X-Post: SAAG - Western Pacific No Longer Pacific

By Dr Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

Western Pacific as the Western half of the Pacific Ocean has never been free of major powers rivalry ever since the end of World War II. The Cold War in Europe got extended to the Western Pacific which witnessed the United States and the Former Soviet Union locked in a military tussle.

During Cold War I the United States put into place a dual strategy for the forward defence of Mainland USA, far deep into the Western Pacific. It comprised a spider-web of bilateral security alliances with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Philippines providing for US security guarantees against any Communist threat from the USSR and China. Secondly, the United States entered into agreements with these nations, excepting Taiwan, for hosting Forward Military Presence of US Forces in their territories.

This US security architecture has held firm ever since then despite the disintegration of the USSR and the fading away of the Russian threat. Only the Philippines as part of its China hedging strategy had withdrawn the facility of United States using its naval and air force bases.

In the decade when the USSR was in the last throes of disintegration, China had made significant economic progress by kind courtesy of US and Japanese foreign direct investments. In the Post -Cold War I Phase, China with a burgeoning economy had carried out rapid military modernization and up- gradation with aspirations to emerge as the dominant power in the region of the Western Pacific.

The China Threat was therefore in the making in the 1990s and fully manifested itself in the decade of the2000s. China in the pursuit of its great power aspirations had unleashed unabashedly in the second decade of the 21^st Century, what can be termed as Cold War II comprising designation of Taiwan, Tibet, Xingjian and the South China Sea as China’s ‘Core Interests” meriting China going to war to protect its “Core Interests”. Military aggressiveness, armed interventions and gunboat strategies started emerging from China.

Obviously, the United States with entrenched strategic and security interests in the Western Pacific could no longer be a passive spectator The China Threat manifesting itself in multiple forms to its security and to those of its Allies in the Western Pacific who shouldered and hosted the US security architecture in this vital region.

The security environment emerging in the Western Pacific has both regional and global military implications. This also has regional and global economic implications when one remembers that the global shift of economic power to Asia has primarily arisen from China and Japan.

With the above in mind, this Paper would like to focus on the following related issues:

• Western Pacific: The Strategic Significance for the United States and China
• Western Pacific: Notable Features of the Security Environment in 2013
• Western Pacific Does Not Lend itself to Conflict Resolution
• Future Perspectives on Western Pacific Security Environment

Western Pacific: The Strategic Significance for the United States and China

The strategic significance of the Western Pacific for the United States and China lies in the geographical configuration whose notable features are as under:

• The Western Pacific rests on the East Asia littoral comprising Russia, China and Vietnam.
• Parallel to the East Asia littoral the Western Pacific run a strategic islands chain extending from the Korean Peninsula to the Indonesian archipelago.
• This island chain virtually hems in the East Asia littoral and comprises Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. Each of these also having sovereignty over outlying small islands which are now disputed by China.
• The Western Pacific comprises a number of seas. Starting from the North these are the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and the South China Sea. Moving a bit westwards is the Sea of Japan

The strategic significance for the United States of this geographical configuration of the Western Pacific emerges from the following military considerations:

• The United States is provided both an outer perimeter of defence of Mainland United States and a springboard in close proximity to China for a military intervention.
• With a combination of geographical proximity to Mainland China and the military deployments of United States and its Allies, this permits a virtual hemming-in of China in military terms.
• In this island chain configuration only a few corridors exist for the Chinese Navy to breakout into the wider Pacific Ocean.

To breakout of such a military gridlock China’s primary strategic priority should have been to sow doubts on US reliability as a security guarantor of the countries of the Western Pacific which in turn could unravel the US security architecture. China succeeded temporarily in this direction in case of South Korea and Philippines.

More significantly are the Chinese claims to islands in the South China Sea and East China Sea. This is not only determined by hydrocarbon reserves but also by the military factor that these disputed islands in China’s possession would provide China bases for deployment of its military assets as part of its area denial and anti-access strategies against US naval and air power intervention.

Such disputed islands which virtually lie astride vital sea lanes of commerce to Japan and South Korea and Western United States could be strangulated by China by deployment of long range anti-ship missiles on these disputed islands.

Western Pacific: Notable Features of the Security Environment in 2013

The Western Pacific in 2013 seems to resemble the Cold War I security environment. The only difference being that the USSR stands replaced by China as the major threat to Western Pacific security and stability.

Further, unlike the USSR in Cold War I, which was set in a strategic tussle with only the United States at the global level, China’s strategic tussle in Cold War II manifests itself both at the global level in terms of seeking parity with the United States and at the regional level with Japan , Vietnam and other ASEAN countries.

In 2013 in military terms, China by its own aggressive and posturing has generated security disquiet in all Western Pacific countries and generating a palpable ‘China Threat” perception.

The first decade of the 21^st Century witnessed The China Threat assuming dangerous contours due to US military distractions in Afghanistan and Iraq, leaving China to advance unrestrained in its military expansion.

Sensing the strategic concerns generated by China in the Asia Pacific, the United States made a riposte in the nature of the Obama Doctrine incorporating a US ‘strategic pivot’ to Asia Pacific and ‘rebalancing’ of US military postures in Western Pacific.

