DIPLOMACY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
1. Context
Due to its intensifying geopolitical competition with the U.S. and its security interests in the region, China is expanding its military outreach to Southeast Asian countries. The Chinese
People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s global activities and influence campaigns are part of its broader reform process initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, and form a fundamental element of China’s overall foreign policy.
People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s global activities and influence campaigns are part of its broader reform process initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, and form a fundamental element of China’s overall foreign policy.
2. What is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) currently undertaking?
- The PLA and the Laotian People’s Armed Forces (LPAF) have recently concluded their bilateral military exercise, Friendship Shield 2023. The drills aim to foster interoperability to effectively “counter transnational armed criminal groups based in jungles and mountains.”
- This week-long exercise comes on the heels of Laos’ Foreign Affairs Minister Saleumxay Kommasith’s visit to China last month. The PLA Southern Theatre Command (PLA STC) is leading a massive delegation to the LPAF’s Kommadam Academy for the exercise.
- This includes 200 troops from the 75th Group Army’s combined-arms brigade, assault vehicles such as the 4x4 MRAP Dongfeng CSK141 (Mengshi), as well as equipment for maritime replenishment, mine clearance, explosive disposal, and epidemic prevention.
- Before this, in 2023, the PLA STC conducted the ‘Golden Dragon’ drills with Cambodia from late March to early April. This too came on the heels of a high-level meeting held between Zhang Youxia, Vice-Chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission (CMC), and the army commander of the Royal Cambodian Army, Hong Manai, in February this year.
- All of these joint military endeavors were preceded by a visit from a Chinese Ministry of National Defence working group to Laos, Vietnam, and Brunei, where the two sides discussed “the relationship between the two militaries and regional security issues of common concern”.
- These are a few of the many instances of China’s military diplomacy with Southeast Asian countries. And in the past couple of months, the frequency of Chinese military drills with its ASEAN partners appears to have increased for two primary reasons.
- Firstly, Xi Jinping has put excessive emphasis on defence diplomacy under his flagship Global Security Initiative (GSI).
- Second, China’s threat perception of expanding the United States military engagement with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially those countries that China has disputes with the South and East China Seas region.
3. Initiatives by China to Enhance Engagement in South Asia:
According to the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker, China has committed around 100 billion USD in the economies of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. China is now the largest overseas investor in the Maldives, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
- Afghanistan: Beijing was a part of the trilateral China-Pakistan-Afghanistan foreign ministers dialogue which focuses on facilitating Afghan domestic political reconciliation, enhancing regional connectivity, and improving regional common development. The trilateral discussions also agreed to push “forward under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” and “to enhance connectivity by extending the CPEC to Afghanistan”.
- Bangladesh: China and Bangladesh pledged to deepen defense cooperation, especially in the areas of “defense industry and trade, training, equipment, and technology. China is also the largest arms supplier of the Bangladeshi military, providing 71.8% of weapons from 2008 to 2018.
- Bhutan: It does not have diplomatic relations with China.
- Maldives: China’s relationship with the Maldives is near-exclusively focused on leveraging BRI to develop Maldives as well as to raise Chinese influence there to counter India.
- Nepal: Chinese President went to Nepal in 2019. This was the first visit by a Chinese head of state in 23 years. The countries have signed agreements to accelerate Infrastructure building in Nepal and improve connectivity between them. Both countries have also announced the launch of a feasibility study of the China-Nepal cross-border railway.
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Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka handed over Hambantota port on a 99-year lease to China to repay its loan to China. Hambantota is geostrategically located on the Indian Ocean, potentially bolstering Beijing’s String of Pearls.
4. How does the GSI challenge the ASEAN's cohesiveness?
- The GSI invited varied responses from the ASEAN, which reflect the classic divergences in intra-association stances on bandwagoning and hedging between China and the U.S.
