After World War II, the nation abandoned the independent Poland cause, despite so many Poles fighting alongside the allies against the Nazis. Two decades later, the United States did not intervene in the Czech uprising (1968) when there was a cry for freedom from behind the Iron Curtain. The United States left allies in South Vietnam (Hmong), Lebanon (Maronites), and, most recently, Afghanistan. Other nations who fought with the United States were abandoned for political expediency. Once-allied regimes became undesirable and were left to their fate at the hands of revolutionary communists. The new revolutionary regimes often turned out not only worse than their predecessors but were devoted enemies of the Unted States.

American foreign policy is rightly called schizophrenic because it is rarely consistent.  Built into the American system of government was mutual agreement between the executive and legislative branches of government. It took two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty and an act of Congress to declare war. Early presidents were loathe to act without the endorsement of Congress in real and tangible ways.

Until World War I, American foreign policy was largely stable regardless of the political party in power. Whether democratic or autocratic in their form of government, allies of the United States could trust in agreements they made with the Americans. Unfortunately, that has changed as American foreign policy vacillated widely in the post–World War II period. This is a problem not only for allies but also for the United States.

The moment allies doubt American commitment, they are no longer incentivized to work with the United States. This matters because the US is losing standing amongst allies and adversaries. For example, over the past two years the United States imposed every possible sanction against Russia. Yet the Russian economy grew faster than the American economy in the first quarter of 2024. Two years ago, the newly elected president of South Korea discussed the need for a South Korean nuclear arsenal because the United States was seen as an unreliable ally.

China is regularly expanding its navy and coast guard and using them to prevent the transit of international waters by its own neighbors. This week, the Chinese attacked a Philippine ship in Philippine waters. China also brokers deals with the Saudis to reestablish relations with Iran.

The US Navy claims it ensures freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle but is clearly challenged to follow through on that promise. The US is unable to provide effective escort of ships through the Red Sea because the US Navy is the smallest it has been in over eight decades. The lack of American commitment to sea power is but one example of inconsistency in foreign policy. Some argue that the Houthi terror campaign in the Red Sea is succeeding, and the United States is failing.

The Budapest Memorandum (1994) offered security assurances to Ukraine if it returned Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia, yet when Russia violated that agreement in 2014 with its invasion of Crimea, the American response was muted. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the United States provided indirect support for Ukraine that is prolonging the war but is insufficient to ensure Ukrainian victory. Whether one agrees or disagrees with the American approach to Ukraine, the simple fact is that the past 30 years of American action offer a bewilderingly inconsistent view to Vladimir Putin as he seeks to advance Russian interests.

Despite the fact that 32 Americans were murdered and at least 10 taken hostage on October 7, 2023, President Joe Biden failed to actively join Israel in defeating Hamas. Instead, he chose to spend more time criticizing Israel for waging war on a regime that employs terror tactics. Israel, a long-time ally, can no longer count on American support because domestic radicals in the United States are a large voting block for the president.

Israel is not the only ally President Biden insulted. He insulted Japan as well and has demanded they fundamentally change Japanese culture and society. The US State Department is also engaging in bizarre practices of ridiculing and insulting strategic allies by pressuring them to adopt cultural practices that are patently offensive to them. This behavior is a result of government’s capture by progressives. It is a recipe for American foreign policy disaster and inconsistent with long-time American tradition.

It would be incredibly difficult for the US to act in the Pacific without the use of air bases and ports in Japan. In the event of a territorial war in East Asia, both Japan and South Korea will be at significant risk of attack on their civilian population. Their navies and air forces are force multipliers for the United States. Again, the point is not whether the reader agrees with an individual decision by one presidential administration or another. The point is that the United States all too often vacillates in its positions and makes it difficult for allies and adversaries to predict the American position in the future.

Consistency, whether hands off or activist, is critical for the United States because stability and predictability in foreign policy is important to friend and foe. The Weinberger Doctrine of former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger was an effort to offer a consistent framework for judging American action, but that effort largely fell on deaf ears. In the four decades since Weinberger offered his doctrine, American foreign policy has lunged from one failed military effort to the next.

The United States is no longer the global superpower it once was. It is more important than ever that the United States make wise decisions in its foreign policy. Allies are more important than ever, and they seek stability across administrations. A revanchist Russia and China are bad for the world. A consistent American foreign policy is the opposite. It is time the nation moved in that direction.

Michael Fincher is a Fellow of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are his own.

Is America’s Foreign Policy Incoherent? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Flawed Modeling Assumptions

Game theory finds ideal tactics for conflicts between two opponents. It works great for something simple like checkers. But to get far it needs assumptions that, together, weaken the approach for something as tricky as convincing an adversary to never coerce or attack with nuclear arms.

In its basic form, game theory assumes both players have the same goals and want to avoid the same downsides. It also assumes all relevant information for the game is known fully and equally by both players, who are unbiased, unhurried, and perform all calculations perfectly. It assumes the game has a clear beginning and end, and moves are made in an orderly one-goes-then-the-other-goes manner.

Plainly, none of these apply well to states or blocs in a nuclear crisis or an escalating conventional shooting war. More subtly, game theory does not take account of tacit cooperation between opponents—such as to avoid nuclear Armageddon.

Modern game theorists are starting to study games with many players, in which different players have different goals and different information. But this research needs to mature more and be validated rigorously before it can be trusted enough to guide national defense.

Macroeconomics is a tool for understanding and managing the workings of a national economy. In its traditional form, macroeconomics assumes that everybody decides to buy or sell things based only on their price, and that all decisions are made with one hundred percent efficiency using complete information.

The difficulty of controlling a real-world economy is shown by the problems of fluctuating American inflation rates, recessions, and unemployment. While the conceptual framework of macroeconomics was adapted to analyze nuclear deterrence decades ago, there are practical limits to policy guidance obtained this way.

Modern research turned to what is called behavioral economics. This approach pays attention to the emotional reasons people do things. It also considers that different people seek different real and emotional rewards. Even sophisticated actors are driven by an irrational perception of risk. This emerging discipline seems promising, but still needs testing.

Systems analysis studies a problem, such as how to win a war, by breaking the warfighting into moving parts, then analyzes how those parts interact. The goal is to create statistics-driven procedures, such as body counts, that will achieve the desired outcome—victory.

Systems analysis has flaws for national defense policymaking. To get anywhere, it needs to make very difficult choices about exactly how to measure effectiveness, how to handle incomplete or absent data, how to take account of fundamentals and intangibles such as political will, and how to remove analyst bias. The near impossibility of doing all this successfully was demonstrated by the failure of systems analysis in the Vietnam Conflict.

Modern Threat Assessment

During the Cold War, other practical drawbacks of these technical tools were masked by the fact that the only major players of the nuclear deterrence game were the US and USSR. Neither became so aggressive or desperate as to resort to a nuclear attack. But there were close calls, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, peacefully resolved by back-channel bargaining between strong-willed leaders. Details of the next nuclear crisis, if one occurs, will be totally different and difficult to model realistically in advance.

Today, there are several significant nuclear adversaries confronting the US and its allies. The chances seem high that equations cannot capture the many psychological subtleties and unknown-unknown interactions, especially when several authoritarian regimes can form an opaque axis of expansion.

A good way to test the utility of behavioral economics and modernized game theory is to see if it can yield insights on dealing better with enemies who use nuclear threats against the United States, such as to limit American support for a beleaguered ally. The cases of Ukraine and Taiwan come to mind.