In 2013, the security environment in Western Pacific seems to be marked by the following:

• China’s military aggressiveness and assertiveness becoming noticeably marked in the South China Sea with ASEAN countries and with Japan in the East China Sea.
• Chinese military brinkmanship is touching dangerous levels and adding to flashpoints in the Western Pacific
• More than 30% of the colossal Chinese Defence Budget is now being devoted to build-up of Chinese naval power and force-projection assets.
• North Korea as China’s military protégé and proxy for disruptive activities in the Western Pacific is not being restrained by China
• Countries in the region can be said to be engaged in military acquisitions and modernisation as a consequence of the above.
• Japan as the pee competitor of China is now actively engaged in rebalancing its defence postures, including amending its Peace Constitution.
• The United States has gone in for a Southward realignment of its military deployments permitting better response times against any Chinese armed conflict in the South China Sea.
• Philippines is reconsidering opening the old US bases in its territory for US reactivation
• Reports also suggest that Vietnam may offer the Cam Ranh naval base to the United States.

In overall terms, such feverish military or military related activities suggest that the Western Pacific security environment in 2013 is fast emerging as one pregnant with explosive possibilities. 

Western Pacific Does Not Lend itself to Conflict Resolution

The Western Pacific very much like Central Europe in Cold War I seems headed towards congealed lines of confrontation, though this time it is more in the maritime domain.
Western Pacific military confrontations are operating at two separate planes. The first is the overall strategic tussle between the United States and China. China as the revisionist power would gamble on brinkmanship to achieve its national aspirations to be counted as a strategic co-equal of USA. 

The second level is of the United States as the status-quo power sustaining its existing security architecture in the Western Pacific and now reinforcing and rebalancing it. Basically it would involve that the United States stands by its security guarantees to its Allies in the region against any armed conflict ensuing from China on their territorial disputes. This would also include the commitment of a US nuclear umbrella, in the event of a ‘China Threat’ emanating.

In the first case, there is no ideological conflict or even any territorial dispute. It is out and out power struggle which brooks no conflict resolution initiatives. Can China as part of any conflict resolution initiative be advised to give up its global aspirations? Can the United Sates be asked that it should now cede strategic space in the Western Pacific to accommodate China's global aspirations? The answer in both cases is ‘no’.

In the second case too where US allies or its new strategic partners and friends are involved in territorial disputes with China, the latter is not receptive to any conflict resolution. China resorts to a subterfuge that any dialogue on disputes can only be bilateral in nature. Inherent in any conflict resolution initiatives is the involvement of mediators/regional organisations/multi-party mechanisms, a fact that China is not willing to concede. On both counts therefore the Western Pacific does not lend itself to any conflict resolution.

Future Perspectives on Western Pacific Security Environment

In terms of perspectives, the Western Pacific security environment offers no scope for optimism. On the contrary, unless there is slow-down or breakdown in the growth of Chinese economy, China’s expanding military profile both conventional and nuclear can be expected to grow.

China’s resort to political and military brinkmanship is unlikely to cease in the coming decades. Chinese nationalism is at an all-time high and is likely to grow as the Chinese regime stokes nationalism to divert attention from China’s growing domestic unrest and problems.

As China’s military brinkmanship intensifies on territorial disputes, there is an increasing likelihood of a US military intervention especially in the case where Japan is involved. The US secretary of State and the US Defense Secretary have publicly asserted to that effect.

While China can be expected to step back from an all-out armed conflict involving the United States, the reality that is likely to persist is that a Cold War template will persist in the future in the Western Pacific.

Also what needs to be noted that in terms of military perspectives any future conflict in the Western Pacific would primarily be maritime in nature to begin with. Hence the current race in the Western Pacific amongst all protagonists for build-up of naval warfare capabilities and submarines. 

Concluding Observations

In the Western Pacific intersect most intensely the strategic interests and power tussle between the United States and China. Also intersecting within this overall framework are the regional power rivalries between China and Japan and between China and Vietnam and the Philippines on the South China Sea islands disputes.

Increasingly, the United States would tend to get drawn in regional disputes between US Allies and friends with China. The United States would not be allowed the luxury of ‘strategic detachment’ from the prevailing Western Pacific security environment. It would then run the risk of witnessing the unravelling of its security architecture in the region

The United States will ultimately have to resort a containment strategy against China in the Western Pacific.

Source: SAAG

 ( Subhash Kapila is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila.007@gmail.com)

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US, China Aim to Boost Pacific Influence

Source: Australia Network News-Newsline

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea have divided ASEAN and caused friction between China and the United States.But that's not the only place in the Asia-Pacific where the world's two biggest powers are competing for influence.

Later this month Pacific Island leaders will hold their annual forum in the Cook Islands.Both the US and China are sending powerful delegations and, for the first time, an American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will attend. Pacific correspondent Sean Dorney reports. (Video posted below)

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X-Post: The National - US ‘Invasion’ Of The Pacific

In the days of the Cold War, the Pacific firmly belonged to the United States’ Pacific Fleet. The Pacific consisted, in the minds of US military strategists as a theatre, a wide expanse of ocean with a sprinkling of islands and dreamy islanders in grass skirts swaying on white sandy beaches like the coconut palms to the strum of ukuleles. Simplistic, perhaps, but that is how the islander felt he was being treated. If the US needed to dump highly toxic nuclear waste or test nuclear weaponry, or even transport nuclear arsenal through the region, it did not feel anybody deserved the courtesy of being informed.

