influence. In “Malaysia’s China Policy Amid China’s Growing Security Concerns,” Fikry A. Rahman argues that Malaysian policy elites will have to prioritize strategic concerns over economic ties vis-a-vis China if it is to adequately defend Malaysian sovereignty.

The next group of essays focuses on non-traditional security issues, beginning with climate change, one of the most pressing global issues. Southeast Asia is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, as noted in the fourth essay, “When it Rains, it Pours: Disaster Displacement and the Future of Human Security in the Philippines Amid Changing Climate.” Katrina Guanio calls for policymakers to be aware of gradual or even sudden human migrations due to inclement weather, such as typhoons, and the impact these have on national health, economic, and security dynamics. Taking an unusual and unique perspective, the fifth essay, “Climate Maladaptation: Migration, Food Insecurity, and the Politics of Climate Change in Timor-Leste” by Ariel Mota Alves, makes the provocative argument that international organizations can sometimes promote detrimental Western development narratives that undermine local solutions to local climate change effects. The sixth essay, “Human Trafficking in Vietnam: A Top-Tier Non-Traditional Security Threat in the 21st Century” by Thu Nguyen Hoang Anh, measures the impact of the scourge of human trafficking in Vietnam and offers practical policy solutions to mitigating its impact on victims. Finally, the seventh essay, by Attawat Assavanadda, looks at “Thailand’s Brain Drain Challenge: Trends and Implications,” noting the push-pull drivers of the phenomenon and its impact on Thailand’s overall development.

As one can see from this summary, the range of topics chosen by our talented Young Leader cohort from Southeast Asia is as diverse, inspiring, and multidimensional as the region itself. Ranging from security issues that are well covered by regional and international media to those that take an eclectic look at local variations of international issues, we are pleased to showcase these essays. As ever, the mission of Pacific Forum only begins with the creation of such young leader cohorts, and empowering them to present their analyses and recommendations should only be a prelude to robust regional conversations and discussions. We have been since our creation – a forum for those discussions – and hope that our readers will take that engaging approach to these essays and their authors.

Dr. John Hemmings
Senior Director, Pacific Forum
Honolulu, Hawaii

Click here to download the full report.


Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Caught in the Middle: The Measured Voice of Brunei’s Foreign Policy Amidst the South China Sea Disputes | Siu Tzyy Wei
Chapter 2: The Coming of the Raging Fire: The Revolution in Myanmar | Thiha Wint Aung
Chapter 3: Malaysia’s China Policy Amid China’s Growing Security Concerns | Fikry A. Rahman
Chapter 4: When it Rains, it Pours: Disaster Displacement and the Future of Human Security in the Philippines Amid Changing Climate | Katrina Guanio
Chapter 5: Climate Maladaptation: Migration, Food Insecurity, and the Politics of Climate Change in Timor-Leste | Ariel Mota Alves
Chapter 6: Human Trafficking in Vietnam: A Top-Tier Non-traditional Security Threat in the 21st century | Thu Nguyen Hoang Anh
Chapter 7: Thailand’s Brain Drain Challenge: Trends and Implications | Attawat Joseph Ma Assavanadda


About the Authors

Ariel Mota Alves is a Timorese student currently pursuing a PhD in Political Science with a Graduate Certificate in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. His research focuses on the environmental changes in Southeast Asia and Timor-Leste. Ariel is a research intern and student affiliate at the East-West Center in Honolulu.

Attawat Joseph Ma Assavanadda is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong and a member of the Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program. His research interests are International Relations and Security in the Asia Pacific, with a particular focus on China-Southeast Asia relations. He obtained his MA in International Relations (International Security Specialization) from Waseda University where he was awarded the Japanese Government “MEXT” Scholarship. He previously worked as a political analyst at Government House of Thailand and a research assistant (master’s level) at the German-Southeast Asian Center of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance (CPG).

Fikry A. Rahman is the Head of Foreign Affairs at Bait Al Amanah, a political and development research institute based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His research interests include Southeast Asian regionalism, smaller states’ strategies, the politics and geopolitics of digital connectivity cooperation, maritime security, and Malaysian domestic politics and foreign policy. He was also part of Princeton University’s research project on the Belt and Road Initiative in Southeast Asia, and was thoroughly involved with Malaysian universities on the BRI research projects. His insights have been featured in The Diplomat, Nikkei Asia, New Straits Times, and BenarNews.