Conclusion

It is not just an academic exercise to confront and prevent the possibility that Russia, China, and North Korea may take their nuclear brinksmanship beyond mere verbal threats and saber-rattling exercises. Arms control advocates and defense policymakers need to recognize that nuclear attack is not simply a verbal bargaining chip thrown around by foreign potentates who are unserious, bluffing, or who have purely defensive goals. There is no pause button. There are no do-overs.

Nuclear deterrence cannot be reduced to a blackboard puzzle. Doing it properly needs undivided attention to the subtle nuances and fine distinctions that can make all the difference in an outcome. It calls for all-out political commitment despite many daunting complexities. Above all, effective deterrence requires deep understanding of how to make adversaries feel the raw fear generated when what they value most is at risk.

Joe Buff is a risk-mitigation actuary researching modern nuclear deterrence and arms control.

Aaron Holland is an Analyst at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own.

Nuclear Deterrence Is Not a Theoretical Game was originally published on Global Security Review.

When news of the incident broke, Filipinos took to social media to express their outrage. According to a report published by Business Insider, “The Philippines has accused China of ramming a Philippine fishing vessel, sinking it, and then abandoning the crew to drown in open waters […] The crew of the sunken Philippine vessel was ultimately rescued by a Vietnamese ship operating nearby.”

The Turkish news outlet TRT World reported that Filipinos were angered after a Chinese vessel seemingly rammed a fishing boat in the South China Sea and left its crew to fend for themselves. The New York Times noted that the 22 Filipino fishermen were at sea before being rescued by a Vietnamese boat. The fishermen returned to the Philippines on board the Philippine Navy patrol ship BRP Ramon Alcaraz.

The incident occurred around midnight on June 9th, 2019 in Reed Bank (Recto Bank), 500 kilometers off from the coast of the Philippines. Reed Bank is considered to be a traditional fishing ground for Filipino fishermen and is frequented by fishermen from other countries like Vietnam, China, and Taiwan.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) boat detection (VDB) located near the province of Occidental Mindoro revealed that at approximately 1:08 am local time (approximately an hour after the ramming incident), the Yuemaobinyu 422212 detected and allegedly berthed. Meanwhile, the borne-out F/B GEMVIR was transported towards the Caminawit, San Jose port. It also says that five months ago, around January 25th, the Chinese vessel was seen in the area.

A few hours after the news went viral, the Department of National Defense of the Philippines released the following statement:

“A collision between a Chinese and Filipino vessel was reported by Filipino fishermen near the Recto Bank in the West Philippine Sea on the evening of June 9, 2019. The collision sank the Filipino vessel. This is not the expected action from a responsible and friendly people.”

On June 13th, the Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro “Teddy” Locsin stated that the Philippines issued a diplomatic protest over the ship-ramming incident in the West Philippine Sea. The country’s top diplomat also described the collision on social media as “contemptible and condemnable.” Locsin’s statement was echoed up by an assessment from the Philippine military’s western command (WESCOM), and Alexander Pama, a  former chief of the Philippine Navy, said that there was no doubt that the Chinese vessel had intentionally hit the Philippine boat. Subsequently, the mayor of the town of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro expressed his belief the Chinese vessel had intentionally collided with the Filipino boat.

China released a press release admitting that a Chinese vessel from the province of hit a Filipino vessel in the vicinity of Reed Bank on June 9th. Interestingly, it claimed that the Chinese fishing boat Yuemaobinyu 42212 was “berthed” in the area when seven or eight Filipino fishing boats “besieged” it. Beijing stated that China regards its relationship with the Philippines relationship and the safety of life at sea with high importance and that it would continue to properly handle this issue with the Philippines seriously and responsibly. 

China maintained its claim that there was no such thing as a “hit-and-run.” Furthermore, on June 13th, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called the incident “an ordinary maritime traffic accident” and said that China was still investigating the matter. “If the relevant reports are true, regardless of the country from which the perpetrator came from, their behavior should be condemned,” the Chinese official said. Intriguingly, statements were removed from the Chinese Embassy’s social media pages the Friday after the incident but were reposted on the Chinese Embassy’s official Twitter page one day later.

Philippine Navy chief Vice Admiral Robert Empedrad confirmed that the Chinese vessel which came into contact with a Filipino fishing boat and caused it to sink was no accident, but a deliberate maneuver to ram the smaller craft. Also, Gemvir 1 crewmembers had made it clear that it was a Chinese vessel that rammed their boat and not a Vietnamese vessel, as some officials had insinuated.

According to Junel Insigne, captain of the Filipino vessel, “Umikot muna sila, binalikan kami, sinindi yung maraming ilaw, nung nakita kaming lubog na, pinatay yung ilaw ulit bago umatras, bago tumakbo palayo (They circled us, went back, switched on their lights. When they saw us sinking, they switched off their lights and hurriedly left),” adding he could tell they were Chinese because of the type of ship lights. “Kung wala dun yung Vietnam, baka mamatay na kaming lahat (If the Vietnamese weren’t there, we would have died).”

Moreover, the Navy Chief said at the Maritime Symposium held at The Manila Hotel on June 14th that “The Filipino vessel was anchored. So when based on the International Rules of the Road, it had the privilege because it could not evade […] the ship was rammed. This is not a normal incident. The boat was anchored.” In similar instances, the Armed Forces of the Philippines may assist the relevant government agency in conducting a formal inquiry on the incident, given that it caused the fishermen and the boat owners over 2 million Philippine pesos worth of damages. It included about three tons of fish with an estimated worth of P1 million; P500,000 in capital, and P700,000 for the fishing boat.

Financial assistance was provided one week after the incident occurred. Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol, through the Agricultural Credit Policy Council (ACPC), released P25,000 for each of the 22 fishermen under the Survival Response (SURE) Loan Program to help them recover losses incurred. Aside from financial assistance, the government, through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resource (BFAR), committed to grant the fishermen 30-footer fiberglass boats fully outfitted with engine and nets, in addition to 11 boats—each of which would be shared by two fishermen—in order for them to have a source of additional income while the F/B GEM-VIR 1 is being repaired. 

The government also tapped the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) for additional funding. The funding will not be limited to assisting the 22 fishermen, but will also be used to buy ice-making machines and cold storage for fishing grounds nationwide. Meanwhile, Vice President Leni Robredo gave P50,000 in financial assistance (under the Angat Buhay Program) to fisherman as she visited them in Mindoro.

Strategic Analysis

The 1951 San Francisco Treaty failed to assign possession of the Spratly Islands when Japan lost its title to them following its defeat in the Second World War. Article 2 states that “Japan renounces all right, title and claim to the Spratly Islands and to the Paracel Islands.” 

The Spratly Islands constitutes the chain of 200 islets, coral reefs, and seamounts. Its northern extension, the Paracel Islands, spreads across 250,000 square kilometers of the South China Sea, a vast continental shelf that constitutes a potentially rich source of oil and natural gas. It went further into an international conflict when several claimants began extracting resources from the seabed contiguous to their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the mid-70s. China, Taiwan, and four ASEAN states − Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam − all laid claim and occupied part of the islands in the South China Sea. The contested ownership over the Spratly Islands continues to be a key point of contention.

Meanwhile, a significant aspect of the territorial dispute in the South China Sea concerns China’s construction in the area. China has engaged in large-scale land reclamation activities in seven reefs (Fiery Cross Reef, Johnson South Reef, Cuarteron Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef) in the disputed Spratly Islands. In other words, China’s act from the past two weeks shows uncertainty from the previous records of reclamation and actual tension over its bid to resolve the issue. While the issue is no longer a dispute, it begs the question of sincerity and managing the maritime area, given that it has been decided since July 12^th, 2016 in the Hague Ruling on Arbitration Case.

