Xue Gong. International Affairs. Volume 96, Issue 1, January 2020.
The growth of China’s power and influence, as well as its assertive security activities in the past decade, have generated tremendous geopolitical repercussions in Asia and beyond. Regional states, especially the major players, have been contemplating new strategies and policies in reaction to Beijing’s growing weight. The ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy, actively promoted by the United States with support from its allies and partners, is perhaps the most significant geopolitical response formulated by major powers in the region with the aim of influencing Chinese behaviour and constraining China’s expanding ambitions.
Foreseeing the negative impact of this US-led Indo-Pacific strategy on its national interests in Asia and the Indian Ocean region, China has adopted various new strategies to cope with the challenges presented by the FOIP. Its major strategic moves include improvement of relations with Japan, strategic detente with India, and acceleration of regional economic integration schemes such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). China regards its economic prowess as an important item in its policy toolkit. Some Chinese policy analysts even advocate China’s membership in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) to better position the country in the region’s evolving strategic environment. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in particular, has been seen as Beijing’s potentially most useful strategic tool in response to the FOIP.
In addition to these strategic policies, China appears to have a strong interest in securing a robust relationship with south-east Asia as part of its geopolitical response to the FOIP. Chinese policy-makers understand that the future evolution of the FOIP will largely depend on the attitudes and policies of the countries in south-east Asia, a region that sits astride the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Closer ties between ASEAN and China, they feel, will help persuade ASEAN as a regional institution and most ASEAN member states to be at least neutral towards the Indo-Pacific vision. Beijing believes that in addition to its existing strategies in the region based on economic statecraft and soft power, which have been quite successful in pulling regional states into the Chinese gravitational field, it can also tap into the domain of non-traditional security (NTS)—some of whose constituent elements are outlined below: health, humanitarian crisis, energy security, food security, the environment, cross-border crimes, water resources and maritime security—to strengthen relations with south-east Asia and so to better compete with other major players that are actively working on the Indo-Pacific construct.
According to some policy analysts, NTS cooperation can be used to serve various geopolitical objectives: improving China’s international image; increasing trust on the part of target countries; building leadership in international security affairs to improve Beijing’s ability to exercise strategic leverage; facilitating the development of traditional security (defence and military) ties between China and regional states; reshaping regional security norms and institutions; and ultimately weakening other major powers’ regional influence, especially that of the United States. Against this background, the present article attempts to assess the impact of China’s NTS cooperation with south-east Asia on Beijing’s geopolitical rivalry with other major powers in the Indo-Pacific region. It aims to examine the extent of Beijing’s success in using its NTS role in the region to accomplish those geopolitical objectives and, on that basis, to discuss the implications for the strategic rivalry between China and the United States and its allies in the Indo-Pacific region.
China and ASEAN have cooperated on a vast range of NTS issues, such as health, humanitarian aid, energy and food, the environment, cross-border crime, water resources and maritime law enforcement. Within the broad scope of NTS cooperation on both sides, this article focuses on China’s NTS role in relation to the Mekong river and maritime security, for three reasons. First, both water governance in the Mekong subregion and security in the maritime arena are closely connected to geopolitical tensions. Subregional countries have been concerned about China’s geopolitical intentions in the upstream Mekong river, while most south-east Asian states are anxious about its activities in disputed areas of the South China Sea. Second, China aims to strengthen its regional security role by shaping norms and institutions in these areas. Third, serious competition exists in these two policy areas between China and external players, such as the United States and Japan, which gives them significant relevance to discussion of geopolitical rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region.
The article is organized as follows. The first section discusses the connections between NTS cooperation and geopolitics. The next two sections provide detailed studies of two cases: (1) China’s water-related NTS cooperation in mainland south-east Asia through the newly established Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism; and (2) China’s NTS cooperation in the maritime domain in south-east Asia. The two cases illustrate China’s approaches to regional NTS issues, the geopolitical drivers behind Beijing’s efforts, and regional states’ responses to China’s policies. The concluding section discusses the impacts of China-ASEAN NTS cooperation on geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific.
