09 February 2009 : Korea Herald
In late January, China announced it was sending naval forces to the Gulf of Aden to protect its commercial fleets against Somali pirates. This was the first time in many decades Beijing deployed a contingent of ships outside its territorial waters for possible combat.
A few days later, on Jan. 28, Japan announced it too was planning to send a naval ship to the waters near Somalia in its battle against piracy. Not to be outdone, Seoul on Feb. 6 announced as well it was sending a naval destroyer to protect its fleet.
The international battle against piracy in the Gulf of Aden is a cause for concern for many countries who have been victimized to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments. However international security experts see another potential development in the recent flurry of naval activity by the major East Asian nations.
Some analysts say after decades of focusing on economic growth and a self-imposed "low-profile" in international security issues, Beijing may be starting to assert itself militarily. There is speculation that Japan and to a lesser extent Korea's announcements to deploy naval forces to Somalia was a reaction to China's "show of force."
Nigel Inkster, the director of transnational threats and political risk for the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London offered his perspective on China's recent naval maneuvers. In an email interview with The Korea Herald the IISS China expert and former British intelligence official assessed whether a resurgent Chinese military presence poses a strategic dilemma for the other actors in East Asia.
Korea Herald: China's deployment of naval forces in the Gulf of Aden was ostensibly to protect their ships against Somali pirates. Do you see bigger implications in their actions?
Inkster: China's decision to deploy a naval force to the Gulf of Aden was of course primarily to protect its own merchant vessels against attacks by Somali pirates, as other nations have done. But in so doing China is contributing to an international public good by helping to ensure security of the sea-lanes of communication (SLOCs). This is a relatively new development for China, which began some years ago with contributions to U.N. peacekeeping operations (China has some 2,000 troops deployed on such missions in a variety of locations). This greater level of engagement is to be welcomed and can be expected to increase as China's overseas interests expand.
KH: China's recent move seems to have prompted Japan to announce their intentions to also send a naval contingent to the area. Some observers believe this is a deliberate reaction to China's "show of force."
Inkster: As to Japan's declared intention of sending a naval contingent to the Gulf of Aden, that may in part have been sparked by China's decision. But it has been clear for some time now some parts of Japanese society believe Japan should not be so shackled by its Peace Constitution that it cannot contribute to the provision of international security. Japan's role in providing mid-ocean refueling capabilities for the U.S. navy in the counter-terrorism context is a case in point.
There are also currents of thinking in Japanese defense and foreign policy circles to the effect that Japan may not always be able to rely on the United States as its security guarantor of last resort and may have to invest more in its own security and defense capabilities.
KH: You've referred to the opinion that China seems to be moving away from the Deng Xiaoping doctrine of "Hiding one's light under a bushel," or lying low in international affairs. Is the timing of this significant as other pressing issues distract the United States?
Inkster: China's more assertive approach to foreign policy is the product of a complex dynamic and cannot just be linked to one particular set of issues. China's overseas interests have expanded substantially in recent years. It has developed into the world's largest exporter of manufactured goods and needs increasingly to look overseas for sources of raw materials to supply its manufacturing sector and to meet its requirements for energy, strategic minerals and food.
There are now substantial communities of Chinese business people in almost every country in the world and large concentrations of Chinese students in the schools and universities of most developed countries. Chinese capital plays a major role in the international financial system. With more interests to represent and with an ever-greater role in managing a variety of global security issues, including important areas such as climate change, it is to be expected that China will become more active and more prominent on the international stage.
China does not yet aspire to assume a leadership role, but events may propel it in that direction faster than anticipated. That would be neither illogical nor unwelcome provided that China continues, as it has done up to now, to be a "responsible stakeholder," to use the phrase coined by Robert Zoellick (president of the World Bank).
Implicit in your question is the assumption that the United States has taken its eye off the ball in terms of its relationship with China owing to its preoccupation with other issues. That is probably not the case. The United States has taken a close interest in all aspects of China's emergence as a major global power and the United States remains a major presence in the Asia-Pacific region, as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made clear when he spoke at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore in May 2008.
But it is the case that U.S. global influence has in relative terms diminished as China's influence has risen. This too is to be expected and is not necessarily detrimental to global security.
KH: The "Cult of the Offensive" and the broader "security dilemma" are two military theories some analysts fear may be occurring in East
Asia. Regarding the competition between China and Japan, do any of those theories seem relevant?
Inkster: The Cult of the Offensive -- the belief that in armed conflict the advantage always lies with the attacker -- is probably less relevant for the Asia-Pacific region than is the security dilemma mentality -- the perception that any defensive capability acquired by one state is seen by another as constituting an offensive capability and hence leading to the acquisition by the second state of further offensive capabilities in a way that potentially gives rise to an arms race.
A case in point has been China's reaction to Japan's planned acquisition of U.S. missile defense systems. That is not to say that an arms race has yet broken out in the Asia-Pacific region, but the potential exists and needs to be carefully monitored. It does not help that there are within the region no security institutions or mechanisms for managing such a development.
KH: China's official defense budget claims are thought to be understated. What do you think their actual expenditures are? It does seem they still have a long way to go before they can challenge America's military supremacy, but nonetheless many players in the region especially Japan are concerned about the lack of Chinese transparency.
Inkster: IISS have calculated, using a combination of direct costs for items purchased overseas and purchasing power parity for items procured within China that the Chinese defense budget is roughly double what China admits to (China claimed its defense expenditure in 2008 was $61 billion). A detailed explanation of how this calculation is made can be found in pages 249-253 of the 2006 edition of the annual IISS publication The Military Balance. In recent years China has made efforts to promote greater transparency in relations to its defense expenditure and it is to be hoped that these efforts will continue.
It is important to remember that China has started from a very low base. Of Deng Xiaoping's Four Modernizations, military modernization was at the back of the queue and has only recently begun to attract significant additional investment as China's economy has strengthened. And China is having to transition from a low-tech manpower-intensive peasant army to a modern integrated military with much higher levels of technology and smaller numbers of educated manpower, with the emphasis now on the navy and the air force.
China may aspire to challenge the U.S. military in the event of a cross-straits crisis but it will be some time to come before it can pose a global challenge to U.S. military supremacy. And at the moment it remains the case that China puts as its top priority the maintenance of a peaceful environment within which economic development can take place.
KH: Korea is a smaller player in the region and Koreans often feel "sandwiched" between China and Japan. What should Korea's strategy be if China does continue to assert its military might?
Inkster: China's principal concern in respect of the Korean peninsula is to ensure that this cannot become a source of instability for China. It has no quarrel with Korea per se though the possibility exists of clashes over resource issues in the East China Sea. Korea's ambitious 2020 defence modernization program, though likely to be delayed due to economic difficulties, should provide Korea with the capabilities it requires to defend its national interests.
By Henry Shinn