As for the recent event, it very clearly shows the strategy of China’s psychological operations (PsyOps). For the first time, The United States Department of Defense dragged this paramilitary force (People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia/PAFMM under Paramilitary Forces) out of the shadows in 2017 in its annual report on Chinese military power. The Pentagon said the maritime militia is used to “enforce maritime claims and advance China’s interests in ways that are calculated to fall below the threshold of provoking conflict.” In the 2018 report, the department said that the maritime militia (Chinese Yuen Tai Yu) plays a significant role in coercive activities to achieve China’s political goals without fighting. They live up to Sun Tzu’s statement in the Art of War: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

On the other hand, the Supreme Court’s Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio says it’s highly likely that a Chinese maritime militia vessel rammed the Filipino fishing vessel F/B Gimber 1 in the West Philippine Sea on June 9^th. Carpio stated, “this may signal the start of a new “gray zone” offensive by China to drive away Filipino fishing vessels in the West Philippine Sea, in the same way, that China is driving away Vietnamese fishing vessels in the Paracels.” Whether this claim by the lead magistrate bids for the verity of the maritime militia of China, it also yields the expectation that Vietnam also has militias. If other Asian countries can do so, this is also another avenue for the Philippines to develop among its citizens, like its Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) or Civilian Armed Forces.

Meanwhile, it would be much easier to probe the incident in the said area of operation if there was a vessel monitoring system put in place just like the lighthouses located nearby Benham Rise. The Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement (IUUF) Act of 2015 required countries to closely monitor foreign vessels through inspections and enforcement. This could be through satellite or non-satellite-based ship monitoring systems with installed transponders in every fishing boat. If this is enabled, this will transmit speed, location, proximity, and a faster tracking measure by passers or the vessels in real-time.

In support the IUUF, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would have the authority to make more vessel inspections, deny port entry to vessels that illegally fish, and share the inspection data with other countries. The hope is that this will strategically communicate to the rest of the world that the Philippines is serious about cracking down on IUU fishing too, where maritime crimes are also being taken advantage of by poachers and intruders. To avoid such confrontation in the maritime domain, as said in international rules, stationary vessels should be avoided. Thus, the crew-members of oceangoing vessels, as well as commanding officers of warships, should be knowledgeable of the International Rules of the (maritime) Road. And lastly, the Philippine Coast Guard’s Maritime Safety Services Command shall exhaustively investigate the case.

In time, the prosecution must pursue the actual perpetrators who not only violated the rule of law but also committed economic sabotage on the Filipino fishermen whose livelihoods are dependent on fishing. According to Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and an expert on the geopolitics of the South China Sea, “if the Chinese vessel had deliberately rammed a stationary Filipino boat, it would be a clear breach of international norms.” Gregory Poling, Director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, said that a large number of Chinese fishing vessels had been discovered in the Subi and Mischief Reefs of the Spratly Islands in 2018. He also noted at one point that all claimants must “find the path forward to manage these disputes before something breaks.”

If China is indeed found to be the responsible party after a “joint investigation,” despite efforts by those opposed to probing the incident, then China shall be held liable. China will continue to analyze the situation as it waits for feedback from the Philippines. China may also expand more in the West Philippine Sea as part of its regional strategy while engaging in a balancing act with the Philippines to maximize benefits from surpluses caused by trade tensions with the U.S. and at the same time trading with the Philippines and strengthening ties using silk roads. 

Mr. Lucio Pitlo III of Ateneo De Manila University and a Research Fellow to Asia Pacific Pathways for Progress Foundation Inc. says that the South China Sea dilemma still allows competition and cooperation among China and ASEAN. He said that “the Philippines plays its best despite being small. Small states’ curse is usually impacted by big states (whether they make love or make war). There is always an impact, but we can implore them not to engage in war.”

In sum, renewed tension creates challenges in many ways: trust and confidence among parties involved, forging alliances for stronger maritime cooperation (i.e. ASEAN-U.S., ASEAN-Japan, ASEAN+3, and Philippines-PRC), strategic policy and direction for ASEAN to push for a Code of Conduct sooner or later, semantics and narratives of various media mileage exploiting the masses and social media through news and propagandas on the side (i.e. President Duterte’s usage of  “little maritime accident”), legal and diplomatic luminaries with different stands, political vis-a-vis decision making from the top-level, crisis communication systematized strategy, the balancing act among states in trade while the issue at hand is being exploited by interest groups abroad, how reliable the rules-based approach and multilateralism that the two countries have not been in-sync in previous negotiations, and the domestic politics affecting how political proponents react and implement.

The Way Forward

While this incident may have impaired the diplomatic relations of the two states, the Philippines needs to maintain open lines of communication given the robust economic ties and high-dense investment that both states have already engaged in since 2016. Simultaneously, the Philippines has to be increasingly cautious with its actions since any miscalculation may result in more coercive tactics by China in the South China Sea. 

Technically speaking, the situation is far from open conflict, since bilateral economic cooperation has been improved under the current administration. It will  and should always be China seeking closer partnership with the Philippines—not the other way around. The Philippines will always present China with a dilemma and an opportunity. on China’s dilemma and opportunity. Though others view the diplomatic protest of the Department of Foreign Affairs as hypocritical, even if China ignores the protests (as it often does), the Philippines still stands to benefit. We do not want to repeat the 2012 Scarborough Shoal Stand-off and the 2015 encounter of Filipino fishermen in the same area. During that time, the Philippines also lodged diplomatic protests with China over two alleged fishing-related incidents at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea.

We also have to be consistent in not tolerating such lies or fabrication for that matter (reversing the issue against Filipino fishermen), like the way China used as a pushback in 2013 Arbitration Case when they said that the tribunal (Permanent Court of Arbitration/PCA) debunked China’s claim of ownership to over 85.7% of enclosed water claimed by China using “nine-dash line,” which has no factual or legal basis.

In the long run, the Philippines has to push for and completely support the strict implementation of the Code of Conduct which has been overdue since 2017, when it was first discussed at the ASEAN Summit in the Philippines with other member-states. Despite President Rodrigo Duterte expressing concern and disappointment over the delay in the negotiations for a Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea last 34th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit Retreat on June 23rd, it still has to be supported by member states as an integral policy to push forward. Domestically, the Philippines needs to initiate fishing boat modernization programs, since the majority of the fishing boats being used in the Philippines are made from wood. Of course, Manilla needs an updated crisis communication system to be established with effective strategic communication from government agencies like DND, AFP, NSC, NICA, and the Office of the President. They have to formalize dialogue before issuing a press release to the public to avoid changing words from time to time.

In short, the June 9th incident is a wake-up call not only for the political and security sectors. Most of all, however, it is vital for the security of the commercial fishing industry, environmental protection, and especially human capital (in this case, Filipino fishermen). This is not just about those 22 Filipino fishermen; the entire population of the Philippines is dependent on maritime and food security as well.

Indeed, the Philippines has consistently presented grievances through multilateral forums, while China prefers bilateral negotiation. In other words, China has always opted for one-on-one talks about managing tensions in the absence of external actors. For us, China’s international security activism coupled with maritime gray zone operation, will continue in a multipolar regional security order. The most optimal way to manage this is to adhere to the rule of law while expanding economic connections with reliable trade partners to sustain national security based on national sovereignty and reducing hegemonic dependency. The Philippines must make use of all mechanisms at its disposal before asking for help.

Renewed Tensions Between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea was originally published on Global Security Review.