The article suggests that China’s roles in regional NTS are significantly different in the Mekong area and in the maritime region of south-east Asia. In mainland south-east Asia, China is playing an increasingly active role in helping the region address various NTS challenges. Although these Chinese efforts are generating some positive geopolitical outcomes for Beijing, it is unlikely that China will be able to completely dominate the subregion. In the maritime area, China’s interest in regional NTS has been increasing, but many Chinese actions are declaratory rather than substantive. It is almost impossible for China to play a leading role in maritime NTS in south-east Asia in the short to medium term, largely owing to the South China Sea disputes. On balance, its NTS cooperation with south-east Asian countries may help China to maintain its geopolitical standing in the region, but it is unlikely to lead to any dramatic increase in its regional strategic influence. This essentially means that while Beijing may be able to prevent ASEAN or most ASEAN member states from lending strong and substantive support to the Indo-Pacific concept led by the United States, it will not be able to stop ASEAN states from supporting some elements of the FOIP.
NTS in Relations between China and South-East Asia: A Geopolitical Perspective
South-East Asia’s Geopolitical Significance for China
It is important to understand China’s growing geopolitical interests in south-east Asia in the context of the Indo-Pacific construct. Situated at the very centre of the Indo-Pacific region, south-east Asia has long been explicitly identified as a very important region for China’s national security and foreign relations. A stable and positive relationship with south-east Asia will serve a range of Chinese interests—for instance, the development of its more than US$1.2 trillion blue economy (sustainable marine economy); energy security; international trade; and territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea. Also, according to Khong, ‘Asia is where China must establish its prestige or “reputation for power”.’ It is relatively easier for China to expand its influence in south-east Asia than in other subregions in the neighbourhood such as south Asia and north-east Asia, because south-east Asia is the only one where Beijing does not have an adversary or hostile rival with major-power status. South-east Asia is already the region that has the most diverse NTS cooperation with the Chinese, compared to their role in other subregions. Moreover, ASEAN’s role as the central player in regional multilateralism, as well as its stated neutrality in Sino-US strategic competition, adds to the region’s geopolitical significance to China. A robust relationship with south-east Asia will be critical if Beijing is to secure an advantageous strategic position in Asia-Pacific and beyond.
However, many south-east Asian states have long distrusted China owing to a variety of factors including historical enmity, territorial disputes and the sense of threat arising from the geographic proximity between these states and their giant neighbour. As China’s power continues to grow, the differences between ASEAN and China in threat perceptions and approaches to maintaining regional security will continue to increase. For example, China believes that building a security community through enhanced common interests is the most viable pathway towards long-term regional security, while ASEAN is keen to serve regional security by maintaining a balance of power and diversifying security options.
Against the background of these differences, China has for decades been pursuing a charm offensive, mainly through economic means, in the effort to promote political and security relations in the region. While Beijing’s economic power increased its regional influence in the 2000s, its strategic ties with south-east Asia became strained in the 2010s, largely owing to the South China Sea conflicts. China was frustrated that many south-east Asian states strengthened defence ties with the United States after Washington proposed the ‘strategic rebalance to Asia’, which suggested that China’s economic statecraft had not been as effective as it had hoped. Beijing may now have even more reasons to worry about the efficacy of its economic strategy in south-east Asia, as its call for building maritime connectivity under the BRI has not received strong support from many regional states.
China is particularly worried about the security threat posed by the US’s predominant military presence in the region. Washington has not only established its influence through bilateral, minilateral and multilateral defence cooperation with its allies and partners, but has also improved its relationships with Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam through NTS cooperation in the region. At the subregional level, the United States has strengthened its ties in the Mekong region (which China views as part of its own sphere of influence) under the umbrella of the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), with the declared aims of improving law enforcement and border security, providing humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), and combating the trafficking of arms, people and drugs. In China’s view, Washington is using the LMI to influence water governance in the region and to hamper Beijing’s efforts on water resource cooperation. In the maritime arena, Beijing perceives Washington’s involvement in the South China Sea as a threat to its attempt to negotiate a code of conduct for the area.
Realizing the daunting scale of the challenges facing it in maintaining relations with the region, in particular the South China Sea disputes, China has attempted to encourage security cooperation, especially in the NTS arena, to address the concerns of ASEAN member states. According to a white paper on China’s policies on Asia-Pacific security cooperation, the development of a regional security framework requires that Beijing ‘focus on non-traditional security cooperation, and start from the easier tasks before moving on to more difficult ones, so as to build trust and lay a solid foundation for the framework’.
