Strengthening Sino-Asean defence ties

Ian Storey

RELATIONS between China and South-east Asia have undergone a remarkable transformation over the past two decades. Two-way trade has expanded to more than US $200 billion (S $279 billion) annually and political relations have been strengthened through regular high-level leadership exchanges and China's active participation in Asean-led regional forums. By contrast, defence cooperation is the least developed aspect of the relationship, primarily due to mutual sensitivities and unresolved territorial disputes. But this situation has begun to change.

Since the early 2000s, Beijing has accelerated its defence diplomacy in South-east Asia. China's energetic defence diplomacy is an integral part of the country's 'charm offensive' which seeks to assuage regional anxieties occasioned by its rising power.

At the multilateral level, the principal venue for China and South-east Asia to enhance defence cooperation is the Asean Regional Forum (ARF). Since its inception in 1994, China has not only become more comfortable with the forum but also a more proactive participant in it.

The ARF encourages member states to make their defence policies transparent through the regular publication of defence White Papers. China's first defence White Paper in 1995 was long on rhetoric and short on substance. But over time the biennial policy documents have become more detailed and its 2008 paper was the best yet. The papers have gone some way towards addressing criticism that the modernisation of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) lacks transparency, but China could do much more in this respect.

The 2003 Asean-China Declaration on Strategic Partnership for Peace and Prosperity recommended close defence cooperation in the form of dialogues, consultations and seminars on security issues, military personnel training and educational exchanges, and even bilateral and multilateral joint exercises. Some of these initiatives have been implemented.

Beijing hosted a meeting of senior defence officials from the region in 2006, as well as the China-Asean Dialogue Between Defence Scholars last year and this year. At these meetings, officials discussed maritime security, counter-terrorism, disaster relief and peacekeeping. China has also used these events as platforms to explain its military modernisation programme.

Most of the heavy lifting has taken place at the bilateral level. In the 1990s, China and South-east Asian countries regularly exchanged senior defence delegations and ship visits. Since 2000, bilateral defence cooperation has expanded.

For instance, China now holds annual defence consultations with Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. These meetings have helped institutionalise defence cooperation and paved the way for activities such as joint exercises.

But joint exercises between the PLA and its South-east Asian counterparts have been relatively infrequent and modest in scope. One factor that has inhibited this kind of defence cooperation is China's concern that foreign militaries might share information derived from such exercises with the United States. By the same token, Washington is none too keen for South-east Asian militaries to deploy US-supplied equipment in joint exercises with China. To date, therefore, joint military exercises have focused on non-sensitive issues such as responses to transnational threats and natural disasters.

Thailand has taken the lead. In 2005, the PLA provided experts and equipment for a landmine clearance programme for the Thai army, and in the same year Thai and Chinese warships held a joint exercise in the Gulf of Thailand. Special forces from the two countries conducted exercises in Guangzhou in 2007 and in Chiang Mailast year.

Singapore is the only other Asean member to have participated in joint exercises with China. In June this year, the Singapore Armed Forces held a small counter- terrorism exercise with the PLA in Guilin to simulate the management of incidents involving radiological, biological and chemical weapons.

Arms transfers are an important component of defence diplomacy but in this area China lags far behind the US and Russia. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, South- east Asian countries imported only US $264 million worth of military equipment from China from 2000 to 2008, 62 per cent of which went to Myanmar. While China's domestic arms industry has made great strides in the past few decades, the military equipment it offers for sale to foreign countries has a poor reputation when it comes to quality, durability and after-sales service.

Improving defence cooperation between China and South-east Asia will inevitably be a long-term process and subject to natural limitations. Nevertheless, increasing dialogue between the two sides and cooperation on non-sensitive security issues augur well for the future of Sino-Asean ties.

The writer is a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.