As the region’s economic and security landscape continues to evolve, and as Chinese interests in the region grow, the United States government must increase its engagement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) through two avenues: first, by confirming an ambassador to ASEAN, and second, by sending President Trump as the head of the U.S. delegation to the 2019 East Asia Summit (EAS). These two actions would send a powerful message about American interest in promoting economic partnership, balancing against Chinese influence, and promoting a rules-based order in Southeast Asia.

The East Asia Summit represents one of the most important diplomatic events in the region. Featuring heads of state and government from ASEAN members and invited guests, the EAS provides a forum for high-level engagement in a key strategic part of the world for American security and trade interests. In recognition of this reality, President Obama attended the event on five separate occasions after the United States first received an invitation to the summit in 2011. In the past two years, however, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Vice President Mike Pence have attended the summit instead of the president. Leading the American delegation to this year’s EAS would allow President Trump to show partners in ASEAN that America remains committed to dialogue and collaboration in the region, even as China increasingly asserts its own interests there.

The president’s attendance at the East Asian Summit would provide the United States with a high-profile opportunity to demonstrate resolve in Southeast Asia. Additionally, filling the vacant position of U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN would expand the number of channels for more sustained engagement. At this pivotal point for the region, the U.S. government must deepen its dialogue with regional partners even as the president attends this year’s summit to convey America’s high-level interest in Southeast Asia. China has recognized the importance of sending an ambassador to ASEAN, maintaining this representation without interruption since 2008. Given last year’s adoption of the ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership Vision 2030, this role will only grow in importance.

These steps forward in American engagement with ASEAN member states are increasingly necessary.

According to the China Global Investment Tracker, a collaboration between the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation, Chinese overseas investment in ASEAN member states has exceeded $55 billion since 2017. In Vietnam, for example, Chinese foreign investment has totaled almost $4 billion since the beginning of 2017. Meanwhile, in Indonesia, the host country of the U.S. Mission to ASEAN, Chinese investment reached nearly $9 billion in the same time period.

As February’s controversy surrounding the role of Chinese firm Huawei Technologies in the Thai government’s 5G infrastructure initiative demonstrates, however, increased economic integration between China and ASEAN member states can come at a significant cost. In this environment, the United States must utilize diplomatic means to underscore continued economic engagement in Southeast Asia.

Furthermore, these actions would send a message to the region: the United States seeks deeper diplomatic, economic, and strategic engagement with the nations of Southeast Asia, both on a more consistent basis and at the highest possible levels. Following last year’s passage of the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA), confirming a nominee for the position of U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN would also signal continued support for heightened American involvement in the region by both the U.S. Congress and the executive branch. As China seeks to extend its influence among ASEAN member states through the simultaneous uses of inducement and intimidation, protecting U.S. interests in the region needs a whole-of-government response.

ASEAN presents the United States with more opportunities than challenges.

China has recognized the strategic importance of the region and taken action to engage economically and diplomatically. The combined gross domestic product of ASEAN member states exceeds $2.5 trillion. Defense spending among littoral states surrounding the South China Sea will likely reach $250 billion annually by 2020. The president should travel to the East Asia Summit this year in pursuit of those opportunities for partnership, and he should nominate someone to serve as U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN to do the same.

In the past, the United States led the way in engaging with ASEAN. The government sent an ambassador to the organization’s headquarters and established a diplomatic mission there before any other non-member state. President Obama represented the United States at the East Asia Summit five times in six years; President Xi Jinping has yet to attend the gathering, and President Vladimir Putin attended for the first time last year. Confirming a qualified individual for the vacant ambassadorship and sending the president to this year’s summit would signify American leadership in engaging with ASEAN once again.

Two Ways for the United States to Deepen Diplomatic Engagement with ASEAN was originally published on Global Security Review.

The Indo-Pacific region will see a fundamental shift in the geopolitical status quo throughout 2019. This shift is the result of many factors, but the most prominent is China’s rise as a political, economic, and military great power. China’s rapid economic growth has provided the foundation for an expansion of the People’s Liberation Army and has dramatically increased the country’s international political clout. 

For nearly three decades, China’s economy greatly expanded due to low wages, a large workforce, substantial demand for raw materials, and investment by multinational corporations. In the U.S., many industries suffered as production was increasingly outsourced to Chinese factories. Furthermore, Chinese companies have enjoyed easy access to the U.S. market for decades, whereas U.S. firms are forced to hand over intellectual property and make other concessions to be granted access to Chinese markets. 

Washington has embarked on a campaign to induce Beijing to implement meaningful economic reforms. By imposing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods, the U.S. has effectively made it more difficult for Chinese products to enter U.S. markets. In doing so, the U.S. is attempting to force China to open its markets to U.S. goods and services and to eliminate harmful policies such as forced technology-sharing and joint-investment agreements.  

The challenge for China is that submitting to Washington’s demands would profoundly weaken China’s economy, which could seriously undermine the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party.  China is stuck between a rock and a hard place; even if Beijing were to offer to purchase more U.S. goods while gradually reducing barriers to foreign investment, it would take years for China to prove that it has been making good on its end of the bargain.

What’s Next for the U.S.-China Trade War?

It’s unlikely an immediate resolution will be found for the ongoing U.S.-China trade dispute. Instead, it’s likely that both countries will continue down the path of economic decoupling. The Trump Administration is encouraging multinational firms to reorient their supply-chains outside of China and is erecting barriers to Chinese investment in the United States. This year, U.S. policymakers will have to consider imposing another round of tariffs on the remaining $267 billion worth of Chinese goods imported into the U.S. each year, on top of the duties already imposed on some $250 billion worth of Chinese products. Furthermore, there is the possibility that lawmakers in Washington could introduce sanctions on Beijing in response to China’s mass-detention of Uyghurs in the western Chinese provinces of Xinjiang and Ningxia.

Due to China’s reliance on the U.S. consumer market, it will have difficulty retaliating on an equal scale. China’s wealthier coastal provinces, which host the bulk of the country’s export production capacity, are especially vulnerable to an extended trade dispute with the U.S. it will be difficult to respond due to its reliance on the U.S consumer market. That being said, Beijing has several cards left to play. The government can reduce taxes, offer subsidies, invest in infrastructure projects, and ease regulations to promote domestic consumption and economic growth in the private sector.

Beijing is also likely to use leverage the value of its currency to mitigate the damage inflicted by U.S. tariffs. As Chinese access to U.S markets is increasingly impeded, Beijing will seek new markets along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and pursue bilateral trade agreements to secure access to them.

Reorienting Global Supply-Chains

The United States will likely adopt an increasingly aggressive posture when it comes to the development and investment in strategic technological sectors. Tech firms in the U.S.—particularly those that work with dual-use (civil-military) technology—will come under increasing government supervision in 2019. Competition between China and the United States. Much like in Germany and France, the United States has been setting up barriers to Chinese investment in strategic sectors.

U.S. tech firms that work with dual-use civil-military technology will come under increasing government supervision in 2019. Such dual-use technology falls into categories such as aerospace, 5G networking, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and high-performance semiconductors. As it has done with Canada and European allies, the U.S. is likely to lobby its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region to implement expert controls on similar emerging technologies. Such measures will be detrimental to the operations of Chinese firms, some of which have already been branded as national security threats by governments around the world.