China’s Interest in Using NTS Cooperation for Geopolitical Objectives
Most existing studies on NTS presume that interstate cooperation on these issues stems from the need for joint efforts to counter actual transboundary challenges. In other words, the transboundary nature of NTS has compelled states to seek more substantial levels of security cooperation. Various cross-border challenges in Asia in areas such as food, health, environment and economic security, as items on the human security agenda, have forced regional states to abandon narrow interpretations of security and to pursue regional cooperation. Following the same logic, even the United States and China, the two biggest state competitors in the world, cooperate in many NTS areas. All these analyses point to the characteristics of NTS as a non-geopolitical domain in which it is a ‘soft’ security issue conducive to cooperation.
In addition to the human-centred approach to NTS, there is another, state-centred, narrative on NTS issues. In south-east Asia and China, NTS cooperation has focused more on this latter aspect than on the human security aspect. ASEAN member states and China share the vision that achieving human security helps to encourage economic and social development. This shared developmentalism has helped both sides to achieve a common understanding of NTS cooperation, often based on economic and state-centric approaches. Because of this state-centric approach, NTS cooperation has been increasingly adopted as a tool to sustain regional security. More specifically, NTS cooperation has been driven mostly by the political objectives of both parties. China has stood to gain strategic presence and influence in south-east Asia through NTS cooperation—as exemplified, for example, by its assistance to regional countries during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. For its part, ASEAN has managed to socialize China into its ASEAN-centred multilateralism and regional architecture by fostering NTS cooperation between the two parties. It is true that in NTS cooperation, in contrast to traditional security cooperation, geopolitics is not seen as a prominent motivation. However, the NTS cooperation agenda in the region, pursued through a number of mechanisms led by different powers, includes issue areas such as maritime law enforcement, transnational crime and counterterrorism that are easily linked with issues around force, sovereignty and territory. As an Indonesian scholar notes, ‘NTS cooperation [in the region] reflects the inescapability of the politics of security’.
Unsurprisingly, given the close links between NTS cooperation and geopolitics in the region, there is clear evidence that China has been using its regional NTS participation to achieve its geopolitical purposes since its introduction of the New Security Concept in 2002. The core of the New Security Concept was to promote common security against the US-led alliance system in the Asia-Pacific. In 2002, China issued the Joint Declaration on Cooperation in the Field of Non-Traditional Security Issues with ASEAN at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and two years later, in 2004, it signed a memorandum of understanding with ASEAN on NTS cooperation. In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, China saw an opportunity to promote its image by pledging assistance to regional countries at the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (AMCDRR) in 2005 and the China-ASEAN tsunami seminar in 2006. In the subsequent disaster relief activities, China provided technological support, for example the Feng Yun II satellite, as well as training programmes. It also donated 687 million renminbi (approximately US$80 million) to the disaster-stricken countries. During these years, then, under the presidency of Hu Jingtao, Beijing became markedly more active in working with regional states to deal with NTS challenges.
In subsequent years, China began to show a stronger interest in leading some of the NTS issue agendas. In 2007, China participated in drafting the ARF’s general guidelines for disaster relief cooperation at the 14th ARF ministerial meeting. Beijing also pushed for a more active role in addressing NTS issues through the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) mechanism that comprises the ten members of ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea. Between 2007 and 2008, China hosted two annual APT workshops on the role of armed forces in disaster relief. It also sought to institutionalize defence cooperation and military exchanges among APT members with a particular focus on NTS. According to the Chinese ministry of foreign affairs, by 2017 Beijing had initiated the largest number of cooperation projects under ARF, accounting for one-third of the total.
However, towards the end of the decade, rising tensions in the East China Sea and South China Sea changed the security perceptions of many countries in the region, and these geopolitical tensions in the maritime domain undermined NTS cooperation. For example, China was not invited to take part in the first ARF Disaster Relief Exercise (ARF DiREx) in 2009, while the United States and Japan did participate. Moreover, China was not invited to present the keynote speech in the Fourth AMCDRR, although many Chinese scholars contend that Beijing would have been more than happy to share its domestic experiences of handling relief operations after natural disasters on that occasion.
Despite these setbacks, China continued to display a strong interest in NTS cooperation to improve its image and expand its influence in the region. At the global level, China has become more active in safeguarding the security of sea lines of communication (SLOCs) and in international peacekeeping activities. At the regional level, China has participated in several instances of multilaterally based NTS cooperation initiated by ASEAN: these included the HADR in the first ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) held in Vietnam in 2010, and from 2011 the ARF DiREx. China also began to initiate other NTS cooperation activities at the bilateral level in areas such as health and law enforcement.
After Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, China started to explore ways of extending its leadership in regional NTS. Chinese involvement in NTS cooperation was deepened in a wide range of areas including disaster relief, counterterrorism, combating transnational crime, energy and food, maritime security, and non-proliferation and disarmament. A development of particular note for the academic and policy communities alike is that China began to push strongly for cooperation with neighbouring states in law enforcement and security (primarily in NTS domains), two areas which have been strategically linked with the BRI.
China’s efforts in pushing for NTS cooperation are closely related to its regional geopolitical goals. Beijing hopes that its NTS activism will help improve its image and the degree to which it is trusted by regional states. Aware of the difficulty in significantly transforming the regional security order, Chinese policy researchers concur that NTS issues could lay the foundation for stronger security and defence ties between China and regional states. They believe that NTS cooperation can potentially foster high-politics cooperation, and thereby transform China’s role from security collaborator to security provider. It is even suggested that NTS cooperation in the maritime domain could be used to strengthen mutual trust conducive to better resolution of South China Sea disputes in the future. Others contend that stronger NTS cooperation will enable Beijing to take the lead in NTS regime-building and thus will gradually contribute to the emergence of a China-centred regionalism or a regional multipolar security order. These approaches all point to one essential geopolitical objective: China expects to leverage its growing role in regional NTS to undermine the influence of, and even delegitimize, the US-led alliance system. In this respect, south-east Asia is of particular strategic importance in China’s strategy of countering the US Indo-Pacific strategy. The two case-studies set out below provide clear evidence that Beijing’s intent in improving relations with south-east Asian countries is to mitigate the geopolitical pressures from the Indo-Pacific concept.
The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation: China’s Growing NTS Role in Mainland South-East Asia
In addition to the various regional multilateral settings outlined above in which China has been involved, one particular area of NTS cooperation between China and south-east Asia is focused on the Mekong subregion. With the opening of China’s Yunnan province to neighbouring countries in the early 1990s, more and more cross-border NTS problems, such as smuggling and human trafficking, began to emerge. China and its neighbours on this border began to cooperate to tackle these problems. But the most difficult NTS challenge facing China and the mainland south-east Asian countries has long been the Mekong river issue.
The Mekong River Issue and the LMC
There are many conflicts of interest between China and other countries regarding the Mekong river, concerning for example the sharing of hydraulic information, dam-building activities in the upper stream, navigation and the role to be played by external parties. These differences have long had a negative impact on China’s relations with other countries through which the Mekong flows—called here, for brevity, the Mekong countries. These countries have always been concerned that China could take advantage of its upstream position to control the watercourse and undermine the sovereignty and autonomy of the downstream countries. China’s previous dam-building activities (both within and beyond its borders) and its reluctance to share hydrological data have caused the Mekong countries to be wary of China.
It was not until 2011, when 13 Chinese merchants on the Mekong river were murdered, that China started to take a leading role in strengthening law enforcement and security cooperation with Mekong countries. After that incident, China and three other Mekong countries—Laos, Myanmar and Thailand—issued the Joint Declaration on Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation on Mekong and the Joint Declaration on Joint Law Enforcement Ministerial Level Meeting, and began to conduct regular joint patrols in the upper section of the Mekong river.
Beijing’s interest in further enhancing its cooperation with regional states in dealing with the river issue increased significantly in the context of evolving regional integration. In 2012, Thailand proposed sustainable development cooperation for the Mekong subregion with particular attention to water governance issues. This emphasis reflects Thailand’s view that its chief security challenges relate to areas of non-traditional security such as water and environmental security. Initially, China considered this proposal as constituting an intrusion into its domestic use of water resources and therefore its sovereignty; it consequently made its participation in Thailand’s proposal conditional on a broadening of the cooperation agenda, and counter-proposed a package that included political and security cooperation. This approach was strongly resisted by Thailand and Vietnam, which emphasized that work should continue under the existing regional institutions.
In the light of this resistance on the part of other regional states, China declared its commitment to working seriously on water cooperation with Mekong countries and pledged to do so by merging political and security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation into one package. China’s ‘compromise’ on water cooperation made the Mekong countries eventually agree to broadening the scope of cooperation to include the political and security realms. Two years after Thailand made the original proposal, China officially declared the establishment of the LMC at the 17th China-ASEAN summit in 2014, ‘echoing Thailand’s initiative on sustainable development of the Lancang-Mekong Sub-region’.