The ANZUS Treaty collapsed as a direct result of this arrogant stance by the US. But times are a-changing. US influence in the region, while still very influential, is being challenged both militarily and economically by the rising might of China and India. What does it all mean for little nations in the South Pacific like Papua New Guinea? The first thing really is to wake up to the fact that this geopolitical game is being played. So far it has been behind in these considerations, perhaps because quality and up to date advice at that global and regional level has not been going to government or if it has then it has been ignored. Either way such ignorance or neglect is very costly as we shall see.

This country does not have a comprehensive national security policy which would take into account regional and global socio-economic-political-security realities and their implications on the nation. A national security policy would tell Papua New Guinean politicians that the Ramu nickel/cobalt mine does not need to enjoy a 10-year tax holiday and other concessions running into tens of millions of kina that have been given away at tremendous future cost to this nation. This mine is not merely a financial economic investment. It is also an extension of Chinese geo-political interests in the region.

...The first thing really is to wake up to the fact that this geopolitical game is being played...

It has the blessing of the Chinese government. The benefits, while huge to PNG, are negligible to China but, through the company, that country has gained a foothold here. Likewise, the massive investment by ExxonMobil, the US petroleum giant, in the PNG liquefied natural gas project. It too has received concessions which will in time appear as if our leaders have robbed the cradle, it has given away the wealth of future generations. The US government has more than a passing interest in this project if the lead role played by the US credit agency in the financing of the project is any indication. It too would have happened and did not need the concessions.

Progressively, the people and governments in the region are coming more and more into focus as both China and the United States compete for strategic influence and control. The US is moving its Okinawa military base to Guam. The United States has stepped up its commitment to work with its Pacific Island partners with the second visit to the region by the US assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Kurt M. Campbell, and the Pacific Fleet commander, Admiral Cecil Haney, with an interagency delegation. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will, for the first time, attend a South Pacific Forum annual meet in the Cook Islands later this month.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta announced in Singapore last weekend that by 2020, the greater part of the American naval forces – including six aircraft carrier battle groups as well as a majority of the navy’s cruisers, destroyers, Littoral Combat ships and submarines – will be stationed in the Asia-Pacific. Following a visit to PNG, Australia and New Zealand by the Chinese vice-premier last year, Clinton did exactly the same. China seeks, it appears, nothing less than an historic shift in the Asia-Pacific balance of power.

For a long time it has been contained in the confines of its territorial boundaries but with increasing economic might, the temptation is natural to break the strangle hold the might US Pacific Fleet has enjoyed in this region since World War II. It will want to break out and protect the sea lanes of South China and South East Asian seas. Last year alone, almost US$6 trillion in trade was plied along the sea routes off South Korea, Japan, China and Vietnam, while half of all global trade passed through the Indian Ocean.

A crisis in either body of water would affect the entire world economy. PNG might not contribute to a crisis were that to occur but it stands to gain by being conscious of what goes on in the wider world rather than be inward looking all the time.

 Source: The National


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X-Post: WSWS - Australia Normalises Relations With Fiji.

By Patrick O’Connor
4 August 2012

Australia has re-established full diplomatic ties with Fiji and dropped most of the sanctions that were imposed against the military regime after the 2006 coup. The Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard is seeking to counter China’s growing diplomatic influence in Fiji and the South Pacific region.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr met with Fiji’s foreign minister Inoke Kubuabola in Sydney last Monday. Carr then announced that travel restrictions on government members and their families would be reassessed on a “case by case basis” and the two countries would exchange high commissioners. Carr later explained that only serving members of the military in the government would remain potentially subject to the travel ban.

Patrick O’Connor

" The Australian government’s rapprochement with the regime underscores that it has never been concerned about the democratic rights of the Fijian people. "

Australia’s last senior diplomat in Fiji was expelled in November 2009. Carr described his meeting with Kubuabola as “a very good one, a very constructive one that looked to the future.” He said the normalisation of diplomatic relations represented “a token of the progress that has been made” toward holding elections in Fiji.

Military leader Frank Bainimarama, Fiji’s self-appointed prime minister, has outlined plans to hold a vote in 2014. Previously, the Australian government condemned these election proposals, but Carr this week hailed “the commitment the interim government in Fiji has made to the process of constitutional consultation [and] the work that’s taken place towards a constitution, their work on the electoral rolls, their work towards an election in 2014.”

The abrupt about-face has nothing to do with any change in the situation in Fiji. The military regime continues to violate the democratic rights of the Fijian population and has foreshadowed that it will continue to intervene in the country’s political affairs after the 2014 election. There have been several reports that the military plans to remain in power by forming a political party modelled on the Golkar party of former Indonesian dictator Suharto.

Bainimarama appears to be targeting his rivals ahead of any election. Laisenia Qarase, who was deposed as prime minister in 2006, was yesterday imprisoned on corruption charges dating back to the early 1990s. Qarase’s conviction, on charges that his lawyers insist were politically motivated, means that he cannot contest the election. Labour Party leader Mahendra Chaudhry, another former prime minister, also faces the prospect of being barred from standing. He has been prosecuted for violating foreign exchange laws by allegedly holding party donations in Australian bank accounts.