As multinational corporations move to reorient their supply-chains to decrease reliance on China, there are Asian states that will be in a position to benefit from the economic decoupling of the world’s two largest economies. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Phillippines all offer attractive alternatives to manufacturing in China. Additionally, many of these countries specialize in the production of certain goods. Vietnam, for instance, produces high-quality electronics and textiles, and Thailand and Malaysia both have formidable automobile manufacturing sectors.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, around one-third of American firms in China are considering moving their operations abroad due to the ongoing trade standoff. Regardless if they relocate or not, the ASEAN markets will emerge as attractive alternatives for global supply chains as foreign direct investment begins to rise throughout the region. These changes will not happen immediately. Firms will need time to find regional partners, navigate legal systems, and draft new agreements. It’s likely that the full effects of the U.S.-China trade dispute won’t be realized for three to five years, but there will be a lasting impact nevertheless.

Worsening Tensions in the South China Sea

Trade and technology aside, tensions in the South China Sea will continue to deteriorate. Beijing will likely take a more aggressive stance as it continues to militarize existing and reclaimed islands—bolstering its naval, missile, and air power capabilities in an apparent Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) strategy. China’s expanding presence will complicate matters for powers like the U.S. and Japan who regularly conduct freedom of navigation operations (FONOPS) in disputed waters.

China’s expansionary behavior and an increased presence by the United States and its allies increase the probability for accidents or a rapid escalation. Despite this, the U.S. Navy and its partners will continue to conduct FONOPS in the South and East China Seas. Furthermore, the U.S. may sell more advanced arms and technology to Taiwan and increase the number of FONOPS it conducts in the Taiwan Strait.

United States-China Rivalry Will Dominate Geopolitics in East Asia was originally published on Global Security Review.

China’s vast amounts of territory are inhabited by diverse groups of people—each with distinct cultural, political, economic, and religious traditions. Today, the Chinese Communist Party aims to forge a single, homogeneous “Chinese” national identity. Beijing is implementing policies designed to effectuate the forced ethnic and cultural assimilation of minorities like the Tibetans and the Uyghurs of Xinjiang.

This lack of a singular national identity was further compounded by a geographical landscape that impeded the establishment of a multipolar regional order like that of Europe. Europe’s plains and uplands are divided by rivers and mountain ranges—a vast swath of territory that enabled the rise of multiple, sovereign nation-states.

Eventually, European imperialist ambitions would extend this competition to the Americas, Africa, and Asia. As competing sovereign entities, European nation-states were actors an evolving political system that would eventually become known as the balance of power. This system upended the universalist status quo following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The term balance of power gained significance in the aftermath of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713.

China’s topography isn’t conducive to balance of power politics. Where the Europeans had space to expand and develop distinct national identities, China’s various competing groups had competed with one another for supremacy in the absence of a strong central authority. Each ruling dynasty followed a similar path to power, with minor exceptions.

Controlling the Chinese heartland allows for the control over all of China.

Until the tenth century, the Guanzhong Plain was the primary center of political power. Eventually, this concentration of wealth and power shifted to the North China Plain, which took on increased economic and cultural significance. The North China Plain then connected to the fertile Yangtze Plain. The importance of the North China Plain only increased as the Chinese empire expanded further to the north and the east.

The Yangtze Plain, by contrast, generated dynasties that instantly succumbed either to their weaknesses, like the Southern Song in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries or to their northerly competitors like the short-lived nationalist government did in the twentieth century.

The North China Plain’s political importance is primarily due to its geography. Unlike areas to the south, the North China Plain expands mostly uninterrupted by mountains and has fewer rivers. This facilitated rapid communication by horseback. This resulted in a mostly homogeneous linguistic makeup, relative to the many different languages and dialects that are found throughout southern China. The ability to communicate rapidly across a significant distance allowed political and economic power to be concentrated along the North China Plain.

While the North China Plain was primarily the political center of China after the tenth century, it was control over Zhongyuan (中原)—the Central Plains—that was central to the survival of any ruling dynasty. Each understood that control over the Central Plains—the Chinese heartland—would enable for the control over all of China. This principle, the “Heartland Theory” was laid out by British economic theorist Halford Mackinder in The Geographical Pivot of History.

Historically, China’s international relations were based on suzerainty rather than sovereignty.

The area that comprises the Chinese heartland is less than one-third the size of the European plains, albeit with a substantially higher population. These demographic and geographic variables inhibit the development of a system of competing sovereign states. As such, the concept of sovereignty was nonexistent in imperial China.

Whereas the great powers of Europe looked upon rival powers as peers and understood the concept of sovereignty, China held no such outlook. Up until the nineteenth century, China’s international relations were based on the idea of suzerainty. China considered itself to be without equal, seeing itself as the world’s cultural and political center. It managed its international relations through a tributary system.

The Mandarin word for China is Zhongguo (中国), which translates literally as the “Middle Kingdom.” This Sinocentric perception can be primarily be attributed to China’s geographical reality and the fact that it possessed no notion of national sovereignty. Political scientist Suzanne Ogden has discussed Chinese international relations as being fundamentally based on the concept of universal morality, one that is developed, implemented, and imposed on others by a single entity. This belief of “moral persuasion and cultural superiority” as Ogden puts it, is a significant driver of the narrative of Chinese exceptionalism.

The Chinese emperor was identified as the single “supreme authority under heaven.” The area “under heaven” was, therefore, subject to the emperor’s authority. The sole “supreme authority” was the emperor of the Middle Kingdom. During China’s imperial period, no word akin to “Chinese emperor” existed. In relations with other rulers, even those of European states, the Chinese viewed the emperor as a patriarchal figure to which there was no equal.

East Asia expert Alan M. Wachman explains that the Chinese emperor’s sovereignty or rule over the imperial Chinese state was “potential, not actual, control.” As such, the degree to which the emperor’s authority was accepted depended on the period and location in question. This belief guided the nation through generations of unification, expansion, fragmentation, and decline, prescribing an approach for handling each phase in the cycle.

At times of dynastic corrosion and rebellion, for example, defense and military strategy had been the answer for aspiring leaders. Furthermore, major infrastructure development projects like the Grand Canal and military incursions in the broader region helped a dynasty secure the “mandate of heaven”—thereby legitimizing its hold on power.

The bureaucracy was and is essential to central government’s exercise of political power. Auxiliary tiers of bureaucratic authorities within the central government’s control extended from the heartland to the rest of China, and beyond. Utilizing a tributary system of appointed officials and in rare circumstances, military forces, China’s leaders were able to diffuse their power within Central Asia, into the Korean Peninsula, and throughout Southeast Asia, consolidating their control over the heartland, China, and the world as they saw it.

Chinese notions of geopolitics failed to account for the importance of maritime power.

During the seventeenth century, however, the onset of the maritime era would interrupt China’s illusions of being a separate realm. Naval invaders began arriving on the nation’s shore, where the Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty, China’s last imperial dynasty, would eventually meet them.

Although the Manchu Qing possessed what Mackinder called the “superior mobility of horsemen and camelmen,” their approach to repelling invasions was no different from that of the previous ethnically Han Ming dynasty. Where the Han Ming dynasty constructed the Great Wall to protect against the Manchu, the Qing erected fortifications along the shoreline to keep foreign invaders at bay.

At that point, China hadn’t developed significant naval assets of its own, and its conceptualization of geopolitics wouldn’t include maritime power for three centuries. Even then, the geostrategic implications of robust naval power would garner little notice within China before Japan used its superior naval power to achieve victory over China in the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894 and 1895.

China’s defeat marked the beginning of another era of decline and the demise of the Sinocentric view of international relations. It took the so-called “century of humiliation” for China to comprehend that this worldview was no longer compatible with the rest of the world.

The broader geopolitical strategy which prevailed in the West did not serve the European powers far better. After fighting for control of the Eurasian landmass, what Mackinder dubbed the World Island, they emerged from two world wars and innumerable smaller conflicts only to see that the center of international power had moved across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States.