Under the LMC, China has started to institutionalize cooperation on water issues, mainly through information exchanges, technological support, education and human resource training, and engagement with other existing institutions such as the Mekong River Commission (MRC). For example, China set up the Lancang-Mekong Water Resource Cooperation Centre and began to provide funds for the Global Centre for Mekong River Studies. The Joint Working Group of Lancang-Mekong Cooperation on Water Resources Management has drafted the first Five-Year Action Plan on Lancang-Mekong Resource Cooperation. More strikingly, China agreed to sign the Agreement on the Provision of Hydrological Information on the Lancang-Mekong river with the MRC and also began to engage with Global Water Partnership (an international network for water resources management) in December 2017.
China’s Geopolitical Pursuits Under the LMC
China has highlighted its important role as a riparian state in regional development and security by emphasizing the need to build ‘a community of shared destiny’. Chinese leaders have repeatedly stressed the fact that China and other regional countries along the Lancang-Mekong river are ‘closely linked geographically, socially and culturally’. This emphasis on the joint efforts of China and other Mekong countries in dealing with this transboundary water issue suggests that Beijing does not want external parties to get involved.
The LMC clearly shows China’s ambition in enhancing its security role in the region. Some Chinese analysts argue that the LMC is intended only to complement the existing Greater Mekong Subregional Economic Cooperation (GMS). This argument is not convincing. China has already vowed to build the China-Indochina Peninsula Economic Corridor as one of its BRI flagship initiatives, so that many projects (especially economic cooperation and governance issues) can be addressed as part of this project, potentially rendering the LMC redundant. It is thus plausible to believe that launching the LMC and including security and political cooperation on the agenda is a smart tactic allowing China to strengthen its security role in the subregion. It is also plausible to suggest that the LMC was a direct response to the Washington-led LMI and the later Mekong-Japan Cooperation (MJC).
The establishment of the LMC in 2014 has further strengthened China’s role in law enforcement and security cooperation at both subregional and regional levels. In October 2015, China hosted the China-ASEAN Ministerial Dialogue on Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation, on the theme ‘security for prosperity’, and the Ministerial Meeting on Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation along the Mekong river. To show that it has the capability to provide public security goods in the region, China has pledged to further enhance security cooperation under the BRI by providing funding, technology and capacity-building for law enforcement officers in the region. China also set up the Lancang-Mekong Integrated Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation Centre in Kunming in December 2017.
With a pronounced asymmetry of power in its favour, China may be able to expand its influence through project implementation, agenda-setting and mechanism-building. China can also highlight its leadership role in providing regional public goods such that Mekong countries will be keen to actively engage with it on a range of critical issues. In general, all the Mekong countries agree with China that economic development is vital for sustaining stability and security. Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and, to a certain extent, Thailand and Vietnam all expect to benefit from China’s economic support. They expect to receive special funds provided by China under the LMC to support their small and medium-sized cooperation projects. They also hope to take advantage of the newly established institutions to voice their concerns over upstream projects. China also appears to be able to influence some Mekong countries by using economic, political and NTS tools bilaterally. For example, in 2017 Cambodia suspended its military assistance cooperation with the United States and turned to China. Beijing also strengthened ties with Thailand when the relationship between Washington and Bangkok became strained owing to the Thai military coup of 2014.
Challenges for China’s Geopolitical Gains in the Region
Despite having made some progress under the LMC, China faces challenges in using NTS cooperation to achieve all its geopolitical goals in the subregion. First, there is widespread concern in the region that traditional and non-traditional threats are intertwined. Border security concerns, underpinned by principles of sovereignty and autonomy, severely limit the active participation of Mekong countries in resolving transboundary security issues. The sudden outbreak of hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia over disputed territory in 2008, lasting until 2011, showed how easily regional conflicts could occur. Therefore, NTS cooperation in the region remains small in scale.
It appears, too, that a lack of political will has also impeded information-sharing and cooperation in law enforcement between China and other Mekong countries. In general, Mekong countries are concerned about China’s regional dominance and the possibility of its using water resources for strategic purposes. For example, Thailand was described as ‘passive’ in arresting the criminals who murdered Chinese merchants during a law enforcement operation on the Mekong river in 2011. Thailand also resisted China’s proposal for joint patrols on Thai sections of the Mekong river. The Thai government is now actively promoting the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), a scheme initiated by the country’s former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by the Thai military in 2006. More tellingly, Thailand even invited India, Japan, South Korea and the United States to be ACMECS development partners.
