China’s aggressive posturing has brought the expected response from countries in the region.
The inevitable has come to pass.
China’s decision to further tighten its unilateral claim over virtually all of the South China Sea, whose waters wash the shorelines of four ASEAN states, has sparked a regional naval arms race.
China has issued, via its southern Hainan province, an edict demanding all non-Chinese fishermen obtain permits to enter the waters it has unilaterally claimed.
This affects more than half the 3.5 million square kilometres of the South China Sea.
Although Australia isn’t directly involved, should naval clashes with China by individual or a combined ASEAN naval force eventuate, our exports to Japan, South Korea and China – currently valued at more than $75 billion – could be affected, perhaps over extended periods.
So whether we like it or not, we’d become implicated by either brief clashes or a longer-term imbroglio.
The naval arms build-up that includes China – which last year commissioned its first aircraft carrier, the Ukrainian-built, Liaoning – involves India, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines.
Only Cambodia and Brunei, the former seen as leaning towards Beijing, have not become involved.
India certainly has, with that country having just bought from Russia its second aircraft carrier – the 45,400-tonne INS Vikramaditya, which carries advanced combat capabilities including 10 Kamov-31 helicopters and 24 MiG 29-K fighters.
India intends building its first indigenous carrier, the INS Vikrant, for commissioning during 2018-19.
It’s also acquiring 12 P-81 antisubmarine warfare aircraft, a variant of Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon Anti-Submarine Warfare (AWS) developed for the US Navy, making India the first outside the US with such sophisticated long-range ASWs.
Myanmar plans moving to create a submarine force by 2015.
Elsewhere in the region, Singapore has just bought two of the most advanced submarines available, German-built ThyssenKrupp Type 218SGs capable of staying submerged for up to a month.
Thailand intends to order submarines as part of its forthcoming 10-year armed forces plan.
Thai officers already attend German and South Korean submarine training establishments.
Indonesia and Malaysia, which have small submarine fleets, also plan expansions.
Indonesia is adding 12 South Korean or Russia-built vessels by 2020 to its two ageing submarines, with negotiations under way with South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering for three of these.
Likewise Malaysia, whose two submarines were obtained in 2007 and 2009 from a Franco-Spanish consortium.
Last month, Vietnam took possession of the first of six Russian Kilo-Class submarines, with delivery of the last in 2016.
Only the Philippines hasn’t moved, saying it’s seeking more information on China’s territorial claim.
“These countries are not arming against each other,” The New York Times reported on January 7.
“The arms expansion is a reaction to increasing uncertainty about the distribution of power in the region, caused largely by the extension of Chinese naval power into the South China Sea and Indian Ocean.
“But Chinese naval expansion is not likely to be halted by these submarine fleets.
“China will simply augment its anti-submarine capability.
“Each expansion only adds to regional suspicion and tension.”
The report said it was unclear whether China would hold back with its South China Sea claim because of the rise of a formidable ASEAN submarine force that could confront it.
“Japan’s substantial military power, including an advanced submarine fleet, has not stopped China from acting on its territorial claim against Japan in the East China Sea,” The New York Times claimed.
“ASEAN needs to act collectively to negotiate with China to prevent further destabilisation, instead of each country dealing separately with China.”
To this point, ASEAN has been an economic or commercial entity not a formal military alliance. But with Japan and India wary of China’s new assertiveness in the South and East China seas, there’s an incentive to weld ASEAN militarily and to possibly cooperate with Japan and India.
Time will tell where Australia may fit into such link-ups – even if informally.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Hua Chunying, has down played Beijing’s unilateral fishing claim.
“China is a maritime nation, so it is totally normal and part of the routine for Chinese provinces bordering the sea to formulate regional rules according to the national law to regulate conservation, management and utilisation of maritime biological resources,” she said.
But Vo Van Trac of Vietnam’s Association of Fishery, said its fishermen objected to China’s rules and would continue fishing in areas in the South China Sea where Vietnam claims sovereignty.
“We will ask our fishermen to keep fishing,” he said.
“We will tell them those areas [in the South China Sea] that are within our sovereignty.
China’s new fishing decree follows its announced Air Defence Identification Zone over disputed East China Sea waters that sparked rejections by Japan and South Korea.
China’s navy is seeking to buy 30 more submarines by 2020, bringing its force from the current 62 to 100 by 2030.
Hong Kong’s Ming Pao daily said the US had 75 submarines, with 26 deployed in the Asia-Pacific region, and Bloomberg News calculates the region will have up to 86 submarines operating by 2020.