Contemporary Chinese foreign policy is rooted in the successes and failures of the past.

As maritime and land-based powers (the United States and the Soviet Union, respectively) expanded their spheres of influence across the globe, the combination of territory on the border of the Eurasian landmass and a shoreline seemed to sentence China to be on the margins of the international system.

Nevertheless, under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, China overcame its geographical circumstances, and in the process, its reasoning has evolved. The trials and tribulations it suffered through in the second half of the twentieth century, including the wars on the Korean Peninsula and in Vietnam, a U.S. naval quarantine, and concurrent pressure from the Soviet Union, encouraged China to realize its capabilities. The geography that once seemed a curse to Chinese theorists now brimmed with possibility.

The country’s location, in the end, provides it access to developed economies overseas and overland access to precious energy assets in Central Asia and the Middle East, an edge that economic theorist Nicholas Spykman identified in the early 1940s. China’s geopolitical goal was now to tap into wealth in the east, and technological advancement in the west, as stated by Chinese scholar Zhang Wenmu.

China’s ascendancy to great power status in the twenty-first century was primarily enabled by a combination of geographic, political, and economic factors. It’s economic growth allowed in this century an unprecedented concentration on naval development. The People’s Liberation Army Navy has grown substantially over the previous two decades, enabling the overseas projection of Chinese military power.

As it has done throughout history, China is embarking on an expansionary course more out of necessity than out of ambition. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), for instance, aims to ease the country’s economic and logistical dependence on its eastern coast while developing its less-developed interior regions.

Similarly, Beijing’s increasingly assertive maritime policy is another attempt to secure its access to overseas markets and preclude a challenger from presenting a threat to its multiplying global interests. There are consequences, however, for China’s increasingly aggressive expansionism.

China will attempt to outmaneuver these consequences wherever possible, as it strives to revise the terms of the international order. Chinese expansionism is a policy that will yield unpredictable results after centuries of a Sinocentrist approach to international relations. However, if the U.S. and its allies fail to provide and sustain a viable alternative to counter China’s hegemonic ambitions, Beijing will find it increasingly easier to rewrite the rules of global trade and security.

How Chinese Exceptionalism Fuels an Expansionist Foreign Policy was originally published on Global Security Review.

• The seven largest emerging market countries could grow, on average, around two times as fast as advanced G7 economies.
• Six of the seven largest economies in the world are projected to be emerging economies. In 2050, the global economy will be led by China, with India in second place, followed by Indonesia in fourth place.
• The United States is projected to be the world’s third-largest economy in 2050, based on gross domestic product (GDP).
• The European Union’s share of world GDP could fall below 10% by 2050.
• The U.K. could drop to tenth place, with France potentially cut from the top 10, and Italy falling from the top 20. They are projected to be overtaken by countries with faster-growing economies like Mexico, Turkey, and Vietnam (respectively).

The global economy could more than double in size by 2050, far outstripping population growth, thanks to continued technology-driven productivity improvements. Emerging markets will drive global financial growth, and will progressively increase their share of world gross domestic product, based on an analysis of World Bank economic projection data. The global economy is projected to approximately double in size by 2042, growing at an annual average rate of around 2.6% between 2016 and 2050.

This growth is expected to be primarily driven by emerging market and developing nations, with the Emerging-Seven (E7) economies of Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey growing at an annual average rate of almost 3.5% during the next 34 years, compared with an annual average growth rate of 1.6% for the G7 countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.

 Half of the seven largest economies in the world are still considered emerging markets.

A continued shift will be observed in international economic power away from high-income advanced economies towards emerging economies in Asia and elsewhere. The E7 could account for nearly 50% of the globe’s gross domestic product by 2050, while the G7’s share of global GDP declines to just over 20%.

China has already overtaken the U.S. to become the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, while India currently stands in third place and is projected to overtake the U.S. by 2050. In terms of PPP, the United Kingdom is projected to. fall to tenth place, France is forecasted to fall out of the top ten, and Indonesia could climb to fourth place by 2050

While looking at Gross domestic product measured at market exchange rates (MERs), one doesn’t see quite such a radical shift in international economic power, representing the lower average price levels in emerging economies.

However, China is projected to be the world’s largest economy by 2030, and India the third largest in the world by 2050. This reveals a considerable and gradual shift in economic power towards Asia and the Indo-Pacific region.

Emerging economies will take center stage by 2050.

By 2050 economies like Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico are likely to be bigger than those of the United Kingdom and France, while Egypt and Pakistan could overtake Italy and Canada. With regards to growth, Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh may be the most rapidly growing economies from 2015-2050, averaging an increase of around 5% annually.

Nigeria has the potential to be the fastest growing major African economy, and could potentially increase its national gross domestic product ranking from place to fourteenth by 2050. However, Nigeria will only realize this possibility if it can diversify its economy away from oil and strengthen its democratic institutions and national infrastructure.

Poland and Colombia exhibit great potential and are projected to be the quickest growing large economies in their respective regions; Latin America and the E.U. Many emerging economies will be supported by a relatively rapidly growing populations, boosting domestic demand and the size of the workforce.

Investments in education and improved economic freedoms are necessary to ensure there are enough jobs for the growing number of young individuals in these countries, providing a path of sustainable growth for countries with emerging markets and developing economies. 

Today’s advanced economies will continue to have higher average incomes, but developing countries will likely make progress towards eliminating that gap. With the possible exception of Italy, each of the G7 will rank above the E7 states in 2050, based on rankings of projected gross domestic product per capita.

Emerging Economies Will Hold Increasing Amounts of Global Economic Power by 2050 was originally published on Global Security Review.

Over the last few years, China and Russia have been quietly exporting their models of online information controls through the supply of surveillance and censorship equipment, as well as providing training in the latest information control techniques. However, Beijing and Moscow differ considerably in the way they control information online, and these differences will determine which is more popular with authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Africa.

Despots, dictators, and autocrats will pick the model they prefer using two criteria: the ambition of the censorship system (e.g. how much information can a system filter) and the technology and services required to maintain the system. China’s model outcompetes Russia’s model in both categories.

First, ambition. China’s model is more ambitious in the sense that it prioritizes real-time censorship as armies of censors—both in government and Chinese tech giants—scrub offending posts from online discussion. Beijing is also perfectly comfortable banning entire platforms and websites—Facebook, Google and Twitter have been inaccessible from the mainland for years. By contrast, rather than blocking these platforms, Russia relies on inducing chilling effects with the aim of ensuring a culture of continued future self-repression of information. For example, an administrator of a popular anti-government page on VK (a Russian analog to Facebook) or website might get a visit from the FSB in the middle of the night or charged with embezzlement. When chilling effects fail Moscow relies on sowing disinformation. In St. Petersburg for instance, hundreds of trolls are blogging in a full-time professional capacity and are being paid around $800 a month to write pro-Kremlin posts.

In essence, China filters the information as it is posted whereas Russia tries to scare people from posting offending material in the first place, as well as overwhelming any information that evades the chilling effect.

Second, technology and services. If you’re a despot looking to import information controls, you need to buy them from a country that has a good tech sector that can supply the hardware and related support services. While Russian companies, such as Protei, Oniks-Line and Signatek, provide information controls capabilities to some in the former Soviet Union, countries beyond Russia’s near abroad remain reluctant buying Russian equipment. This may be because they perceive Russian kit as less advanced or simply more expensive.

