And it inaugurates an assertive strategic policy that may have significant consequences for Southeast Asia’s security.
In the 190-page long document, Canberra pledges to increase capital investment in defence capabilities from the current AU$9.4 billion (US$7.1 billion) to AU$23 billion (US$17.4 billion) in 2025–26. Most of this investment will be channelled to the maritime domain. But what does this investment means for Southeast Asia and the South China Sea?
The 2016 DWP reflects continuity with the two preceding Defence White Papers in two key ways. First, the 2016 DWP reiterates the primacy of maritime strategy emphasised in previous White Papers, with a focus on the sea–air gap along Australia’s north. Maritime capabilities will be central in this enterprise, especially submarines that can provide what the 2016 DWP describes as ‘a strategic advantage in terms of surveillance and protection of our maritime approaches’. Second, the 2016 DWP echoes the previous two White Papers in highlighting ‘maritime Southeast Asia’ as a region that ‘will always have particular significance to [Australia’s] security’.
This emphasis on Southeast Asia is highlighted in the DWP’s list of Australia’s ‘strategic defence interests’. These interests are the security of Australia’s northern approaches and proximate sea lines of communications, a secure nearer region encompassing Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, and a stable Indo-Pacific region with a rules-based global order.
What differentiates the 2016 DWP from the previous ones is its selective emphasis on the South China Sea. While all the strategic defence interests are critical, the 2016 DWP puts great emphasis on the second. According to the 2016 DWP, ‘Australia’s reliance on maritime trade with and through South East Asia means the security of our maritime approaches and trade routes within South East Asia must be protected, as must freedom of navigation’.
Nowhere is freedom of navigation being challenged so close to Australia than in the South China Sea. Although the 2013 DWP called the South China Sea disputes to Australia’s strategic attention, the blunt emphasis of the 2016 DWP is unparalleled: ‘Australia does not take sides on competing territorial claims in the South China Sea but we are concerned that land reclamation and construction activity by claimants raises tensions in the region’, particularly ‘the unprecedented pace and scale of China’s land reclamation activities’.
Such a robust statement encapsulates the reactionary assertiveness implicit in the 2016 DWP. This new strategic stance may involve Australia conducting military ‘freedom of navigation operations’ in the South China Sea, as well as anticipatory measures against China’s larger military modernisation drives.
Australia’s concerns about China can partly, if not entirely, explain what Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull describes as ‘an historic modernisation’ of Australia’s naval capabilities, including the acquisition of 12 regionally superior submarines, three additional air warfare destroyers and nine new anti-submarine warfare frigates.
That the 2016 DWP elicited a predictably strong criticism from Beijing is not necessarily bad news. A stronger Australia can give Southeast Asia greater leverage vis-à-vis China in the South China Sea disputes. Australia’s strategic interests in Southeast Asia can also create more opportunities for defence cooperation. Regional countries can selectively draw upon Australia’s unique access to US defence technology and intelligence to complement their own military modernisations.
Australia’s bilateral and multilateral defence operations in the region, such as the Five Power Defence Arrangement, may begin to involve more sophisticated exercise scenarios that will benefit its Southeast Asian partners. Australia’s middle power status arguably makes it a politically less sensitive defence partner for Southeast Asia than major powers, such as the United States.
But despite these opportunities, Southeast Asia should also be aware of the associated risks that accompany Australia’s reactionary assertiveness. Given the region’s sensitivity towards the divisive prospect of major power influence, the 2016 DWP begs the question of whether Australia’s strategic policies are chiefly based on their own raison d’etre or are largely a reflection of those of its principal ally, the United States. While the strategic interests of some ASEAN countries may align more closely with Australia’s, ASEAN should remain cautious of being drawn deeper into Sino–American strategic competition, which could potentially undermine its unity.
At the operational level, Australia’s reactionary assertiveness might affect Southeast Asian maritime security with far reaching effects. Sandwiched between Australia and China, Southeast Asia would likely be the first region affected by a miscalculation involving Chinese and Australian maritime forces in the South China Sea. Controlled or orchestrated escalation during freedom of navigation operations is not foolproof.