Katrina R. Guanio is a Senior Project Officer at UP – Centre International de Formation des Autorités et Leaders or the International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders (UP-CIFAL Philippines). She works on research studies and projects on migration, gender equality, and sustainable development. Previously, she worked with the Economist Intelligence Unit for the local migration governance indicators of the International Organization for Migration. She is completing her Master’s in Population Studies at the University of the Philippines Population Institute.

Siu Tzyy Wei is a Research Associate at the Global Awareness and Impact Alliance (GAIA). With an aim to develop a deeper understanding of how national factors can evolve and threaten the international system and vice versa, Wei’s research interests lie mainly in the politics and maritime security issues of Southeast Asia. Currently holding a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in Sociology and Anthropology from Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Wei’s work has been featured in Fair Observer and CSIS Indonesia.

Thiha Wint Aung is an independent political analyst from Myanmar. He received Master of Arts in Political Science from Central European University (CEU) in 2022 and Master of Public Policy from National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in 2020. He formerly worked as Senior Program Manager in Forum of Federations, an INGO providing technical support on federalism and decentralization to various stakeholders in Myanmar. His interests are in social movements, social networks, digital humanities, and Southeast Asia politics.

Thu Nguyen Hoang Anh is a graduate student at European University Institute majoring in Transnational Governance. Previously, she was an intern at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). She was also a senior research fellow and head of the Southeast Asia Research Group at the Vanguard Think Tank. Her research interests include Vietnamese politics, Asian security, and public policy.

PacNet #42 – Coast Guard cooperation: Heading off a troubling storm?

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This week the coast guards of Japan, the Philippines, and the United States conduct their first-ever exercise, two weeks after the United States and Japan delivered joint training in the Philippines. In another precedent-setting, first-ever event, on May 4 senior leaders from nine Indo-Pacific coast guards gathered at the International Maritime Security Conference (IMSC) in Singapore to discuss their priorities for future collaboration. These are just two examples representing a rise in coast guard cooperation aimed at advancing maritime governance and preserving maritime order in the face of increasingly complex maritime challenges.

Coming together to talk

The IMSC consistently draws chiefs of navy from around the globe, but this was the first time the event included such a large representation from coast guards. The IMSC even included a special panel headlined by Vice-Admiral Dr. Aan Kunia, head of Bakamla (the de facto Indonesian coast guard) and Vice-Admiral Roland N. Lizor Ounzalan, the Philippine Coast Guard’s deputy commander for operations.

This is just the latest of a series of gatherings marking the rise of coast guard dialogue in the region. Since 2004, coast guard leaders have assembled for the Head of Asian Coast Guard meetings, and a broader Coast Guard Global Summit was established in 2017. In 2022, Indonesia organized the ASEAN Coast Guard Forum, a body it hopes to institutionalize this year. These assemblies allow senior leaders to share perspectives and cohere understandings of the complex and inter-related maritime threats the region faces. They also allow leaders to find opportunities for tangible cooperation and combined operations.

Budding relationships

In the Indo-Pacific, the most advanced maritime law enforcement cooperative relationship is between the US Coast Guard (USCG) and Japanese Coast Guard (JCG). In 2022 they updated their partnership to the “Solid Alliance for Peace and Prosperity with Humanity and Integrity on the Rule-of-Law Based Engagement” (SAPPHIRE). This expanded partnership focuses on standard operating procedures for combined operations, training, capacity-building, and information sharing. The USCG and JCG now conduct advanced exercises together in Japanese waters, where they have practiced interdicting simulated foreign vessels operating illegally inside Japanese waters. The JCG has also successfully engaged in joint counter-narcotics operations around Guam and assisted to rescue a lost freediver offshore Hawaii. They have trained with the Philippine Coast Guard, setting the stage for the upcoming trilateral exercise.

Other Indo-Pacific coast guards and maritime law enforcement agencies are taking similar steps to improve their cooperation. Japan has led the way by advancing relations with a range of partners, but is far from alone. For example, Japan signed a memorandum of understanding with the Philippines in 2016 that enables joint anti-piracy activities around Tawi-Tawi and has a long-standing MoU with India that underpins the annual exercise Sahyog Kaijin. India, for its part, has other MoUs with the coast guards of Bangladesh, South Korea, and Vietnam, and it hosts the international coast guard exercise Dosti with Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The United States sponsors the Southeast Asian Maritime Law Enforcement Initiative, an annual leaders’ forum designed to enhance regional stability by promoting maritime safety, security cooperation, coordination, and information-sharing. Even agencies that fulfill similar functions but with a more near-shore focus, such as the Australian Border Force, increasingly work with coast guards further afield.