The Australian government’s rapprochement with the regime underscores that it has never been concerned about the democratic rights of the Fijian people.
The initial imposition of sanctions, like the latest diplomatic initiative, was driven by strategic calculations. Canberra did not want the 2006 coup to trigger wider political instability in the South Pacific that could undermine its strategic dominance in the region and open the door for rival powers to gain ground.

Patrick O’Connor

"The timing of the sudden reversal may be due to pressure from Washington. Secretary of State Clinton is reportedly planning to attend the Pacific Islands Forum annual meeting later this month in the Cook Islands."

But the “hardline” stance backfired—the sanctions and diplomatic censures failed to force the military from power, while encouraging the regime to look to other countries for support, above all China. Defying the Australian government’s pleas not to support the regime, Beijing stepped up its aid and investment in Fiji, and also developed close ties between the Chinese and Fijian armed forces.

By 2010, the US State Department regarded this as an untenable situation. The Obama administration had announced a strategic “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific, launching diplomatic and military initiatives to counter China’s growing influence and maintain the dominant position that US imperialism has enjoyed throughout the region since World War II. Washington’s shift included normalising relations with authoritarian governments, such as in Burma, which had previously been subjected to sanctions but are now embraced as part of the drive to strategically encircle China.

In September 2010, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the Fijian foreign minister and declared that Washington agreed with the proposal to hold elections in 2014. The Obama administration subsequently announced greater US aid for Fiji. These initiatives opened up an unprecedented breach between the US and Australia on a key issue of foreign policy in the South Pacific.

After 1945, Washington primarily delegated responsibility to Australian imperialism for maintaining control of the South West Pacific and shutting out rival powers. In turn, the US backed Canberra’s aggressive pursuit of its own predatory economic and strategic interests in the region.

Following Clinton’s meeting with her Fijian counterpart, the Australian government came under intense pressure to junk its “human rights” posturing on Fiji. Foreign policy think tanks, and the opposition Liberal-National coalition, called on the Labor government to follow the US lead.
Kevin Rudd’s replacement by Bob Carr as foreign minister earlier this year facilitated the diplomatic turnaround. Initially, however, Carr maintained the line of his predecessors. As recently as April, Carr declared that lifting sanctions against the Fijian government “would be several steps into the future” and that “we need to see a robust democracy functioning in Fiji.”

The timing of the sudden reversal may be due to pressure from Washington. Secretary of State Clinton is reportedly planning to attend the Pacific Islands Forum annual meeting later this month in the Cook Islands. It would be the first time that a US secretary of state has attended the Forum. The event was previously a little noted diplomatic affair, with Australian prime ministers frequently declining to attend, but amid the US diplomatic “full court press” in the Asia-Pacific it has taken on a greater political significance.

The State Department is expending considerable resources ahead of the Forum, with Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell and Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Cecil Haney currently on a week-long tour of seven Pacific Island states.

US officials are determined to use the Forum to advance their diplomatic and strategic influence and to combat Beijing’s initiatives in the region. Clinton undoubtedly has no intention of participating in a summit that is instead preoccupied with the question of Fiji’s diplomatic status.


Source:  WSWS

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X-Post: The Australian- Fiji Vital To Any Effective Regional System

by: Richard Herr and Anthony Bergin 
August 03, 2012 12:00AM

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr's announcement this week that Australia and Fiji are to restore full diplomatic relations and that travel restrictions on Suva will be eased has engendered some passionate debate. 

Some analysts explained that Australia's turn around on its policy settings on Fiji was to preserve our leadership role in the neighbourhood. Others dismissed any suggestion that Carr's move was a cave-in to Suva that might risk our regional hegemony. Fiji's move away from its traditional friends isn't much different from the rest of world adjusting to China's rise in the Asian Century.
But that didn't stop some arguing that Canberra's shift from it's hard line stance on Fiji was driven by urgent pleas from Washington that Australia re-engage to stop Fiji's slide away from Western influence, especially in the direction of China.

Richard Herr & Anthony Bergin

" [...] Canberra's shift from it's hard line stance on Fiji was driven by urgent pleas from Washington that Australia re-engage to stop Fiji's slide away from Western influence[...]

Using the Pacific Islands Forum against Fiji was tantamount to cutting off our nose to spite our public face in the Pacific Islands. "

Our trade unions and other groups have long supported a strong exile and expatriate lobby in demanding that Australia not have any truck with an illegitimate and "interim" government in Suva.
But now that Australia has decided to reattach the high commissioner's brass plate to the chancery in Suva, serious thought ought to be given to how to use the more elevated relationship.

The Fiji government hasn't deviated one jot from its roadmap for elections in 2014 since Prime Minister Bainimarama announced it in July 2009. Keeping travel sanctions won't assist restoring parliamentary democracy to Fiji: they have simply resulted in capable Fijians being deterred from contributing to good governance in their own country and been partly responsible for Suva looking beyond its traditional friends to keep the country afloat.

