Alliances shift to counter Beijing

Greg Torode

News this week of an imminent deal confirming Vietnam's purchase of six crack Russian submarines is a stark reminder of just how tense regional seas could become in a few years.

Given expanding navies across much of the region - Australia is today due to confirm a doubling of its own sub fleet as part of a $72US billion military upgrade - readers could be forgiven for thinking that regional relations are suddenly degenerating into a new arms race.

While the headlines may convey the shock of the new, the trends now surfacing have been playing out over years, rather than months. Developments such as China's recent completion of a nuclear submarine base on the southern coast of Hainan Island or Vietnam's bid for six Russian Kilo hunter-killer submarines may raise alarms, but have almost certainly been known to military intelligence analysts for some time.

Vietnam, for example, has been eyeing Kilos - one of the stealthiest submarines - for the best part of two decades. Vietnam was in advanced negotiations with the Soviet Union, Hanoi's major cold war ally, at the time of its collapse in 1991.

If the drawn-out time frame helps put any sense of sudden tension into perspective, there is still no room for complacency, however. The region is a dangerous place.

The US - still by far Asia's strongest military power - has been the most vocal and consistent advocate of greater transparency from China over its military build-up, particularly its desire for a "blue-water" navy capable of operating internationally. While hawks such as former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld have acknowledged the right of an emerging power to develop its military, they still want to know more about what China intends to do with its new power. Beijing, of course, has stressed that the expansion is peaceful, purely a defensive strategy. East Asian nations are less vocal than the US, but Washington's concerns are widely shared - and reflected in military upgrades and discreet new friendships.

If confirmed, the Vietnamese purchase will be particularly interesting. Far from simply being a matter of traditional Sino-Vietnamese suspicions, it has important international elements.

China and Vietnam are the two major claimants to the island groupings of the South China Sea - a dispute that lawyers warn will be exceptionally difficult to solve, given Vietnam's big continental shelf and China's historic claim. The sea is home not only to shipping lanes, but potential oil and gas reserves.

Beyond Moscow, China's giant rival India has been involved in training Vietnamese submariners.

And as Australian-based Vietnam military expert Carl Thayer has noted, India is wary of China's access to the Indian Ocean and would be keen to keep China occupied nearer its own coast. Then there is Russia, keen to restore its traditional ties with Hanoi in line with its ambitions to rebuild its once-mighty Pacific fleet, based in Vladivostok.

The US is also in the background, steadily developing military ties with Vietnam, its former enemy, while US oil firms are also keen to push ahead with exploration deals with Hanoi, despite Chinese diplomatic objections. Just two weeks ago, Vietnamese naval officials visited an aircraft carrier, the USS John Stennis, off the southern Vietnamese coast.

News of the possible deal is just one more sign of the shifting strategic realities now at work across the region. New diplomatic initiatives will be needed to keep it safe in the long term.

In last week's column on Vietnamese access to Hong Kong, Vietnam's consul general to Hong Kong, Pham Cao Phong, was quoted in reported speech about the momentum of the official relationship. We would like to clarify that Mr Phong's comments referred to ties between Vietnam and the Hong Kong SAR rather than the formal state-to-state relationship between Vietnam and China