Chapter Six: Asia

Abstract

are affecting defence planning and procurement, as well as deployments. Bolstering China’s position in the South China Sea has in recent years emerged as a priority for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). This has been pursued in order to reinforce Beijing’s extensive territorial claims, as well as to protect its Jin-class (Type-094) nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs). These boats will become an important element of China’s nuclear deterrent and are due to carry the CSS-NX-14 (JL-2) submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). It has been reported that the boats commenced operational patrols in 2015. The Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress on China’s military power spoke of four boats of the class being ‘operational’, without giving details, and anticipated a first Chinese SSBN deterrent patrol ‘sometime in 2016’. The previous report, however, anticipated the same in 2015. Strengthening China’s capacity to project military power into the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean has also been an objective of the PLA. Speaking in November 2015, Commander of US Pacific Command Admiral Harry Harris Jr said that China was ‘building runways and ... facilities to support possible militarization of an area vital to the global economy’. By early 2016, there had been significant construction activity on seven Chinese-occupied features in the Spratly Islands, with military facilities established on six of them. Mischief Reef and Fiery Cross Reef each had a 3km runway that could be used by combat aircraft, and a similar airstrip was under construction on Subi Reef. Moreover, in February 2016 China deployed two batteries of the HQ-9 surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island in the Paracels; in the following weeks, J-11 and JH-7 combat aircraft were also reported on the island. China’s increasingly assertive role in the South China Sea was also demonstrated by the interception of fishing and supply vessels from other claimant states (the Philippines and Vietnam) in both the Paracel and the Spratly islands. One important consequence of China’s activities in the South China Sea was that they led the United States Navy to undertake freedom-of-navigation operational patrols (FONOPs), designed to assert the right of the US (and others) to fly and sail wherever Regional military roles Armed forces in the Asia-Pacific region typically undertake a broader range of roles than their Western equivalents. This is particularly true in Southeast Asia, where armed forces – and armies in particular – sometimes remain central players in national politics (notably in Myanmar and Thailand) and retain significant internal-security responsibilities (as is the case in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Thailand). In the region’s single-party states – China, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam – the institutional nature of civil–military relations and military doctrine means that the preservation of domestic stability and party rule are vital concerns of the armed forces. From a Western perspective, the wider role of Asian forces may often seem to detract from their military capabilities, particularly in terms of their capacity to deter and defeat external adversaries, and to mount expeditionary operations. However, it should be remembered that they and their governments often employ notions of capability that differ substantially from Western norms. Nevertheless, the development of greater capacity for conventional warfare is the dominant theme in regional defence policymaking. While rising tensions in the East China and South China seas, as well as on the Korean Peninsula, may have bolstered the case for developing conventional military capabilities, recent military developments should be seen as the latest phase in long-term defence-modernisation programmes and as such do not simply reflect external security preoccupations. These programmes are also shaped by increased financial resources resulting from sustained economic growth, strategic cultures rooted in the awareness of past conflicts and the perceived dangers of military weakness, and a pervasive longterm sense of strategic uncertainty deriving in large part from real and anticipated changes in the regionalsecurity roles of the major powers.