Life goes on in Fiji with or without sanctions. But while they are there, they are perceived by Suva as a calculated insult against the Fiji government that ensures that Suva looks to other partners.
Following Foreign Minister Carr's very positive announcement this week we should move to restore relations between our military and Fiji's armed forces. We need to build trust with Fiji's military, who will continue be somewhere between the background and the foreground depending on the constitution.

We should open Duntroon, the Defence Academy and Staff Colleges to Fijian Defence force members. After all, we built on military connections with Jakarta when Indonesia was in transition to democracy.
We need to re-engage with Fiji not out of fear of Suva's Asian connections but to ensure balance in these new relationships. This balance is especially important for our regional relationships with the Pacific Islands.
Fiji is vital to any effective regional system. Using the Pacific Islands Forum against Fiji was tantamount to cutting off our nose to spite our public face in the Pacific Islands.

The Pacific Islands Forum is in serious difficulties due to having been sidelined by the imbroglio over Fiji. The regional torch is being carried by other arrangements, such as the Melanesian Spearhead Group, where our voice isn't present or welcome.

If the Forum is to prosper then Fiji should be brought back into a leadership role.

Richard Herr and Anthony Bergin are the co-authors of Our Near Abroad:Australia and Pacific islands regionalism, Australian Strategic Policy Institute
Source: The Australian

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South America: Pacific Orientation or Destabililzation?

 LaRouchePAC video analysis of the Pacific geopolitics orientation and South America, currently unfolding . Posted date: July 6th 2012.

Video (posted below)content description:

A clear line has been drawn between the Transatlantic nations that seek to hold on to their bankrupt system, and the pro-development Pacific oriented nations that seek genuine progress. Russia and China have recently begun allying with kindred interests in South America to seek new development agreements.

Original Source: http://larouchepac.com/node/23303



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X-Post: Islands Business- China’s Clever Game In The Pacific

"China has played its game in the Pacific cleverly. It has employed what is termed as ‘soft power’ 
to win influence. It has extended the hand of unconditional friendship and one cannot say there has 
been coercion or threatens of any sort. That is one of the reasons why its influence has grown so rapidly 
over such sweeping swathes of the Pacific under the radar as it were."

That the Pacific islands region will be the theater of action in the next big global race for geopolitical hegemony is not a question of if as much as it is of when. And that when may be soon. Once it breaks out, the race could stay a cold war for a long time with all sorts of posturing from all parties, or it could escalate into a full blown battle. No matter how it finally turns out, the next big theatre for the big powers’ global machinations will be the Pacific and its epicenter could well be Fiji’s capital, Suva. 

At the turn of the millennium, this twenty first century was touted as the Century of Asia/Pacific. The promise was great: the Pacific Rim countries’ confidence brimmed, powered by their blitzing growth rates; the Asian tigers were on a roll; and the Pacific islands were redrawing the extent of their sovereign oceanic territories as new mineral discoveries were being made on land and the seabed. 

The first decade of this century saw sustained forays by the Asian giants into the Pacific islands region, establishing new outposts in tiny islands nations, helping build infrastructure and doling out loans and grants with a firm eye on the vast natural resources that the islands are thought to possess. All this happened as the Pacific islands’ traditional western world partners were progressively downsizing their long-held commitments to the islands.

Throughout the first decade of this century, China had a fairly open run of the Pacific Oceanic region. It upped its financial assistance and infrastructure building programmes around the region in schemes and arrangements that were different from the ones Pacific islands governments were used to when such assistance came from Western friends.

Pacific islands leaders spoke approvingly of China’s ‘no strings attached’ approach to aid, in marked contrast to the West’s more structured and highly conditions-based manner of dealing with assistance programmes. This was enticement enough for most Pacific islands countries to happily get into bed with China for several ‘development’ initiatives in return for poorly documented (at least in the media) concessions in tapping natural resources and fisheries.

Islands Business

" China has played its game in the Pacific cleverly. It has employed what is commonly termed as ‘soft power’ to win influence. It has extended the hand of unconditional friendship and one cannot say there has been coercion or threats of any sort. That is one of the reasons why its influence has grown so rapidly over such sweeping swathes of the Pacific—under the radar as it were. Meanwhile, the United States was busy with its endless war mongering in the Middle East for the better part of the past two decades[...]

China rebuilt its embassy into a bigger facility in Fiji, the US decided to follow suit almost immediately. Both countries realise the strategic, geopolitical importance of Fiji, just as colonial powers in bygone eras had. "

Simultaneously, political developments like those in Fiji forced the leadership to evolve strategies like Fiji’s ‘Look North’ policy where almost every new realm of economic and developmental activity became closely aligned to China, Korea and several other countries of the Pacific Rim, gaining precedence over traditional ties to Australia and New Zealand.

China has played its game in the Pacific cleverly. It has employed what is commonly termed as ‘soft power’ to win influence. It has extended the hand of unconditional friendship and one cannot say there has been coercion or threats of any sort. That is one of the reasons why its influence has grown so rapidly over such sweeping swathes of the Pacific—under the radar as it were.

Meanwhile, the United States was busy with its endless war mongering in the Middle East for the better part of the past two decades and all but ignored China’s growing influence in the Pacific islands region. As if awoken suddenly from a deep slumber, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a knee jerk statement during one of her Pacific whistle stop tours a few years ago that the US would not “cede” territory to anybody—obviously implying it wouldn’t take China’s machinations in the region lying down.

