The Year 2015 in Asia

The news in Asia this year was dominated by the U.S.-China confrontation in the South China Sea. Early in the year it became obvious that Beijing was turning small reefs and atolls it claimed into larger, artificial islands, some with runways capable of supporting high performance aircraft. Washington challenged Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over these islands by sending a U.S. Navy destroyer within a few kilometers of one of them. The year was quieter in the East China Sea where Japan and China dispute ownership of islands there. The calm was deceptive in that Chinese Coast Guard cutters regularly intruded into Japanese-claimed waters about every two weeks. Other news from Asia in 2015:

The mouse that roared  While other countries in Southeast Asia complained about the “nine-dash-line” on official maps that make it seem like China is claiming the entire South China Sea, the Philippines actually did something about it. Manila challenged Beijing’s interpretation before the International Tribunal in The Hague. Near the end of the year, the court ruled that the Philippines did have standing to challenge the action, with a further ruling on the challenge in 2016. Beijing has said it would not abide by any ruling.

Japan’s new military posture.  Street demonstrations not seen in Tokyo in decades, greeted the Japanese government’s new legislation creating the legal framework for permitting Japan to cooperate more fully with allies such as the United States. The groundwork was laid the previous year when the cabinet re-interpreted the country’s pacifistic constitution to permit “collective defense.”  Passage of the “security bills” was a major victory for Prime Minister Abe, who was re-elected head of the governing Liberal Democratic Party unopposed.

Nepal Earthquake.  The deadliest earthquake in 80 years hit Nepal on April 25. The magnitude 7.8 quake’s epicenter was between the capital, Kathmandu, and Mt. Everest. Officially, 8,857 died, including 19 who were trapped by a quake-sparked avalanche on Mt. Everest, making it the deadliest day in the mountain’s recent history. The shaking damaged or destroyed hundreds of century-old buildings, including some designated World Heritage Sites by the United Nations.

Myanmar Election. The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Chi, won a smashing election victory on November 8, capturing about 80 percent of the vote for both houses of parliament. Ironically, it was about the same number of seats the NLD won in 1990, in an election annulled by the military government. This time it seems certain that the military will stay neutral (it still has a guaranteed block of seats). The president will be chosen in March by a complicated formula, but will almost certainly go to a senir NLD figure. Aung San is constitutionally barred from being president but will undoubtedly be the real power in Myanmar.

Malaysian scandal.  For much of the year Malaysia was obsessed with a political funding sandal linked to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. The plot thickened when the Wall Street Journal reported that $700 worth of supposed political contributions had found their way into Najib’s personal bank account. Thousands of demonstrators rallied in Kuala Lumpur urging him to resign. The PM sacked his deputy and shuffled his cabinet to remove opponents. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has never liked any of his successors, also called on Najib to quit, say he was turning Malaysia into a “pariah state.”

Disaster-prone.  China’s 2015 was punctuated by two disasters pointing to corners cut in the headlong race for economic growth. On August 12 explosives stored in two warehouses in Tianjin detonated, devastating the port area and killing about 160 people. The head of the port authority was charged with negligence. On Dec. 20 following heavy rains, a huge land slide toppled buildings near Shenzhen that had been built on a mountain of illegally piled up construction waste. Approximately 75 people were killed or are missing. The waste dump manager committed suicide.

Ma-Xi Meeting  While very little substantive came out of the meeting in Singapore Nov. 7 between President Ma Ying-jeou of the Republic of China and President Xi Jinping, it was notable as being the first time the leaders China and Taiwan had met face-to-face since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. It remains to be seen whether the meeting gives a boost to the Kuomintang candidate, Eric Chu in the January, 2016 presidential election. Chairman Tsai-Ing-wen of the opposition Democrtic Progressive Party, is currently leading.

China Devalues Yuan.  Beijing shocked much of the financial world when on Aug 11 it devalued the yuan. Two devaluations coming back-to-back, lowered the value of the yuan against the dollar by about 3.5 per cent. The central bank offered no explanation or advance warning, but it was widely assumed to be a reaction to poor export figures and overall weak economic growth. China has been criticized repeatedly in the past for deliberately keeping its currency under-valued, although that criticism has in recent years abated somewhat as Beijing took steps to strengthen the yuan.

Lee Kuan Yew RIP  All of Singapore mourned as Lee Kuan Yew died March 23 at age 91. Lee was literally the founding father of independent Singapore and its longest-serving prime minister. Though most of those years he ruled without a single opposition voice in parliament. That begun to change slowly as the political opposition began to grow and claim at least a few sets in parliament. Opposition thoughts were temporarily set aside as tens of thousands of Singporeans mourned the death.

China Sails the Open Seas

When China’s navy looks beyond its coastal waters, which it increasingly does, it sees a kind of Great Wall, except that, from their point of view this wall is meant to keep China pinned in and not to keep the barbarians out.