Vietnam is wary of China’s potential use of water as leverage to influence Hanoi’s South China Sea policy. As a result, Vietnam has been resisting China through selective participation in the LMC. For example, when China proposed the establishment of an international secretariat for the LMC, Vietnam resisted the idea because it was wary of China’s dominance in the institution. Vietnam has been most reluctant to accept China’s LMC funds and projects. Moreover, Vietnam has been strategically taking a leadership role in the Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Area (CLV-DTA), with support from Japan, which seeks to reduce China’s influence in the subregion while increasing its own. Laos and Myanmar are also sensitive to China’s leadership in law enforcement, perceiving its security presence in the Mekong as a threat to their domestic politics and security.
It is fair to say, given their shared anxiety over China, that south-east Asian states have begun to adopt a ‘recalibrated equidistance’ approach to relations with external major powers, although this is not explicitly acknowledged by the Mekong countries. For example, in 2018 the Mekong countries expressed their support for Japan’s vision of the FOIP. Also, with the introduction of the Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington reaffirmed its commitment to enhance the capacity of law enforcement in the Mekong region through the LMI at various ministerial-level meetings.
On balance, Beijing appears to have slightly upgraded its image in the region and gained some trust from regional states, largely because of its more flexible positions and pragmatic policies in dealing with the Mekong river issues. The LMC is also poised to further contribute to the asymmetric ties between China and regional countries, with the Chinese expected to provide more resources and capabilities for regional states in their socio-economic development and NTS programmes. Through the LMC, Beijing is gradually transforming the configuration of institutions in the Mekong region. However, in assessing its geopolitical achievements here, Beijing may be disappointed in two respects: (a) the unlikelihood of bringing about spillover of NTS into direct military and defence relations with regional states; and (b) the strong resistance from regional players to the emergence of Chinese dominance in the subregion. Other major powers’ activism in the Mekong subregion will further undermine China’s ambition of pursuing regional dominance.
China’s Participation in Maritime NTS in South-East Asia
China’s Geopolitical Interests in Maritime NTS Cooperation
Another important area of NTS relations between China and south-east Asia is the maritime realm. There is no consensus yet among researchers on a definition of maritime NTS, but most analysts would include safety of SLOCs, anti-piracy activities, search and rescue, combating transnational crime at sea, and marine environmental protection. The main countries in south-east Asia with which China may need to cooperate on these issues are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam. There is no doubt that China has ambitions to play a larger role in regional maritime security as maritime passage has become crucial for the country’s own economic development and security. In the words of Chinese analysts, maritime security is a key element in building the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), and is equally crucial for the purpose of transforming China into a ‘maritime power’. In the vision and action plans for the Belt and Road Maritime Cooperation, China highlights maritime law enforcement cooperation in areas including crime at sea, terrorism, natural disaster relief and marine environmental protection.
China’s geopolitical goals in the maritime arena have been consistent and clear. Confident of its growing power, Beijing has attempted to modify some rules relating to the global maritime commons and reshape international maritime regimes. As one senior Chinese official noted, Beijing even regards the consultation on the South China Sea code of conduct as a process conducive to building a maritime governance regime with Asian characteristics.
China’s Growing Role in South-East Asian Maritime NTS
Beijing has been willing to incorporate maritime law enforcement and security in multilateral mechanisms led by ASEAN, believing that working with these existing mechanisms, such as ARF, is beneficial for China’s security. After proposing the establishment of the China-ASEAN Maritime Consultation Mechanism in 2004, China showcased its capacity for cooperation on various platforms: the ASEAN Plus Three Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, the ASEAN Plus China Ministers’ Meeting on Transnational Crime and the Expanded ASEAN Maritime Forum (EAMF). After hesitating for a few years, in 2014 China eventually decided to support the passing of the Code of Conduct for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) of the Western Pacific Naval Symposium.
China has also begun to strengthen cooperation to foster closer security relations with regional states bilaterally. For example, as early as 2007 the Chinese ministry of public security approached the Malaysian maritime law enforcement agency on maritime law enforcement cooperation. In 2016, a Chinese coastguard ship paid a visit to Vietnam, the ‘first of this kind to south-east Asia’. And in 2017, China and the Philippines set up the Joint Coast Guard Committee on Maritime Cooperation.
To facilitate cooperation, China has begun in the less sensitive areas, anticipating that low-politics cooperation will enhance high-politics cooperation, through a series of exchanges and cooperative events on maritime security, scientific research and environmental protection. For example, China hosted the third China-South-east Asian Countries Marine Research and Environmental Protection Cooperation Forum. Bilaterally, China and Thailand conducted a scientific expedition in the Andaman Sea, and held the Fourth Joint Committee Meeting on Marine Cooperation. China and Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding on the establishment of the China-Malaysia Joint Oceanographic Research Centre. China also set up the China-Indonesia Centre for the Oceans and Climate in 2010, and the Joint Oceanic Observation Station in 2011.