Cooperation is also on the rise among Southeast Asian coast guards, teaming up more-and-more to improve their efficiency and efficacy. The MoU between the Vietnamese Coast Guard and Bakamla has evolved into a letter of intent to ramp up operations cooperation between the two forces while the VCG also maintains an MoU with Cambodia’s National Committee for Maritime Security. A proposed Tripartite Coast Guard Agreement would also see coordinated patrols in the Sulu and Celebes seas between the PCG, Bakamla, and Malaysia’s Maritime Enforcement Agency.

There is also increasing cooperation between coast guards and navies. Perhaps, the best example of this is SEACAT. This multilateral naval exercise sponsored by the United States since 2002 has included coast guard elements since 2016. In 2022, seven coast guards participated, as well as several navies with constabulary roles. Similarly, several coast guards have sent international liaison officers to the navy-centric Information Fusion Center in Singapore, with the most recent addition being the officer from the Republic of Korea Coast Guard, who arrived in April.

Drivers & outcomes of cooperation

This expanding cooperation is driven by three overarching trends. First, perceived threats in the region have evolved to become more complex. Criminals use regional routes to drive the global circulation of illicit goods, including drugs, across borders while others seek to benefit from attacking this circulation directly through piracy and armed robbery at sea. Second, oceans and seas have taken on a particular importance to regional development, making their resilience and protection particularly important. The ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on the Blue Economy, for example, explains that “the ocean and seas are key drivers of economic growth and innovation.” Third, but related, with their intent to strengthen their maritime governance—particularly in improving maritime safety, marine environmental protection and maritime law enforcement—regional countries place more attention on creating and expanding their coast guards to improve the constabulary effectiveness of the maritime forces.

Cooperation between coast guards and other agencies, along with other advancements in regional maritime security, have yielded results. For example, the Sulu Sea was a prime hunting ground for terrorists and other criminals, but there has not been a kidnapping there since 2020. Sea robbery remains a problem in the straits of Malacca and Singapore, but instead of hijackings the incidents now amount to petty thefts.

Coast guards and interstate entanglements

More needs to be done. While some interstate border disputes have stabilized, tensions are escalating around the South China and East China seas. As tools of statecraft deployed to manage geopolitical stresses, coast guards were originally perceived as less provocative than navies, but they are increasingly the leading edge of worrisome international competitions. As geopolitical tensions deepen and interstate disputes sharpen at sea, bringing a broader grouping of coast guard leaders together is—and will be increasingly—significant.

Some issues considered the domain of law enforcement are now intertwined with missions where national governments seek to assert their sovereignty in maritime areas at the expense of other claimants.

In 2013, several Chinese maritime agencies were combined into the China Coast Guard (CCG). This force—the world’s largest coast guard by fleet size and the one with the heaviest weapons—was placed under the command of the Central Military Commission in 2021. Since then, China has chosen to deploy this coast guard alongside a state-backed maritime militia into disputed waters in the East and South China Seas on missions designed more to assert control and demonstrate sovereignty than to provide for good order at sea.

China’s neighbors have felt the need to respond in-kind, and there has been a rapid expansion of their fleet sizes and operational tempos, particularly in Japan and the Philippines. The number of incidents is on the rise. For example, in February the PCG accused a CCG vessel of using a military-grade laser to blind the crew of the PCG ship, BRP Malapascua. The same PCG vessel was also in a near-collision with a much larger CCG ship during unsafe maneuvers that were captured on video in April. There is an increasing risk that lives may be lost, or that interactions escalate to crisis. Dialogue and diplomacy therefore become necessary to lower tensions and develop the necessary crisis management mechanisms.

Unfortunately, the CCG is noticeably absent from most of these cooperation-focused conversations. Its leaders have attended some of the senior dialogues in the past but have been missing in recent years. Their seats were vacant at the 2022 meetings of the Coast Guard Global Summit and the HACGM. They were similarly absent from last week’s IMSC. A lack of cooperation between the CCG and Southeast Asian coast guards demonstrates a troubling shortfall. That the CCG’s only significant new cooperative arrangement in recent years is one it signed with Russia is unlikely to reassure many in the Indo-Pacific.

Dialogue among coast guards and the cooperation it fosters are taking on growing importance as their roles expand, but gaps exist. Countries should continue to host opportunities to build those relationships, and more coast guards should turn up ready to find the solutions needed to make the seas safer for all stakeholders.

PacNet commentaries and responses represent the views of the respective authors. Alternative viewpoints are always welcomed and encouraged.

Photo: Vice Admiral Kurnia (Bakamla) and Vice Admiral Punzalan Take the Stage at the International Maritime Security Conference on May 4, 2023 by the Philippine Coast Guard.