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31. Island voices and Covid-19: Vulnerability and resilience Views from The Strategist

Author:
David Brewster and Richard Herring
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This Strategic Insights report is being published as part of an ASPI project that focuses on the vulnerabilities of Indo-Pacific island states in the Covid-19 era. It presents a series of views on ways that insiders and external observers have viewed the vulnerabilities and resilience of island countries in the Pacific and Indian Oceans in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic. All of these contributions have appeared as posts on The Strategist. They don’t try to offer a sequential account of events or perceptions but represent a collection of responses to the crisis. The authors were not asked to address a single issue but, rather, were encouraged to focus on issues of relevance to them. The result is a mosaic rather than a portrait of nearly a year of living with the tensions posed by the pandemic. Two key themes do tend to dominate this mosaic. One concerns the way vulnerabilities are expressed as challenges. The second identifies the opportunities that resilience can create.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Asia-Pacific

32. Gamechanger: Australian leadership for all-season air access to Antarctica

Author:
Jeffrey McGee, Marcus Haward, and Anthony Bergin
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Next year, the Australian Government will decide on whether to commit funding for a proposed year-round, paved aerodrome near the Australian Davis research station in East Antarctica. An all-weather, year-round, paved runway near Davis would have huge positive impacts on Antarctic science and logistics in East Antarctica, where there are no equivalent facilities. It would be the only paved runway in Antarctica. As with any major piece of infrastructure development, there’ll be inevitable environmental impacts from the construction and operation of the Davis aerodrome. However, we believe that with care, it should be possible to design, construct and operate a facility that satisfies both operational requirements and environmental obligations under the Madrid Protocol and relevant Australian legislation. If Australia doesn’t proceed with the aerodrome, another country may step into our shoes and take a similar proposal forward. It might be a country with lower standards of environmental assessment and a lesser track record of environmental protection in Antarctica. The Davis aerodrome project requires long-term funding and political commitment. Failing to proceed with the proposal would weaken our influence in Antarctica: it would allow other states to take advantage of the opportunity for logistical and scientific leadership in East Antarctica. The proposed Davis aerodrome will increase Australia's strategic weight in Antarctica, where we claim 42% of the continent.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and National Security
Political Geography:
Australia, Asia-Pacific, and Antarctica

33. Leaping across the ocean: The port operators behind China's naval expansion

Author:
Charlie Lyons Jones and Raphael Veit
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become increasingly willing to project military power overseas while coercing and co-opting countries into accepting the objectives of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Beijing’s greater willingness to flex its muscles, both politically and militarily, is supported by its overseas investments in critical infrastructure, which provide the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with the logistical enablers needed to project military power beyond the ‘first island chain’ in the Western Pacific. ‘Controlling the seas in the region, leaping across the ocean for force projection’ (区域控海，跨洋投送) is the term Chinese naval commentators use when referring to the PLA Navy’s bid to project power across the world. Australia should build its research and analytical capacity to better understand the nexus between the CCP and SOEs. That due diligence, building on open-source research conducted for this report, will better illuminate the PRC’s global expansion, potential grey-zone operations and the companies and individuals involved.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, and Navy
Political Geography:
China, Asia-Pacific, and South China Sea

34. Next step in the step up: The ADF's role in building health security in Pacific Island states

Author:
David Brewster
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
The ADF has long had an important role in providing humanitarian assistance to Pacific island countries (PICs). The force has extraordinary capabilities—people, expertise, training and equipment—in delivering necessary assistance quickly and efficiently. From Australia’s perspective, the ADF is one of our most important agencies in engaging with our PIC partners, particularly in helping them to develop capabilities to address a range of security challenges. In Australia’s new strategic environment, the ADF can also play an important role in helping to build regional health security as part of a new phase in Australia’s Pacific Step-up. This paper argues that the Australian Government should consider a new role for the ADF in the Pacific through developing mutually beneficial enduring military health partnerships.3 That would involve the regular rotation of ADF health professionals through partner medical facilities where they would have the opportunity to gain unique frontline experience from local experts, while also sharing their own knowledge and skills. The mutuality of benefits inherent in such an arrangement means that they shouldn’t be considered as traditional humanitarian assistance. An enhanced role for the ADF in regional health security, properly structured, might ultimately come to be seen alongside the Pacific Patrol Boat Program as a successful example of mutually beneficial partnerships between the ADF and our Pacific neighbours.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, and Health
Political Geography:
Australia and Asia-Pacific

35. Economic coercion in Indo-Pacific island states: Building resilience

Author:
Richard Herr and David Brewster
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
Indo-Pacific island states face diverse challenges as they grapple with their own unique vulnerabilities to the geopolitical consequences of growing strategic competition in the region. This report explores the vulnerability of island states to economic coercion and the risks they face in navigating the growing economic power of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In this report, the authors examine four perceived examples of economic coercion within the region that challenge the Quad’s vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific. China’s increasing interest in the island states of the Indo-Pacific has led to concern that the imbalance in those relationships is so large that both domestic and broader regional stability are at risk. This report offers a number of policy recommendations to protect Indo-Pacific island states from economic coercion, including: Island states must be better invested in the rules-based international economic order; Establishing codes of conduct to limit economic duress, limit undue economic influence and strengthen the rules-based international system; Strengthening government institutions so they can resist economic coercion; International partners should work with Indo-Pacific island states to help strengthen the ability of local businesses to take collective action against economic coercion.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, Economy, and Resilience
Political Geography:
China, Australia, and Asia-Pacific