As China’s power continues to grow, so its aspiration to a leadership role in law enforcement and security cooperation is also rising. In 2015, China hosted the Asia-Pacific Heads of Maritime Administrations Conference, the multi-task exercise ‘Cooperation for Law Enforcement 2015’ of the North Pacific Coast Guard Agencies Forum, an international training course for lighthouse management personnel in the Asia-Pacific Area, and the Asia-Pacific Mass Rescue Operation Training Course and Table-Top Exercise.
At the regional level, in 2011 China set up a 3 billion renminbi China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund which covers a range of maritime security topics; however, this fund has been little used by ASEAN countries. In 2013 China proposed the MSR and advocated maritime cooperation in the annual China-ASEAN Expo. In 2015 China officially launched the Year of China-ASEAN Maritime Cooperation to explore the possibility of establishing a maritime law enforcement institution. In the same year, China hosted the China-ASEAN Ministerial Dialogue on Law Enforcement and Security Cooperation with the theme ‘security for prosperity’. In 2016, China and ASEAN concluded the Guidelines on Maritime Emergency Senior Official Hotline and the Joint Declaration on Maritime Accidental Encounter Rules in the South China Sea. In 2017 ASEAN and China issued the Declaration for a Decade of Coastal and Marine Environmental Protection in the South China Sea (2017-2027). In April 2016, during the Eleventh Senior Officials Meeting for the Implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties, China proposed to establish three technical cooperation committees to tackle, respectively, navigation safety and search and rescue; marine scientific research and environmental protection; and transnational maritime crimes. In 2018 the two sides held a joint maritime exercise for the first time, though this was more symbolic than substantive.
China’s efforts in leading maritime law enforcement and security are primarily manifested in various Track 1.5 and Track 2 activities, such as personnel exchanges, training programmes and seminars. After China held the first China-ASEAN maritime law enforcement cooperation seminar in 2006, it provided training and exchanges for maritime personnel from ASEAN countries. For example, in 2018 China hosted the Maritime Law and Governance Advanced Seminar, and a conference entitled ‘China-ASEAN working together to build security cooperation mechanisms in the South China Sea’.
Constraints on China’s Geopolitical Ambitions in Maritime South-East Asia
The most significant challenges to China’s efforts at maritime NTS cooperation in south-east Asia have always been the South China Sea disputes. These disputes have long been a major source of other claimant countries’ distrust and apprehension towards China. In response to China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea, other regional states, notably Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, have increased their defence spending and improved their military and naval capabilities. External powers, notably Japan and the United States, have also provided assistance to enhance the law enforcement and security capabilities of south-east Asian countries, especially those with counter-claims to China’s in the South China Sea. Regional states are concerned that China may link its role in regional NTS to the territorial disputes in these waters. For example, the relatively small amount of humanitarian assistance offered by China to the Philippines in the aftermath of the Typhoon Haiyan disaster in 2013 was a reflection of Beijing’s frustration over Manila’s recourse to international legal arbitration to settle the South China Sea dispute.
China’s unilateral and assertive law enforcement activities in the South China Sea have undermined its efforts at maritime NTS cooperation with regional states. Under normal circumstances, law enforcement and security cooperation can be applied to address NTS issues such as piracy, terrorism, environmental degradation, human and drug trafficking, illegal arms trading, and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. But China also uses these law enforcement forces to strengthen its own maritime claims and safeguard its maritime interests. These Chinese operations in the so-called ‘grey-zone’ areas have led to regional instability and geopolitical rivalry.
Compared with the United States, China has achieved only limited multidimensional security cooperation in south-east Asia, in both scale and scope. For example, the search and rescue operation to find the missing Malaysian airliner MH370 in 2014 revealed weaknesses and barriers in information-sharing and logistics coordination between China and south-east Asian states. China’s attempts to forge a more comprehensive, holistic and institutionalized China-led NTS cooperation structure that covers a range of issue areas (including the South China Sea disputes) have not received strong support from ASEAN. Instead, ASEAN insists on specific issue-based and bilateral/multilateral NTS cooperation, maintained alongside cooperation with the United States, to ensure regional security.