As the world now progresses towards the middle of this century’s second decade, it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is the Century of the Asia/Pacific for many more reasons than those that were touted at the turn of the millennium. And some of these reasons are undoubtedly a cause for worry—not just for the region but also for the world.

China has already begun protesting against the US planned joint exercises in the Pacific this year that involves some 22 nations including several of the Pacific Rim, including Australia and New Zealand and even distant powers like Russia. China has pointedly been excluded from these exercises that will include a range of nuclear submarines besides other sophisticated naval hardware and armaments.

China is also dealing with a number of more regional geopolitical and territorial problems— particularly the one involving the Philippines in the South China Sea. The Philippines has a strong US connection for historical reasons. This is one instance of how these local problems have the potential to polarise the region across the two superpowers vying for the region’s favours.

The joint naval exercises are obviously a bold and firm statement directed at China that the US wants to make—that it is well and truly means business in the region. In including the 22 nations in its exercises including South Korea and Japan, it has thumbed its nose at the Asian superpower. In fact, the US started this sort of posturing when it rebuilt its embassy in Fiji’s capital, Suva.

In ages gone by, kings and emperors announced their hegemony by building towers and monuments on the territories they conquered. In modern times, countries can’t conquer and can’t build towers and monuments. Instead, they build embassies in the countries they want to win favour from to help them expand their influence. So when China rebuilt its embassy into a bigger facility in Fiji, the US decided to follow suit almost immediately.

Both countries realise the strategic, geopolitical importance of Fiji, just as colonial powers in bygone eras had. In any aggression that takes place in the Pacific Ocean in the near future, Fiji will undoubtedly be catapulted into the centre stage because of this. 

What has begun as benign posturing could quite easily escalate into a cold war but could a cold war result in a full-blown conflict? Consider this: the arms industry is the engine of the US economy. With action in the Middle East all but over, there are few places left for war mongering.

The Pacific Ocean is an extremely suitable candidate to kick-start the arms industry and pull the country out of the recession. The development of a whole new suite of weapons suited for vast stretches of ocean would be a challenge worth pursuing and investing in. And thanks to the sparseness of the population, collateral damage would be negligible.  

Fanciful though this may sound, the possibility can scarcely be discounted. Unfortunately for the Pacific islands and their citizens, they have already been reduced to pawns. Geopolitics may well grow to be a more pressing worry than the ravages of climate change.

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Pacific Institute of Public Policy Debates On Geopolitics (Edited)

 

The audio of the Radio Australia interview (posted below):





Radio Australia Pacific Beat news article titled: "Call For Pacific Neutrality In Naval Build up" included an interview with former Fiji Foreign Affairs Minister, Kaliopate Tavola, whose comments in the interview were framed as, the current consensus. That perception artificially generated by Radio Australia, is simply erroneous.

This article, did not point out that, the comments by Tavola, was actually a position advocated in a debate organized by the Pacific Insitute of Public Policy (PiPP), located in Vanuatu. Nor was it addressed in the interview that, Tavola was not speaking on behalf of any Pacific Government and that Tavola's opinion was his own and will not, should not reflect the official position/pending position of any Government.

The debate in its entirety has not been made public by PiPP (as yet) and it would be one dimensional, to cast an opinion, on what direction the discussion took place.

The PiPP Pacific Debate webpage, featured the participants of the debate and their biodata:

• Senator Peter Christian (Federated States of Micronesia)
• Congressman Eni Faleomavaega (American Samoa)
• Major General (ret’d) Jerry Singirok (Papua New Guinea)
• Kaliopate Tavola (Fiji)

Also, the Radio Australia article did not identify that, Tavola (nor did he say)was affiliated with PiPP as a Director. The biodata, also did not mention, that Tavola was a member of the SDL administration headed by Laisenia Qarase; who was reported to have, requested Australia troops to intervene in Fiji, prior to November 5th 2006 change of Government.

 

Further and most importantly, there was no attempt by Tavola to point out that AusAID is the majority funder of  the Institution, coloring PiPP"s ability and the public's perception, that PiPP is an independent 'think tank' in the Pacific region.

Recent financial statements of PiPP (PDF)

In addition, it can not be glossed over or outright dismissed, that the discourse of public policy in the Pacific, pursued by PiPP, (more so when advocating a geopolitical policy stance) is overly contaminated with an Australian agenda.

This same, top-down agenda that gave the Pacific region the concept of a Pacific union and lost traction due to maverick and independent minded political leaders from Melanesia, following Fiji's lead.

Pacific Union was to become a spin off from the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), in-lieu of a regional Government subsequent to a adaption of regional wide currency and accompanying Free Trade blocs.

It also has been documented that, Australia Government had revoked aid from an East-Timor Non-Government Organization (NGO) that called for the Australian Government to abide by International Law, with regards to the negotiations to the natural resources within its maritime boundaries.

It's not beyond reason, to view the similar standard operating procedures in the context of PiPP, capitulating to the talking points, generated from Canberra and widely distributed by the same Australian media.

