Long way away

Commitments and friends

I spent today reading an advanced draft of a good friend’s novel. He has written three prior books so he is a seasoned storyteller, writes persuasively, and made it a pleasant opportunity. I will recommend it when it appears.

I did not expect a couple of the twists and turns. We just exchanged notes as I sent him some minor feedback. I won’t speak for him (and won’t mention the novel title quite yet since I am unsure of the publication date) but he indicated that the experience was a manner by which he could expand our appreciation of the dynamics in Asia.

I obviously don’t lecture as often as I did before retirement but still get the opportunity a couple of times every year. Despite all of the attention on the front pages of newspapers and in online resources, I don’t think people recognise the long term commitments it will take to continue to maintain the status quo in East Asia, much less reverse Chinese influence as so many people advocate.

China’s economic prowess and military modernisation have altered the region substantially since March 1996. President Clinton send a carrier battlegroup to the area near Taiwan Strait, a relatively shallow body a hundred miles in width and a couple of hundred miles in length with notoriously ugly weather, after China lobbed missiles in hopes of disrupting the first popular election for the island’s president. It was a tense period less than a decade after the 1989 Tian’anmen Square massacre damaged bilateral between our two countries. PLA modernisation accelerated to assure the CCP suffer no further ‘humiliations’ at the hands of a more powerful state.

China’s economic march towards modernisation was already moving at a rapid pace in the 1990s, only to accelerate further when the PRC entered the World Trade Organisation in 2002. The double digit economic growth aimed primarily to increase the standard of living for its citizens but also provided far greater fiscal resources with which to build a modern military, especially a navy to challenge the one which intervened during operations to cower Taiwan.

China has methodically built a large, capable navy obviously aimed at deterring a U.S. intervention on Taiwan’s behalf. Initial emphasis was on expanding submarines, those sneaky assets menacing super expensive U.S. aircraft carriers and flight assets on board. China has also improved its Air Force, is said to be moderising its nuclear capabilities, and seems to have learned from its overseas activities of the past twenty years.

The military is important to maintain unequivocal pressure on Taiwan, to protect CCP assertions over uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea China’s claims in a non-sensical border dispute at 14,000 feet altitude with India, and to press Beijing’s claims to islets and rocks in the South China Sea. The PLAN also deploys to more distant waters than true a generation ago but China’s navy historically remains primarily an East Asian asset more than a global projection for as true of our military.

CCP’s include goal is to force the United States to reconsider the entire range of possible actions in East Asia. Taiwan is only the most widely discussed point of friction between Washington and Beijing. We are not party to the disputes in the South China Sea but we offer to help thwart PLA aggression against claims of the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia so Beijing wants to dissuade us from that activity. They similarly want us to ignore our bilateral mutual defense arrangement with Japan because we might become enmeshed in the long-standing dispute between Tokyo and Beijing over uninhabitable rocks in the East China Sea near choice mineral resources.

China’s bilateral economic ties with everyone in Asia seem incongruous with growing regional fears but show how adeptly Beijing’s wields instruments of national power. While we rely on our heavily tasked military to provide an iron clad guarantee of national support, China uses is fleet of more than 400 ships in conjunction with a robust Coast Guard and a maritime militia to support PLAN operations. Even thousands of fishermen complicate U.S. maritime operations along China’s long coast line, to include the Taiwan Strait.

Beijing has a defined goal of preventing Taiwan independence and protecting its core interests. Our goal, stated in the 2022 National Security Strategy, is ‘to achieve a better future of a free, open, secure, and prosperous world.’ That is a vast ambition with open-ended implications, well beyond addressing a Taiwan contingency.

The theater is overwhelmingly maritime so the Navy, with its surface, aviation, and submarine communities relying on cyber, intelligence, and other assets, is needed throughout the region. ‘Showing the flag’ is a daily requirement to assure anxious Asians of our commitment. Yet how do we sustain our force? Largely through bases in the region.

Bases in allied nations are crucial to shorten the seven thousand mile distance from the home port in San Diego to Kaohsiung, Taiwan’s second city as an example. Without those basing rights in allied Japan, a task group requires a fortnight to sail west from San Diego’s 32nd Street facility. A lot can happen in fourteen days during a conflict.

Should a conflict extend west of the Strait of Malacca, that psychological break between East and Southern Asia, the ocean distances from the U.S. homeland expand even further.of course China too would face the need for refueling and replenishment but distances are incredibly important for men and women working, living, and fighting afloat. But China could retreat to the naval facilities in Sanya, on Hainan island, far more easily and quickly than we could get home or even to Guam, the nearest U.S. territory.

This is is one of the reasons why allies and partners matter. No U.S. vessel would go into a North Korean port except under the most bizarre and unthinkable of conditions during a conflict because Pyongyang most definitely is neither an ally or a partner.

