There were many notable moments at the Shangri-La Dialogue, the annual regional defense summit organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore in the opening days of June.
They included some aggressive words about Taiwan from the new Chinese defense minister, Admiral Dong Jun; clear protests about civilian deaths in Gaza both from President-elect Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia and from the Malaysian defense minister; and a surprise appearance by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, there to rally support among Southeast Asian and other middle-income powers for his peace summit in Switzerland on June 15-16.
But top prize undoubtedly went to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos of the Philippines, when he said that if a Filipino serviceman were to be killed by a Chinese water cannon during a confrontation in the South China Sea, it would almost certainly be considered an act of war.
America’s Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, was rather more circumspect on this issue, given that an “act of war” would invoke the 1951 mutual defense treaty between the United States and the Philippines, the provisions of which Austin himself reaffirmed when signing new Bilateral Defense Guidelines in May 2023. But the message had nonetheless been sent, loud and clear.
President Marcos’s remark, made in answer to a question from a Financial Times journalist, sent both a thrill and a chill around the room. For many people, it was a thrill to hear a Southeast Asian leader pushing back hard against Chinese bullying.
But there was also a chill because of the implications: that a war involving the world’s two most powerful military forces could break out not just over the predictable issue of Taiwan, where preparations and negotiations offer hope of averting conflict, but also over the many disputed reefs and submerged shoals of the South China Sea where the potential for miscalculations and accidents at sea is abundant.
Then, on June 15, a new Chinese decree came into effect that authorizes the China Coast Guard to detain any foreign national who flouts marine demarcations in the South China Sea that have been set unilaterally by China. The decree led immediately to a collision between a Chinese and a Philippine ship on June 17 in which a Filipino sailor was badly injured.
This also raises the possibility that while it may be hoped that no Filipino servicemen die because of Chinese pressure on their missions, China may instead choose to seize fishermen, coastguards or others under its new decree and in effect hold them hostage, daring its opponents to act in response or else forcing them to negotiate.
It is a troubling prospect. But there is no doubt that there will continue to be ugly encounters at sea and harsh words between the governments involved, probably for decades to come.
China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have been talking about the need for a “code of conduct” for maritime operations in the South China Sea ever since the mid-1990s, but no progress has been made, beyond talks about the need to talk. This reflects two underlying realities.
The first is that China considers the whole of the South China Sea, and probably the East China Sea too, as a key strategic space that it wishes to control.
In modern times this desire was first expressed by General Chiang Kai-shek in 1947 when the-then Chinese leader produced a map with an “eleven-dash line,” curling like a huge tongue through the South China Sea to depict the area China claimed to control. That map was then adopted and adapted by the Chinese Communists who defeated him in 1949.
The number of dashes on the map has changed slightly over the years – there were 10 in China’s official 2023 map, up from nine for the previous 70 years – but the claim remains in place.
This is despite a 2016 case at the International Court of Arbitration in The Hague, brought by the Philippines, which ruled that the dashed line has no status under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
China has never made explicit whether this claim is one of territorial sovereignty or just strategic control, perhaps wishing to keep its options open and its opponents guessing. Its June 15 decree suggests it may now wish to firm up those definitions, at least in some parts of the South China Sea.
The other underlying reality, which has really emerged only in the past 20 years or so with the massive Chinese military build-up, is that there is a huge imbalance of power between China on one side and the Southeast Asian nations on the other.
While China now possesses the world’s largest naval force, none of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines or Vietnam has been able to build up their own forces in response, either because of economic weakness or competing political priorities.
Of those ASEAN countries situated in or around the South China Sea, only the city-state of Singapore and tiny Brunei spend more than 2% of their annual GDP on defense. Singapore’s 2023 defense budget of US$13.4 billion was more than double the $6.1 billion spent by the Philippines.
Indonesia, the largest ASEAN country by population (275 million) spent $8.8 billion, but that was a mere 0.62% of GDP. China’s official defense budget in 2023 was $219 billion.
That huge imbalance reflects China’s great-power aspirations but also its spectacular record of economic growth. There is a good chance that this imbalance could narrow over the coming decades, for economic growth in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam is now faster than that in China.
If, for example, those countries were to succeed in growing at an average of 7% per year between now and 2050, and if China’s average annual growth rate were to slow to 3%, then the combined economic heft of those four countries would reach 45% of China’s annual GDP by mid-century, compared with just 15% now, or even more if exchange rates moved in Southeast Asia’s favor.
Such growth would enable the Philippines and others to build much stronger military forces, discouraging China from pushing them around in the South China Sea. The trouble is that redressing that huge economic imbalance will take time, whereas the potential crises, clashes and miscalculations are happening now.
The right long-term strategy is to seek sustained economic growth, benefiting from the diversification away from China that many companies are pursuing. The right short-term strategy nevertheless must remain one of staying close to the two best non-ASEAN friends these South China Sea littoral countries have: the United States and Japan.
The role in the region of the US and Japan is only going to grow, unless and until that huge power imbalance can be reduced.
Formerly editor-in-chief of The Economist, Bill Emmott is currently chairman of the Japan Society of the UK, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the International Trade Institute. His new book, “Deterrence, Diplomacy and the Risk of Conflict Over Taiwan”, will be published by Routledge on July 15.
This is the English original of an article published earlier in Japanese and English by the Mainichi Shimbun in Japan and in English on the substack Bill Emmott’s Global View. It is republished here with kind permission.
Let’s face reality. China is the largest trading partner of the ASEAN countries. Not one will bite the hand that fed it. Even the Philipines is beating the retreat.
An astronomical power imbalance draws Russia to show its strength in support of Cuba.
With 11 nuclear supercarriers, more than a dozen SSBNs, etc Amelika is an unparalleled menace to the independent nation of Cuba, which had already suffered a “Bay of Pigs” thuggery and continue to suffer from the occupation of part of its territory by that aggressor.
The recent visit by a Russian nuclear submarine and frigate is a welcomed relief to the suffocating presence of the greatest imperialist power next door. But Russia alone is not enough to deter the menacing intention of this expansionist mafia regime. China, which has the fastest growing navy in the world, must also play its part to ensure peace and tranquility in the Caribbean.