- First, in November 2022, during the ASEAN-China Summit in Cambodia, all parties cautiously agreed to “take note of the GSI proposed by China with core elements consistent with the principles and spirit of the Treaty of Amity,” and “looked forward to further details of the GSI.”
- Over the past few months, the divergences have become visible. As per ISEAS’s ‘State of Southeast Asia Survey 2023’, on average, 27% of those surveyed in the 10 ASEAN place confidence in the GSI.
- These figures, alone, are not enough to determine how ASEAN countries respond to China’s expanding comprehensive national power. For example, China’s heavy Belt and Road investments have been welcomed by Indonesia.
- Moreover, despite tensions in the South China Sea, Indonesia has been proactively applauding Chinese support in the advancement of its vaccine programme and its high-speed rail network.
- On the other hand, in Myanmar, despite a majority of observers placing little to no confidence in the GSI, China is making political, military and economic inroads.
- Since the junta takeover, the development of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor has only accelerated, while new satellite imagery shows China building a surveillance military base on Great Coco Islands in Myanmar.
- This also impacts India because the Great Coco Islands lie just 55 km north of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and their militarisation by China poses a strategic threat to India’s national security.
5. Increasing proximity of the U.S. with the Philippines
- China continues to face competition from the U.S. in its bid to establish a sphere of influence over Southeast Asia.
- The Proximity of the U.S. with the Philippines, with whom China shares a disputed maritime border in the Luzon Strait in the South China Sea, is worrisome for China.
- What has perhaps recently irked China the most is the Philippines' decision to provide the U.S. with access to four military bases in addition to the five bases the U.S. already had access to, under the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement between the two sides.
- China has accordingly structured the message around its exercises with Cambodia, Singapore, and Laos as a warning to the Philippines, with a Chinese military commentator Fu Qinghao saying that these exercises " make a model for other countries in the region, including the Philippines, which has been leaning towards the U.S.
6. China's aggressive behavior in Southeast Asia
- To defend its claims and interest in the region, China is likely to pursue both aggressive military posturing and diplomacy in Southeast Asia.
- In early May, for example, Chinese surveillance vessel Xiang Yang Hong 10, accompanied by a contingent of eight other maritime vessels, attempted to intimidate the navies of India and ASEAN countries engaged in the first edition of a multilateral naval drill in the South China Sea.
- Satellite intelligence also shows China preparing a new naval base in the Ream region of Cambodia.
- However, despite China's military and economic inroads in the region, it must prove to ASEAN countries sitting on the fence that it can exercise restraint and act by the provisions of a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (which has yet to come into force).
- This is also essential for it to win the ASEAN's confidence for the GSI, which will otherwise, and for good reason, continue to cautiously hedge and balance between American and Chinese influence operations in the region.
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For Prelims: South China Sea, ASEAN, People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Laotian People’s Armed Forces (LPAF), and Global Security Initiative (GSI).
For Mains: 1. What is Defence Diplomacy and explain its significance. How does the Global Security Initiative (GSI) challenge the ASEAN's cohesiveness? (250 Words)
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Previous year Question
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1. Which one of the following statements best reflects the issue with Senkaku Islands, sometimes mentioned in the news? (UPSC 2022)
A. It is generally believed that they are artificial islands made by a country around the South China Sea.
B. China and Japan engage in maritime disputes over these islands in the East China Sea.
C. A permanent American military base has been set up there to help Taiwan to increase its defense capabilities.
D. Though the International Court of Justice declared them as no man's land, some South-East Asian countries claim them.
Answer: B
2. Southeast Asia has captivated the global community's attention over space and time as a geostrategically significant region. Which among the following is the most convincing explanation for this global perspective? (UPSC 2011)
A. It was the hot theatre during the Second World War.
B. Its location is between the Asian powers of China and India.
C. It was the arena of superpower confrontation during the Cold War period.
D. Its location between the Pacific and Indian oceans and its pre-eminent maritime character.
Answer: D
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Source: The Hindu