Japan, however, has a mutual defense agreement allowing us bases in Japan for refuel, repairs, replenishment, and simple rest and recreation (an essential part of planning since naval personnel live on their ships twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week when deployed) stops ashore. It’s hard to overstate the importance of this arrangement.

Australia, however, is too far to be of much use in the immediate period of a conflict but it too is covered by a mutual defense agreement and the newer AUKUS arrangement. But Australia is still bloody far away from much of east Asia. The distance from Geraldton, a naval facility along the western coast, to Kaohsiung is 3554 miles. At 16 knots an hour, that would take just over 9 days sail if weather allowed such progress. The AUKUS agreement signed in early 2023 focuses on submarines and ultimately will augment the U.S. Marine facility in the northern Aussie city of Darwin but the 2527 mile transit to Kaohsiung would still require six and a half days.

Yet Australia and Japan are important locations for our support and maintenance facilities as is South Korea. The South Koreans have one of the biggest shipbuilding industries anywhere so repairing and refreshing our navy forces there would be logical. Our bilateral mutual defense treaty addresses our links but is primarily addressing the DPRK problem so our bases on the peninsula are Army facilities along with a navy facility—rather than a full base—at Jinhae along the southern coast. Because of the lack of a formal navy base with all the support technology, U.S. ships stopping at Busan use commercial facilities.

One of the most desirable aspects to the AUKUS agreement is Canberra’s commitment to build the requisite nuclear technology to support submarine visits. At present, the centrality of the U.S. base in Japan results from our ability to control that technology rather than leaving it vulnerable to non-U.S. personnel. Even as close as our relationships with Japanese Maritime Self Defense Forces or the Republic of Korea forces, we remain worried about possible espionage efforts within a population still split about nuclear technology.

Singapore is the only other place in East Asia where the United States has frequent port visits for some maintenance. That island nation, however, maintains strong ties with both us and Beijing, preventing a commitment to complete intelligence sharing.

That reality is true throughout this region which only makes the challenge of long-term engagement in the western Pacific all the harder to meet the most basic needs of operating in the region. I cannot imagine a circumstance under which any other country east of Malacca would offer us basing rights except the Phillippines but that nation’s commitments always waver because of U.S. colonialism in the first half of the twentieth century. The Filipinos seem too financially strapped to build commercial facilities and we have never rebuilt our vast bases in the country after departing in 1992. We would need a totally U.S.-controlled facility, as we have in Japan, to assure our confidence in operational security but I see no other country where that is possible.

One of the most underdiscussed issues is the concerns about espionage in Taiwan. The complex history of the mainlanders who fled as part of the relocation of the Republic of China in 1949 has resulted in a legacy of a substantial number of Taiwan officers either accused of spying for the mainland or outright fleeing the island for their historic family villages in the PRC. Espionage concerns remain high as questions of PRC penetration of Taiwan surface regularly.

So, our navy’s operating in Asia will be tough for the foreseeable future. We should not kid ourselves, either, that this is merely because of the current competition between Washington and Beijing. We have competing interests and always will. We have some aligning interests, such as addressing environmental problems, but they play a back seat to the competition today.

But those interests are enduring, regardless of the specific regime in power in either capital. We continue hearing voices assuring us that Taiwan would be safe without the CCP or rights would be protected, as we hope, if a non-communist regime occupied Zhongnanhai, the leadership compound in Beijing. I think that borders on fantasy as China has never had a system like ours and their culture values different priorities than ours. Sure, Taiwan is currently democratic (actually hyperdemocratic as fist fighting on the floor of the Legislative Yuan this week reminded me) but China remains a tough place to govern and a people who fear luan, or chaos. It’s not clear Chinese would choose a democratic regime if they had the choice, though most seem to think they would prefer something other than their current system.

If we lost our allies in Asia, it would make this so much harder. That is not a writ by which they can make unreasonable demands or ignore the benefits they get from our alliances but they are crucial reminders for us as we keep our eye on the prize of remaining a major player in the region. When we tie other policy questions to the mutual defense treaties, we risk raising national hackles that could cancel those agreements. Would that really get us to where we need be for the challenges ahead?

Thoughts? Rebuttals? Is it worth it? Is the cost too high? I would love to hear your thoughts on this question. Please chime in as we need greater debate rather than merely unfocused assertions on our allies in this region. China certainly pays attention.

Thank you for reading this column; do feel free to circulate if you find it valuable. Those who subscribe are my inspirations every day as I work to advance our discussions. Knowing you care enough to invest means a great deal.

Be well and be safe. FIN

The White House, U.S. National Security Strategy 2022, Washington: D.C., 2022 retrieved at https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/8-November-Combined-PDF-for-Upload.pdf