Manoj Ambat's Blog dealing with Defence, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Affairs and Politics

America entering into a defence cooperation agreement with Singapore, 2015 ( Image credits- DOD, USA) Source- The Diplomat Author- Shannon Tiezzi As my colleague Prashanth Parameswaran noted yesterday, the United States and Singapore just signed an enhanced defense cooperation agreement. The agreement covered a wide range of areas, including expanded defense dialogues and increased cooperation on cybersecurity and counterterrorism. However, the announcement that garnered the most attention was the news that Singapore will allow U.S. surveillance aircraft to operate from the city-state.  A U.S. P-8 Poseidon aircraft will be deployed in Singapore from December 7 to 14 – and it is widely expected to be used in part to keep tabs on China’s activities in the South China Sea. China was none too happy with the agreement. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told reporters that “the overall situation in the South China Sea is peaceful and stable,” just as regional count

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / VOA Source- The Diplomat Author-  Joshua Kurlantzick After a decade, in the 2000s, in which China aggressively pursued warmer relations with many Southeast Asian nations, using a combination of diplomacy, aid, and soft power to woo its neighbors, the past five years have seen a significant chill in China-Southeast Asia relations. First, Beijing’s more aggressive pursuit of its claims in the South China Sea led to heightened tensions between China and other claimants—most notably Vietnam and the Philippines, but also increasingly Indonesia, where the armed forces are trying to rapidly modernize Jakarta’s naval capacity in part out of fear of China’s actions in the South China Sea. However, even as China alienated countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, it had until recently maintained relatively warm relations with several of the other leading Southeast Asian states, including Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia. These countries were

G-8 Meeting ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- White House) Source- The National Interest Author- Michael Mazza On his inaugural visit to Southeast Asia as president of China, Xi Jinping announced a plan to build a “maritime silk road.” In November of the following year, the Chinese government established the Silk Road Fund, and contributed an initial $40 billion, which will be used to invest in both overland transportation infrastructure and in “expanding ports and industrial parks in Asia, the Mideast, Africa, and Europe.” Given Southeast Asia’s market size, economic potential, and location, it is a key link in China’s maritime silk road plans. Earlier this year, with significant international participation, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB. The bank “will focus on the development of infrastructure and other productive sectors in Asia, including energy and power, transportation and telecommunications, rural infrastructure and ag

J-20 ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Alexandr Chechin) Source- The National Interest Author- Harry J.Kazianis “Aggressive,” “coercive,” “antagonistic,” and “hostile” are some of the words various Asia-security experts have used over the last several years to describe recent Chinese foreign-policy choices. Such talk heated up dramatically in November 2013 when China declared—with no official advanced warning—an Air-Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea, a geographic flashpoint between various powers in the region. This unilateral action sparked intense global debate as to the logic of such a move, but also amplified larger concerns over Chinese intentions throughout the Asia-Pacific and wider Indo-Pacific regions. This essay, divided into several sections, offers a rationale for China’s ADIZ declaration, with an eye towards an even more important question: Will Beijing declare such a zone in the area of the South China Sea? This author believes

PLAN Type-71 Changbaishan ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Kees Torn) Source- The National Interest Author- Elizabeth C. Economy f the recent Shangri-La Dialogue demonstrated one thing—aside from the fact that Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong can deliver an important speech that is both strong and subtle—it is that mitigating tensions in the South China Sea remains a problem with no solution in sight. As the Chinese have continued with their reef reclamation and low-level militarization of small islands in the South China Sea, a number of Chinese scholars and foreign policy officials have sought to clarify the reasons behind Beijing’s actions. Yet what emerges from all the disparate voices is a sense that there is no compelling rationale—or at least not one that the foreign policy community can acknowledge. Instead, there is significant effort to impute an acceptable rationale to the country’s destabilizing behavior. The past is precedent:  Ot

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Navy Source- The National Interest Author- Richard Javad Heydarian No more hiding its claws, no more biding its time, China has unquestionably entered a new era of assertiveness, casting aside Deng Xiaoping’s decades-long call for moderation, humility, and calculation in foreign policy. China is slowly but surely moving from consolidating its claims on features it has been occupying for decades to dominating the entire South China Sea, gradually achieving the capability to fully drive out Southeast Asian claimant states from other features under their control. Quite naturally, a sense of panic has gripped neighboring countries such as the Philippines, which have been locked in a bitter and seemingly hopeless maritime spat with their giant neighbor. We are no longer just talking about hypotheticals here; China is unabashedly operationalizing its sweeping claims across adjacent waters. Far from resorting to its fr

Boeing USAF, F-15 (E) Strike Eagle ( Image source- Wikimedia Commons / Credits- USAF) Source- Eurasia Review Author- Benjamin Schreer In a remarkable public speech at ASPI’s Future Surface Fleet conference last month, the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet—Admiral Harry B. Harris—criticized China for engaging in an “unprecedented land reclamation” effort, creating a “great wall of sand” in the South China Sea (SCS). He went on to point out: “When one looks at China’s pattern of provocative actions towards smaller claimant states – the lack of clarity on its sweeping nine-dash line claim that is inconsistent with international law and the deep asymmetry between China’s capabilities and those of its smaller neighbors – well it’s no surprise that the scope and pace of building man-made islands raise serious questions about Chinese intentions.” As usual, China’s government had a different understanding of the augmentation of large features in the Fiery Cross Reef and s

Image credits- Reuters Source- The National Interest Author- Joshua Kurlanzink Until the past five years, the Philippines and Vietnam had minimal strategic ties other than working together, through ASEAN initiatives, on a range of nontraditional security issues. The two countries had very different styles of leadership—the Philippines is a vibrant democracy with one of the freest media markets in the world, while Vietnam remains run by a highly opaque Party—and Hanoi remained wary of diverging from its strategy of hedging close ties with China with increasingly close relations with the United States. By contrast, the Philippines, despite a very mixed historical relationship with the United States, was (and is) a U.S. treaty ally and one of Washington’s closest partners in Southeast Asia. Vietnam and the Philippines did not hold joint military exercises, rarely had high-level bilateral interactions between senior political and military leaders, and also had only modest t