Regardless of whether the plans of the 2016 DWP are achievable, they are a bellwether of Australia’s future strategic policy. Australia’s assertiveness is not tantamount to greater instability in Southeast Asia but ASEAN should not react idly to Australia’s new strategic direction. Unless Australia’s reactionary assertiveness takes the interests of Southeast Asian states into account, it will remain part of the problem rather than the solution.
Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto is Indonesian Presidential PhD Scholar with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University. He is a former associate research fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
This article was first published here by RSIS.
A new chapter may have opened this week in the South China Sea saga. Several days ago, China prevented Indonesia’s attempted seizure of a fishing vessel caught in the waters off Natuna in northern Indonesia. The author of this post himself published a penetrating analysis of this event in the Jakarta Post a few days ago that is quite free of the wishful thinking that so often characterises Indonesian discussion of the South China Sea.
Since recapturing its boat, China has been seeking in vain the return of the crew Indonesia arrested. The fiery Susi Pudjiastuti, who initiated the program of destroying vessels caught illegally fishing in Indonesian waters, condemned China’s behaviour as ‘arrogant’, while the co-ordinating security minister, Luhut Panjaitan, said the Chinese crew would be prosecuted, not released.
Until this incident, it was notable that only one Chinese fishing vessel had been destroyed since Jokowi won office, and that was one that had been in Indonesian hands since 2009. It looked very much as though Indonesia preferred to punish its ASEAN neighbours for intruding into Indonesian waters rather than China. Well over one hundred vessels have been destroyed in the past eighteen months.
Indonesia long ago unsuccessfully sought an explanation from China of its nine-dash map which overlaps in one sector with Indonesia’s Natuna EEZ. Indonesia’s formal position is that it is not a claimant in the South China Sea and that a Code of Conduct should be signed. Futile negotiations aimed at finalising such a Code of Conduct have taken place for many years.
At least one Chinese spokesperson reportedly claimed this week that Natuna constituted ‘traditional fishing grounds’ for China. This casuistic argument, irrelevant in UNCLOS terms, indirectly turns Indonesia into a ‘claimant’, for Indonesia entirely legitimately claims an EEZ around the Natuna islands.
Mr Ward says that ‘at least one Chinese spokesperson reportedly claimed this week that Natuna constituted ‘traditional fishing grounds’ for China and that ‘this casuistic argument, irrelevant in UNCLOS terms, indirectly turns Indonesia into a ‘claimant’, for Indonesia entirely legitimately claims an EEZ around the Natuna islands’. In fact the Chinese interpretation of traditional fishing rights in EEZs is both plausible and has basis in international law. There is no Chinese claim to these waters. It would be good to have further and informed analysis of this issue on this site.
Pacific Analyst,
Please look at Article 62 of UNCLOS. It acknowledges the rights of countries that have habitually fished in the waters now incorporated in the EEZs of other countries. But, as Minister Susi has pointed out, only Malaysia has an agreement to exercise ‘traditional fishing rights’ in Indonesia’s EEZ. China has no such agreement.
That is why I described the Chinese spokesperson’s statement as ‘ casuistic’ and wrote that the Chinese argument was irrelevant in UNCLOS terms. China is not, of course, a signatory of UNCLOS.
China’s recent behaviour has everything to do with the nine-dash line, and nothing to do with UNCLOS. I apologise if my argument was not ‘plausible’.
You allege that China has no claim on the waters around Natuna. Please explain this. When did a Chinese spokesperson give this assurance?
Is there any chance that we can continue our dialogue once you have discarded your pseudonym?
In a rare move to avoid further isolation in a region where it has territorial disputes with nearly all of its maritime neighbors, China made a major concession last week by publicly clarifying and acknowledging Indonesia’s sovereign right to the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/19/inside-china-china-concedes-natuna-islands-to-indo/?page=all
@ Ken Ward
Your claim that “China is not, of course, a signatory of UNCLOS.” has no merit.
China is a signatory of UNCLOS. She signed the Convention on 10 Dec 1982 and ratified it on 7 June 1996.
The United States signed it also on 10 Dec 1982 but the US Senate has refused to ratify it ever since.