Chinese gear and techniques, in contrast, are in greater demand. China’s technological approach to censoring social media and its Great Firewall, also known as the Golden Shield Project, have diffused to Vietnam and Thailand. In Sri Lanka, Chinese representatives have provided counsel and support to local authorities on how to censor the internet. Chinese experts are reported to have installed surveillance and censorship equipment in Zambian networks. In Zimbabwe, Chinese gear was applied to jam independent broadcasts. In Ethiopia, ZTE and Huawei signed a contract worth $1.6 billion to develop that country’s telecommunications system and both companies are suspected of providing technical assistance to monitor citizens. Huawei and ZTE have also helped build Russia’s information controls, given that the country lacks some of the requisite technology to do so itself.

In sum, the future of an ever more balkanised internet, marked by national firewalls, censorship, and surveillance may be more Chinese than Russian. China’s information controls model may serve as an attractive example given that, contrary to exhortations from Western and donor governments, rapid economic growth does not suffer from pervasive information controls. Beijing seems to have found a recipe for a successful censorship model based on technology that is being readily adopted. This does not only pose a challenge to the Russian information controls model, but to an open and interoperable internet more broadly.

With a lack of new initiatives from Western countries leading the internet freedom agenda,  and an unwillingness to reign in their own companies in the provision of information controls equipment to authoritarian countries (e.g. BAE, Hacking Team, NSO Group, Blue Coat Systems), freedom of information will continue to decline, IP address by IP address, 32 bits at a time.

Why China’s Internet Censorship Model Will Prevail Over Russia’s was originally published on Global Security Review.

The visit is seen as a sign of both countries’ efforts to contest Chinese expansionism in the South China Sea. The USS Carl Vinson, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a crew of around 5,500 anchored off the central Vietnamese port city of Danang Monday for a five-day visit from March 5-9.

This is the first time a U.S. aircraft carrier has made a port call to Vietnam after the end of the Vietnamese War. Previously, however, smaller U.S. warships like the USS Frank Cable, a submarine tender, and the USS John S. McCain, visited Vietnam as ties between the former enemies have improved.

The visit sends a message to China.

The USS Carl Vinson’s visit comes as Vietnam’s northern neighbor China is embarking on a significant military buildup in the Parcel islands, which are claimed by Vietnam.

Furthermore, China has constructed seven artificial islands in the Spratlys territory, a region of the South China Sea that is also claimed by Vietnam.

Vietnamese envoys have reportedly been working to ameliorate Chinese concerns over the carrier visit alongside the prospect of broader military cooperation between Vietnam and the U.S.

The USS Carl Vinson is accompanied by a carrier battle group which includes the guided-missile destroyer, USS Michael Murphy. The group of ships is planning to sail through areas of the South China Sea that are claimed by China later in the month.

How will China respond?

In a statement, the U.S. Navy said that the carrier battle group is “promoting freedom of the seas and enhancing regional security.” China is likely to heighten its militarization efforts as a response, by accelerating island development or deploying fighter planes to the region.

China claims approximately 90 percent of the 2.17 million-square-mile (3.5 million square kilometers) South China Sea. These claims are contested by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

While the U.S. doesn’t claim territory in the South China Sea, it conducts regular “freedom of navigation” exercises in the region to ensure shipping lanes remain open and free for commercial use. Under the Trump administration, the U.S. has conducted “freedom of navigation” exercises approximately once every two months.

U.S. Aircraft Carrier Visits Vietnamese Port for First Time Since Vietnam War was originally published on Global Security Review.

U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis praised the expanding partnership between the United States and Vietnam, and lauded the upcoming visit of a U.S. aircraft carrier to Vietnam, during a visit to Hanoi on January 25, 2018.

“We thank you for the increasing partnership, with our carrier coming into Danang here in March,” Mattis told Nguyen Phu Trong, the General-Secretary of the Vietnamese Communist Party.

The visit of a U.S. aircraft carrier will be the first of its kind to a Vietnamese port and signals a growing defense partnership between the two countries. “It’s not final, but it all looked very encouraging,” Mattis told reporters. Pentagon officials have repeatedly stated that Vietnam’s prime minister—the official head of state—has the final sign-off on any visit to Vietnam by a U.S. aircraft carrier.

Secretary Mattis met with Vietnamese Defense Minister Ngo Xuan Lich during his visit to Hanoi.  The two leaders discussed plans to increase the degree military cooperation between their respective countries and agreed to expand defense cooperation between the U.S. and Vietnam over a three-year period. Areas of cooperation include maritime security, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and peacekeeping operations.

The U.S. has been increasingly committed to improving relations with Vietnam, notably as Hanoi has emerged as willing to resist China’s expansionist policies in the disputed regions of the South China Sea. Mattis said he believes “it’s in America’s best interest to see a strong and prosperous and independent Vietnam, and we intend to be a partner as we go forward.”

Mattis repeatedly emphasized areas of agreement and cooperation. “We are like-minded partners,” Mattis told Communist Party General-Secretary Nguyen. “So we do not have to search hard for areas of common agreement.”

Rising Tensions in the South China Sea

Vietnam maintains a policy of not engaging in formal military alliances. Therefore, U.S. officials are cautious about the pace of improving relations. However, Mattis stated that ties between the U.S. and Vietnam are “close now, and getting closer.”

President Barack Obama lifted a decades-old embargo on U.S. weapons sales to Vietnam in 2016. The U.S. currently has 24 active foreign military sales with Vietnam, valued around $70 million, according to U.S. officials. The U.S. recently transferred a Hamilton-class cutter to Vietnam’s Coast Guard—the largest ship in the country’s coast guard or navy. This was the first U.S. transfer of lethal military equipment to Vietnam.

An expanded relationship with Southeast Asian allies seems to play a significant role in the Pentagon’s new defense strategy, which is attempting to pivot U.S. attention from counterterrorism to managing a geopolitical rivalry with China and Russia.

Support for freedom of navigation and the rule of law in the South China Sea are essential components of U.S. values and foreign policy, according to Mattis. Beijing claims nearly the entirety of the South China Sea, ignoring the territorial claims of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and many of its other, smaller neighbors.

Vietnam’s increasing capability to stand up to China, supported by the U.S., could potentially serve as an effective deterrence to China’s increasingly aggressive expansionist activity in the South China Sea.

The U.S. and Vietnam Are Expanding Areas of Military Cooperation was originally published on Global Security Review.

Over two million Chinese workers have been laid off in recent months due to “overcapacity.” Companies have been shut down as employers either sold their businesses or simply disappeared. These layoffs have increased the numbers of unemployed youth in urban areas, increasing the risk of social unrest. Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping has suggested sending China’s increasingly debt-prone youth to work in the country, in a “Second Cultural Revolution.”

Few have taken the offer despite employment opportunities in farming, food processing, and rural tourism. Industrial manufacturing—comprising approximately 45 percent of China’s GDP—is suffering from debt-laden overproduction. Chinese corporations owe an aggregate amount equivalent to 170% of China’s GDP. China’s economy appears to be on shaky ground, as layoffs increase and consumer debt levels and capital flight skyrocket.

The state-supported National Institute for Finance and Development (NIFD) stated earlier this year that local and provincial governments, small businesses, and households owe an amount totaling 154 trillion yuan (almost $23 trillion)—228 percent of China’s GDP. The NFID estimates that household debt alone is projected to reach 66 trillion yuan ($8.45 trillion) within the next three years.