From this case, it can be seen that maritime law enforcement and security cooperation between China and south-east Asia is more a matter of vision than practice, and mostly focused on areas of low politics such as environmental protection. Actual maritime NTS cooperation between China and regional states is rather limited because of the latters’ strategic distrust of China, which is in turn largely a result of Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. Many Chinese proposals for regional maritime NTS cooperation remain on paper and have not been implemented. Beijing’s growing activism in regional maritime NTS may, to some extent, have helped prevent its regional security image from further deteriorating, and may have gained China some limited amount of trust from regional states. But Beijing has almost completely failed in achieving its other geopolitical objectives, for instance generating spillover effects into traditional security areas, shaping regional norms and institutions, revamping the regional security order and weakening the US security role in the region.
Conclusion: Implications for Geopolitical Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific Region
This article set out to examine the geopolitical consequences of China’s NTS engagements in south-east Asia and the implications for Beijing’s strategic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific region. A key finding is that China has indeed been using NTS as a tool for geopolitical purposes in south-east Asia, actively using multilateral settings to address NTS issues while also gradually promoting subregional and bilateral NTS cooperation. Chinese activism in regional NTS is aimed at expanding its influence, shaping regional security norms and institutions, upgrading traditional security ties with regional states, and ultimately undermining Washington’s role in the region’s security.
The geopolitical outcomes of decades of strenuous efforts by Beijing have been mixed. On the one hand, China has been able to establish itself as a player in regional multilateral institutions pertaining to NTS and has forged some cooperation with regional states on a bilateral basis. Also, Beijing has, to some extent, succeeded in getting regional states to agree to work with China as a partner on various regional NTS issues, as shown in the numerous joint statements issued by China and other countries. In general, China’s participation in regional NTS has helped improve its image and win some trust among regional states. In the case of mainland south-east Asia, China is even gradually using its NTS capabilities to further contribute to its asymmetric interdependence with Mekong countries. The LMC may even have the potential to weaken the strategic influence of other major players in the region.
On the other hand, it is also clear that China’s progress in its aim of expanding its regional NTS role is seriously constrained by many negative factors. A deficit in strategic trust has significantly hindered regional countries’ acceptance of a bigger and more effective Chinese role in regional NTS. It is unlikely that China will be able to use its NTS policy to significantly change regional security norms and institutions. Nor are there any signs to suggest that Beijing’s NTS activism is generating the effects it would like to see in the traditional military and defence sector. China’s defence relations with most regional states have not experienced any qualitative change in recent years, despite its growing NTS activism. Most regional states are also vigorously resistant to any possibility of Chinese dominance in south-east Asia. These failures in China’s regional geopolitical pursuits are most conspicuous in maritime south-east Asia. China’s NTS participation in the maritime arena remains declaratory and inconsequential, largely owing to the South China Sea disputes and Beijing’s heavy-handed approach to them.
China’s NTS role in south-east Asia will have some impacts on its ongoing geopolitical contestations with other major powers in the Indo-Pacific region. Beijing’s NTS engagements with south-east Asia have the potential to help China maintain and even strengthen its relations with ASEAN countries. This is quite clear in mainland south-east Asia, where China’s NTS role will contribute to the consolidation of its strategic influence in the subregion. A stable Sino-ASEAN relationship and a slight growth of Chinese influence in the region will help to persuade most regional states to maintain a neutral posture towards the Indo-Pacific vision, as shown in The ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific issued in June 2019, which highlights a few key positions that are quite similar to those of China, for instance inclusiveness, the importance of economic cooperation and the priority of existing multilateral institutions. As a counterweight to those regional states that would like ASEAN as a grouping to be more closely aligned with the FOIP, Beijing may be able to leverage its better ties with a few mainland south-east Asian states to apply the divide-and-rule tactic. However, as there are significant constraints on China’s ability to play a larger role in regional NTS, it is almost impossible for Beijing to dictate ASEAN’s posture towards the FOIP. The fact that ASEAN formulated and publicized its Outlook document may have disappointed China, as Beijing does not like other regional states to follow the Indo-Pacific rhetoric. Chinese policy-makers may have felt quite uncomfortable when ASEAN countries emphasized in the ASEAN outlook the importance of international laws in addressing regional maritime disputes, including those relating to the South China Sea. It is also quite plausible that some ASEAN states, especially those with claims in the South China Sea, may be prepared to lend stronger support to the FOIP when it comes to maritime security as Indo-Pacific strategic alignments evolve in the future.