The Chinese call this the “First Island Chain”, a line of islands, some small, others huge, extending from the Japan archipelago to the north, the Ryuku island chain past Taiwan and the Philippines to the south. The waters within this arc are considered an integral part of China itself.

Increasingly, China’s sailors are penetrating this barrier through various choke points to gain access to the broader Western Pacific Ocean. In late November, a large formation of Chinese long-range bombers and support craft passed through the gap between Okinawa and the island of Miyako, the so-called “Miyako Channel.

The Miyaku Channel is strategically vital for China because it is one of the few international water ways through which the Chinese navy and air can access the Pacific Ocean without violating somebody’s space. It is also located close to the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands which are also claimed by China.

The first time a Chinese H-6K bomber passed through the channel was September, 2013; the first multi-plane formation to use this passageway was in May this year, and late this year an unusually large formation of eight bombers and support aircraft, passed through the gap flew around the Pacific and then returned to home base through the channel.

The H-6K is a modified and much improved version and old Soviet Tu-22 bombers, known as a “Badger”. It has been configured to hold cruise missiles under its wings or in its bomb bay. The planes reportedly flew about 620 miles into the Pacific before returning to their home base near Shanghai.

The navy, as well as the air force is learning to conduct extended maritime operations far from home waters and into the wider Western Pacific. Of course, China has maintained a permanent, rotating flotilla of two destroyers and a supply ship in the waters off the coast of Somalia and the Gulf of Aden since 2009. Unlike Japan, it does not have any permanent base in that region although it is seeking one.

In March, 2014, two Chinese warships docked at Abu Dhabi, the first time a Chinese fleet had made a port call on the Arabian Peninsula since the days of the Treasure Ships of Admiral Zheng He. Also in 2013 the Chinese navy made its first goodwill visit to South America, and it stationed a guided missile frigate in the Mediterranean to help escort ships removing chemical weapons from Syria.

These missions are not war fighting, but they have enhanced capabilities for operating in the seas far from home. They have gained experience in coordinating with other naval services on anti-piracy patrol and exercised with other navies, including those of South Korea and Pakistan navies.

In the summer of 2013 a Chinese naval flotilla passed through the Soyu Strait, which separates Hokkaido from the southern tip of Russia’s Kurile islands; they returned to their home base through the Miyako Channel. The People’s Daily trumpeted this maneuver as if it were a major triumph. Never mind that these narrow waters are international passageways or that they could easily be closed off if the Japanese determined to do so.

China routinely conducts naval and air exercises beyond the First Island Chain as far away as the Philippine Sea, and the number of Chinese naval flotillas passing through the First Island Chain has increased significantly in recent years. There were two in 2008 and 2009, four in 2010, five in 2011, and eleven in 2012. In 2012 surface combatants were deployed seven times to the Philippine Sea and nineteen times in 2013. The Maneuver-5 exercise in the Philippine Sea involved units from all three fleets, China’s largest open-ocean exercise to date.

The Chinese navy has now penetrated all of the Western Pacific choke points along the chain from the Tsuruga Strait separating Hokkaido from Honshu in northern Japan to the Bashi Strait separating Taiwan from the Philippines and the Sunda Strait in Indonesia. In October, 2012 a flotilla exited the East China Sea through the narrow passage way between Taiwan and Japan’s Yonaguna island in the Ryukyu chain (where the Japanese army has constructed a surveillance radar).

It is thought to have been a signal from Beijing of displeasure over Tokyo’s decision to buy the Senkaku islands a month earlier. Later two Sovremnny Class destroyers and two frigates exited the chain through the Miyako Strait and return via the waters separating Yonaguna from Taiwan.

The navy has steadily progressed from a handful of vessels to multi-fleet (ie elements from all three of China’s fleets) to combined operations with submarines, drones and long-range bombers. Not only does China maintain a permanent anti-piracy force in the Indian Ocean, it now routinely conducts naval exercises and operates beyond the First Island Chain, says the US National Defense University.

When queried as to its purpose and intentions of these missions Beijing has a standard reply: “The training is in line with the relevant international practices and is not aimed at any one country or target and poses no threat to any country or region.” One element o the training allows long-range bombers are gaining experience navigating in the broader Pacific far from land markers.

In June, 2015, Beijing issued a white paper on its defense priorities in which it stated what has been obvious to any naval planners paying attention, that China naval interests are no longer limited to its coastline but span the globe. “The traditional mentality [going back to Mao Zedong] that the land outweighs the seas must be abandoned,” the paper states. That the Chinese navy will enhance its capabilities for “open seas protection” just puts into words what is actually happening. The white paper leaves little doubt that China is intent on transforming itself into a modern maritime power, capable of challenging Japan or the U.S. in Asia and elsewhere.

*Todd Crowell is the author of The Coming War between China and Japan, published by Amazon as a Kindle Single.