The excerpt of NGO article:

Australia Aid should support Timor-Leste,
not Australia's political interests

Bahasa Indonesia

Chronology of events and links to documents

For immediate release	Contact: Santina Soares or Alex Grainger
6 October 2005	Tel. +670 3325013,  email: info@laohamutuk.org

La’o Hamutuk condemned the recent decision by the Australian government to revoke an AusAID commitment to a Timor-Leste non-governmental organization (NGO), because the NGO, Forum Tau Matan (FTM), expressed political views Australia disagrees with.

“This arbitrary, punitive action belies AusAID’s mission to support Timor-Leste’s economic and legal development and contradicts the right to free speech, protected in both Australia and Timor-Leste,” said Santina Soares of La’o Hamutuk, a Timor-Leste NGO.

“La’o Hamutuk calls on Australian citizens and government officials to demand that their government administer their aid program without political interference,” said Soares. “Grants should be awarded according to need and merit, not based on the public statements of the project’s manager. We urge AusAID to publicly assure current and potential grant recipients in Timor-Leste that they can exercise freedom of speech without being punished.”

“AusAID states that major aim of its aid to Timor-Leste is to build a legal and judicial system which supports law and order. Australia’s refusal to follow international legal principles in the Timor Sea negotiations is a mockery of law and order,” said Santina Soares. “Their theft of Timor-Leste’s rightful maritime petroleum resources, including more than one billion U.S. dollars from the Laminaria-Corallina oil field, makes it impossible for Timor-Leste to deliver basic services to its people and is far larger than the US$300 million AusAID has contributed since 1999.”

AusAID's website says another goal of their support is to bolster the government’s ability to budget for and deliver basic services. AusAID also claims to support a police service with full respect for human rights and to build capacity of oversight institutions in the justice sector. Forum Tau Matan shares these goals.

Background (link to Chronology of relevant events and documents)

Last December, AusAID promised an A$65,000 human rights grant to a prison monitoring and legal rights project administered by Forum Tau Matan (FTM), an East Timorese NGO. The award was delayed due to logistical problems within the Australian bureaucracy. In the interim, Canberra learned that FTM had joined eight other NGOs the previous September to ask Australia to respect Timor-Leste’s sovereignty and negotiate a fair and legal maritime boundary.

On 7 June 2005, AusAID informed FTM director Joao Pequino that the money would not be forthcoming because “we have been reviewing the ways in which we engage with NGOs in different sectors.” At the end of July, AusAID’s Counsellor (Development Cooperation) informed FTM that the real reason the grant was cancelled was that FTM had signed the press release “East Timor Civil Society demands a Fair Resolution of Maritime Boundaries.” AusAID has since paid FTM about 10% of the grant amount in compensation for AusAID deciding to break its commitment.

In the past, FTM has received support from  the United Nations (UNMISET Human Rights Unit), Ireland Aid, and Caritas Australia.

AusAID is currently soliciting applicants for this year’s Human Rights Small Grants. The application deadline is 7 October 2005.

La’o Hamutuk, the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis, was founded in 2000 to research, educate and advocate regarding international institutions in East Timor, including foreign aid programs. To maintain its objectivity and ability to speak out, La’o Hamutuk does not accept funding from AusAID or the other institutions it monitors.

-

On 6 October 2005, La'o Hamutuk and FTM held a press conference at the NGO Forum in Dili to release the above information. L-R: Elias Barros (FTM Prison Monitoring Project), Santina Soares (La'o Hamutuk), Joao Pequino (FTM Executive Director)

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X-Post-Nautilus Institute-Complex: Uncertainties in the Australian Hinge of the Pacific Pivot

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report—Contributor’s blog entry for Austral Peace and Security.

Go to the Weekly Report for 31 May 2012.

Washington’s Pacific pivot is essentially a matter of the Obama administration drawing a line under the distractions of the Bush-era disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan, and re-focusing strategic planning on the rise of Chinese economic, political and military power. Rather than the crudities of the opening to India that Condoleeza Rice initiated as a geo-strategic “balance” against China in 2005, the Obama administration is pursuing a complex approach to China made up of both a search for dialogue on key issues such as climate change and the global economy, and at the same time regional military and political restructuring that strengthens old hub and spokes bilateral alliances with Japan, Korea and Australia, increases the military capacities of those allies, and seeks to draw in new regional strategic partners such as Indonesia and Singapore. Containment it may not yet be, but it here can be little doubt the objective is to hedge very strongly against expansion of Chinese influence, while continuing dialogue on the global rules of the road.

Yet the hinge of the pivot strategy is the domestic foundations of alliance amongst America’s three main allies in the Pacific, Japan, South Korea and Australia – all of which are characterised by a volatile disposition to anxiety. While Japan and Korea can point to serious security issues in their environment, the Australian case is characterised by an endemic propensity to alliance anxiety even in the virtually complete absence of serious relevant threat. To take what may appear to those outside Australia as a bizarre official example, while the Obama administration was working through the implications of the president’s Prague speech on the United States’ goal of a nuclear-free world, the 2009 Australian Defence White Paper, greatly expanded official discussion of Australian reliance on United States extended nuclear deterrence, citing the “remote possibilities” of nuclear threats to Australia from Iran and North Korea.