[bs-quote quote=”The government’s efforts to resettle urban unemployed in the country could be a preemptive attempt to disperse concentrations of disaffected workers to more rural environs.” style=”style-5″ align=”center”][/bs-quote]

Corruption, Speculation, and Money Laundering

Economists and media pundits within China have recently escalated rhetoric critical of financiers and industrial elites. Wang Xiangwei, a Beijing-based media pundit, harshly criticized speculators and financial tycoons for their prolific exploitation of regulatory loopholes and government connections.

In the South China Morning Post, Wang wrote that these speculators secured cheap loans for themselves while issuing high-risk financial products to finance projects and investments both within and outside of China.

Furthermore, China’s wealthy have begun moving massive amounts of capital abroad, under the guise of the government’s call for investing overseas—termed “going out.” A particular tactic being used is inflating the value of one’s domestic assets and guaranteeing these funds to overseas branches of Chinese banks, which in turn provide them with overvalued loans which finance asset acquisitions abroad.

Lay-Offs and Labor Disputes

China’s massive labor force has enabled it to become the globe’s manufacturing hub, creating massive domestic economic growth. Unemployment insurance covers only about 10% of China’s 270 million migrant workers according to the Chinese Government’s statistics agency.

Lin Yanling, of the Beijing-based China Institute of Industrial Relations, says that “the size of China’s labor force has peaked, but it’s wrong to think that there will be no employment problems.” Lin said 80% of China’s workers are “in a weak position” regarding their job and wage security, adding “if the economic situation is not good, their position will become even weaker.”

Any mass-disruption for manufacturing workers, migrant workers, or other low-wage worker is bound to have consequences for internal stability that could prompt a forceful intervention by the government. This and ongoing wage stagnation are the two issues of greatest concern. Thus, the government’s efforts to resettle urban unemployed in the country through offers of paying jobs could be a preemptive attempt to avoid internal disruption by dispersing concentrations of disaffected workers to more rural environs.

Long-Term Stability over Short-Term Growth

According to the South China Morning Post, the impending economic crisis is rooted in expansive fiscal policy, increased government spending, rising property values, extremely lax monetary policies, record-high bank lending, and exploitation of regulatory loopholes. In 2009, during the last economic crisis in China, then-Premier Wen Jiabao oversaw the disbursement of over $500 billion to stimulate the stagnating economy. This provided badly needed relief to the economy, but ongoing corruption and crony capitalism, combined with rising competition from lower-wage countries like Vietnam, ensured that growth continued to stagnate.

Between 2010 and 2015, Chinese economic growth steadily declined from 10.5% (annual GDP growth) to 6.9%, respectively. The current GDP growth target is 6.5%. Louis-Vincent Gave, co-founder of Gavekal Research, recently said “the 6.5% growth target, you can still achieve it, but at a higher and higher cost. So why would they [the Chinese Government] want to keep doing that?” Gave added that the practice of dropping growth targets could serve to decrease short-term growth, but promote long-term sustainable growth.

Thus, this practice would align with Xi Jinping’s initiative to increase risk management capabilities. While increased oversight would impede short-term growth, it would offer a safety net to the overall economy, while structural reforms would ensure longer-term economic stability.

Rising Debt, Corruption, and Unemployment Will Haunt China Throughout 2018 was originally published on Global Security Review.

Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made some surprising remarks about China and the South China Sea during his recent Senate confirmation hearings. He said the US should “send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops, and second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.”

His comments created a furor in the international media as it seems the US might resort to force by blockading the Chinese-occupied features in the South China Sea.

James Mattis, Trump’s defense secretary nominee, was more circumspect in his remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee. He identified defense of so-called “international waters” as the “bottom line” for the US, suggesting the US would defend freedom of navigation in the South China Sea without challenging the Chinese presence there.

Mattis’ comments were in line with US policy towards the South China Sea while Tillerson’s remarks were not. But why is the South China Sea so strategically crucial to the US anyway?

The Chinese regularly castigate the Americans for “meddling” in the area and have difficulty understanding why the US takes a stand on the issue. In their view, the US is making trouble for China and preventing its rise as a high power. The Chinese want to see the Americans abandon the South China Sea and withdraw from the western Pacific.

Some commentators in the US and elsewhere agree. They argue that this would allow America to forge an accommodation with China, which would remove the prospect of conflict between the world’s two largest economies and bring peace and stability.

Others have called for a G-2 or a US-China accord that would settle global problems. They claim that the US is already overstretched and should return to the “offshore” position that it had before the Korean war broke out in 1950. Why let the South China Sea get in the way of this possible accommodation?

Chinese regional presence

The South China Sea has become critical to the US because of China’s challenge to the liberal rules-based order that America has promoted since the Pacific war. The post-war regional order was based on the American presence, which set the stage for impressive economic growth and regional prosperity without the threat of war or conflict.

It ensured that maritime disputes and territorial claims would be resolved through negotiation and not military power. And it served as the basis for the development of trade and regional economic relations from which all countries in the region benefited.

America’s concern with the South China Sea is a result of China’s effort to secure control over the maritime territory and the resources it contains. China insists on “indisputable sovereignty” over the area but some other claimants – Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines – have the law on their side.

All have exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the South China Sea, which is their right under UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and which the Chinese dismiss. To clarify the matter, the Philippines appealed to a tribunal convened under UNCLOS to rule on the situation.

In July 2016, the tribunal issued its judgment and upheld the rights of the ASEAN claimants to their EEZs, noting that the Chinese claim had no legal basis. China, however, has ignored legality in this dispute and is prepared to back its claim with military power. If it does not recognize the rules, the regional order that the US has been promoting breaks up.

China has militarized the Spratly Islands by engaging in reclamation projects in the South China Sea. The Chinese have been dredging sand from the ocean floor and extending the size of seven reefs they have occupied.

They have constructed three airfields there; two are 3,000 meters in length, one is 2,600 meters. These airfields can support military aircraft including bombers and large transport aircraft. With this military presence, China would be able to control the South China Sea. And its strengthened position has geopolitical consequences for the US.

The way ahead

The South China Sea has become an essential area for the implementation of China’s naval strategy, including blockading Taiwan, and power projection into the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It also has some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

The Chinese often say that they respect freedom of navigation but can they be trusted? The Japanese think not. During a territorial dispute with Japan in 2010, the Chinese banned the supply of rare earth metals, which were necessary for Japan’s electronics industry, to the country.

The Chinese could block Japanese trade, which would need to be diverted elsewhere at considerable cost. Indeed, control of the South China Sea would allow China to interfere with Japanese and South Korean trade conducted through the area.

For America, then, the future of the current regional order and the security of its allies – Japan and South Korea – is at stake. To maintain its geopolitical position in the western Pacific, the US is obliged to defend the regional alliance system and reassure local powers who are concerned about China’s intentions.

Leaving the South China Sea to the Chinese would undermine that alliance system and America’s presence in the western Pacific. China would become the dominant power in the area, and regional countries would gravitate towards it.

In October 2015, the Obama Administration responded to China’s actions by launching “freedom of navigation” naval patrols in the South China Sea, sending a clear signal that America would not be chased out of the area.

By all indications, the Trump administration is likely to be more aggressive in resisting China in the South China Sea and more forceful about preventing the erosion of America’s position in the region.

Trump has already broken with diplomatic convention by speaking with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen over the phone. More can be expected to demonstrate a new American assertiveness.

One possibility is the formation of an American South China Sea naval squadron that would maintain a regular presence in the region to show the Chinese that they cannot dominate the area. The Trump administration might also strengthen security ties with Japan and attempt to orchestrate the creation of a coalition of powers bringing together Australia, India, as well as Japan, to stand up to China.

Why is the South China Sea So Important to the U.S.? was originally published on Global Security Review.