36. Sliding-door moments: ANZUS and the Blue Pacific

Author:
Richard Herr and Anthony Bergin
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
The report examines some key ‘sliding-door’ moments that have shaped the trajectory of ANZUS in the Pacific Island region over seven decades, to reach the current confused state within the alliance regarding its aims in the Pacific Islands. Our Pacific neighbours recognise that their security is tied up with the region’s new and complex geopolitical environment and they have made it clear that they have no wish to be a catspaw in any strategic rivalries. The report argues that ANZUS has not been fully functional as an alliance for several decades. If its three members are not unified on Pacific Island regional security, the alliance can scarcely advance the Islands concerns more widely. For these reasons, the report recommends that ANZUS strengthen its internal machinery by finding the accommodation needed to resume ANZUS Council Meetings. It also recommends using the Treaty’s Article VIII provisions to incorporate supportive extra-regional powers into an ‘ANZUS Plus’ While recognising that ANZUS isn’t a humanitarian aid agency, as co-author Dr Anthony Bergin notes, “we can’t ignore the security importance of regional infrastructure.” The report also recommends that the ANZUS allies act proactively through national aid programmes to identify and protect these interests in partnership with the Island states’ public and private sectors to prevent key assets becoming strategic bones of contention.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, National Security, ANZUS, and Regional Security
Political Geography:
Asia-Pacific

37. US-Philippines: Resetting the Security Alliance?

Author:
Julius Caesar Trajano
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
Despite Duterte’s desire to shift Philippine security policy away from its treaty alliance with the US, Manila remains a close American ally. Key domestic, strategic and humanitarian factors actually make the alliance healthier. The Biden administration might just wait for Duterte to finish his term in a year's time.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Alliance
Political Geography:
Philippines, North America, Asia-Pacific, and United States of America

38. Mobilizing Resources and Signaling Intentions: a Neoclassical Realist Analysis of Japan’s Domestic and International Instrumentalization of the Senkaku Islands Dispute and China’s Maritime Assertiveness

Author:
Alana Camoca Gonclaves de Oliveira
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional (RBPI)
Institution:
Instituto Brasileiro de Relações Internacionais (IBRI)
Abstract:
Using a neoclassical realist model, this paper builds an analytical model to understand how countries are able to change or adjust their security and foreign policies. The article analyzes Japan’s foreign and security policies under the Shinzo Abe government, exploring how the Japanese government’s internal and international propaganda on Chinese maritime assertiveness and the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands issue influenced the government’s capacity to mobilize resources in order to transform security policies and legitimize Japan’s military role in the Asia Pacific.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Political Theory, Military Strategy, and Propaganda
Political Geography:
Japan, Asia, and Asia-Pacific

39. South China Sea Dispute: China’s Role and Proposed Solutions

Author:
Mubeen Adnan and Fakhara Shahid
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
South China Sea (SCS) is a part of Pacific Ocean and is the most strategic and important waterway in the world containing large deposits of hydrocarbons and fossil oil. Due to its unquestioned importance it has become bone of contention among many East Asian nations and China regarding its sovereignty and control of the territory. Two Islands Parcel and Spratly in the SCS are the flashpoints of the dispute because countries like, Philippine, China, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia are claiming their rights over some parts or sovereignty over all the above mentioned Islands. Primary concern of the dispute lies in U shaped nine- dashed demarcation line by China in the SCS. A decision of international court of Arbitration in “Philippines v. china arbitration case” showed that China U-shaped nine dash line demarcation is uneven with UNCLOS 1982. This verdict has been rejected by China on the grounds that it has no binding forces because China controls 90% area of the SCS through nine dashed line by having historical claim of the sea and this line was drawn in 1946 by the help of USA prior to the 1982 UNCLOS. China wants to solve the dispute bilaterally without any third party interference while due to the importance of the region many other actors are getting involved in to the dispute. A permanent and lasting solution of the dispute is a dire need of the time to solve the complex issue.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Law, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
China, Asia-Pacific, and South China Sea

40. Low Profile in the Philippines

Author:
Morton III Holbrook
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
As Economic Counselor at the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines in 2000-2004, I worked closely with the American Chamber of Commerce in Manila. Amcham also had a branch office in Davao, the largest city in the southern island of Mindanao, staffed by Filipino nationals. In early 2001, I made my first visit to Davao to check out economic conditions there and help promote U.S. business interests. Though generally peaceful, Mindanao has a troubled history of rebellion and terrorist attacks. As a result, the Embassy’s Regional Security Office gave me a special briefing on what to expect, concluding by telling me to “keep a low profile.“ I flew from Manila to Davao airport, keeping this advice in mind. There was no jetway; our plane stopped about 100 feet from the terminal. As I walked down the steps from the plane, I saw a large banner running about half the length of the terminal building that said “American Chamber of Commerce in Davao Welcomes Morton Holbrook, Economic Counselor, American Embassy Manila.” So much for the security officer’s low profile advice, I thought!
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Memoir, and Civil Servants
Political Geography:
Philippines and Asia-Pacific