In the past, and again today, Australian alliance anxiety has manifested itself in seeking to demonstrate loyalty and strengthen US commitment not only by responding to US requests for participation in wars outside the region, but characteristically by offering support and military participation before being asked. The large scale expansion of US marine, air force and navy access to Australia facilities that has been underway for several years was accelerated on the occasion of President Obama’s Australian visit in November 2011 with announcements of deployments of US marines and USAF bombers and fighters to Darwin and other facilities. While some analysts concentrated on a theme of US arm-twisting of a reluctant Labor government, PACOM CinC Admiral Robert Willard let the cat out of the bag, saying the Australian side had offered access first:

“Australia made overtures to the United States to increase our engagement with the armed forces of Australia and our utility of the training facilities – ranges, and so forth – that are there.”

In reality, the United States has no firmer ally in the Pacific than Australia. So deeply is the ANZUS alliance (albeit absent nuclear-free New Zealand) embedded into Australian political culture that former Deputy Secretary of Defence Hugh White remarks that in debate about how to respond to the rise of China (Australia’s largest trading partner) very few people on either side of mainstream Australian politics or in the broader security practitioner community seem able to even conceptualise – let alone seriously consider – strategic options outside the current version of the ANZUS alliance. Australian identity appears to have become deeply fused with the US alliance, sixty years after it was established, and in a very different strategic and economic environment.

Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report

"[...]While challenging Australians to think more deeply outside the settled ways of blind acceptance of all aspects of the American alliance, and repudiating current incoherent Australian defence planning (such as converting the bulk of the army into a regionally and indeed globally deployable niche amphibious force), White’s own analysis favours a realist approach to regional uncertainties emphasizing considerable expansion of defence force capacities for the defence of Australia in a region to be rendered inevitably turbulent by the continued rise of China. "

Last week White’s case was substantiated by a headline in a leading national newspaper proclaiming “Defence cuts a ‘threat’ to US alliance.” In fact, the Rudd-Gillard Labor governments have been even more demonstrative in their support of the United States in Afghanistan and other security concerns than the former conservative Prime Minister, John Howard, dubbed “the Man of Steel” by George W. Bush.

While challenging Australians to think more deeply outside the settled ways of blind acceptance of all aspects of the American alliance, and repudiating current incoherent Australian defence planning (such as converting the bulk of the army into a regionally and indeed globally deployable niche amphibious force), White’s own analysis favours a realist approach to regional uncertainties emphasizing considerable expansion of defence force capacities for the defence of Australia in a region to be rendered inevitably turbulent by the continued rise of China. True to his own interpretation of the state of Australian security thinking, White’s admonitions are in turn under attack as an unthinkingly pessimistic interpretation of power-transition theory – but mainly by political figures now far from the centres of power in Australia, such as former hardline Liberal Party Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser, now regarded by both sides of politics as a “mad leftie.”

In reality, Australians, living in a small country on the periphery of global power, face an extraordinarily complex set of cultural and intellectual tasks in addressing security threats, genuine and fantasized. The deep structure of Australian political culture involves essentially racialist cultural baggage of the country’s origins in genocide of its indigenous peoples as a settler colonial outpost of mother country Britain in “distant” Asia. This requires rebuilding on twin foundations of internal reconciliation with indigenous Australians and external integration with Asia and the South Pacific. Clearly both issues inflect the current question of “the rise of China” – with the United States having replaced Britain, and “the rise of China” implying much more than just a strategic re-arrangement. Hence the difficulties, silences, and contradictions of the current Australian debates.

The immediate, but clearly difficult first task is to complete the disengagement from the psycho-cultural detritus of the Cold War. In part this is a matter of placing the verities of the ANZUS alliance in a rational national interest perspective. But it is also a matter of unpicking the deep cultural structures of the nuclear aspects of the Cold War in a way that an even smaller but more courageous country New Zealand did in the 1980s. The Lange government of New Zealand did not want to leave the ANZUS alliance: it just did not want to be defended by US nuclear weapons. In the future, if the path to a nuclear-free world is to be more than a chimerical PR phrase, some if not all US allies will have to follow New Zealand on the road to a nuclear free alliance posture, escaping the trap for both sides of the alliance of adherence to extended nuclear deterrence in the absence of a serious nuclear threat that cannot be addressed with conventional responses.

The global transformation of its military forces that the US has embarked on with its Pacific pivot strategy inevitably articulates not only with a complex, contested and highly uncertain global and regional strategic environment, but also with complex and uncertain national domestic environments, which have their own urgent requirements for strategic renewal.

—Richard Tanter, NAPSNet Contributor

The Nautilus Peace and Security Weekly Report presents articles and full length reports each week in six categories: Austral security, nuclear deterrence, energy security, climate change adaptation, the DPRK, and governance and civil society. Our team of contributors carefully select items that highlight the links between these themes and the three regions in which our offices are found—North America, Northeast Asia, and the Austral-Asia region. Each week, one of our authors also provides a short blog that explores these inter-relationships. 

Further News:

China a better Pacific friend than US: Samoan PM

Times of India video U.S Will Deploy 60% of Navy Fleet To Asia- Pacific region.

U.S Defence Secretary Leon Panetta's entire policy speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue  (video posted below)

 

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