How does the history of conflict between Japan and Russia affect relations today? How has the Russian invasion of Ukraine impacted their relationship? And what strategic challenges does the China-Russia relationship present for Japan and the Indo-Pacific? In this episode of the National Security Podcast, Professor Akihiro Iwashita – an expert in Russian foreign policy towards China and Japan – joins Professor Rory Medcalf in conversation. They discuss Japan’s relationship with China and Russia and broader strategic challenges in the Indo-Pacific. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3UE1q2n

Akihiro Iwashita is a Professor at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Hokkaido University.

Professor Rory Medcalf AM is Head of ANU National Security College. His professional experience spans more than three decades across diplomacy, intelligence analysis, think tanks, journalism and academia.

We’d love to hear from you! Send in your questions, comments, and suggestions to NatSecPod@anu.edu.au. You can tweet us @NSC_ANU and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out on future episodes. The National Security Podcast is available on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

The post National Security Podcast: Russia, China and the Indo-Pacific appeared first on Policy Forum.

Since the creation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, there has been a renewed push to achieve a range of global development objectives, including eliminating poverty, addressing gender inequality, and promoting environmental sustainability. A plethora of new initiatives have taken shape in the years since, but efforts to measure the outcomes of these activities remain insufficient.

The challenge is that some of the desired outcomes of development programs, such as increased happiness, are intangible. While traditional businesses rely on measures like return on investment to evaluate their work, financial return isn’t necessarily an adequate or appropriate marker of success in development project.

While impact measurement is no doubt a difficult task, this lack of quality data can have serious implications across the sector. Without consistent metrics that capture the true value of development projects, it can be difficult to make informed decisions about, for example, how to best allocate resources to ensure that this work is actually having a positive impact.

More on this: Parliament's power of banishment

In response, there has been a push to create alternative evaluation frameworks. Examples such as ‘impact management norms’ and ‘social return on investment’ (SROI) are starting to grow in popularity, as they offer organisations a way to more fully evaluate the impact of their work.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan has been a leader in using these kinds of tools, driven by a small but vibrant community of practitioners and experts.

Taking the example of SROI, which was created by England-based registered charity Social Value International (SVI), Taiwan ranks first in the region for the number of assured reports produced.

In this assurance process, SVI examines whether analysis reports applicants submitted comply with SROI’s eight principles: understand what changes, value the things that matter, only include what is material, do not over-claim, be transparent, verify the result, and be responsive.

As of October 2022, the number of assured SROI reports in Taiwan reached 36. Of these, 20 were impact assessment cases for projects carried out by listed companies, 11 were for non-profit organisations, and four were concerned with government initiatives.

More on this: Getting on track to net zero

However, for this kind of impact measurement to thrive, a larger ecosystem of human, financial, and intellectual capital needs to exist, and this is where Taiwanese policymakers can provide support.

One step the government could take is to fund industry-focused academic research centres dedicated to impact measurement.

Evaluation is only useful to the extent that organisations actually use it to inform resource allocation and utilisation, so by supporting research to better understand how this work is being applied, policymakers can support and build upon best practice in this area.

Governments could also reward organisations that conduct impact assessments by publicly encouraging these practices or even with tax relief.

Furthermore, governments can set an example by introducing broader impact measurement and management to their own projects.

As one of the most advanced economies in the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan is well equipped to cultivate impact measurement as an area of expertise. There is an opportunity now to capitalise on the work that has already been done and use it as a strong foundation to expand its use nationally.

In doing so, Taiwan can ensure it is truly meeting its own development targets and provide support to others in the region to do the same.

The post Measuring the social impact of development appeared first on Policy Forum.

China’s energy companies are all aboard the global clean power bullet train.

According to China’s National Energy Administration’s national power industry statistics, Chinese power generators installed 37.7 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity from January to July 2022, up 110 per cent per cent from a year earlier.

This installation, over a period of only seven months, is roughly equivalent to India’s total solar build-up since the mid-2010s and total generation capacity in New South Wales and Queensland combined in 2021-22. By the end of the decade, China is aiming to bring total wind and solar capacity to 1200 GW, a massive increase from the 635 GW it recorded at the end of last year.

But this dramatic expansion of clean power generation is still not even close to enough change to power the world’s second-largest economy and its largest manufacturing industry. And if China goes before it is ready, its energy security will be in even more danger.

Since mid-July, some Chinese provincial governments have enforced power rationing across various manufacturing hubs along the Yangtze River. Sichuan province, a net power exporter on the upper reaches of the river, has been the worst affected. Provinces mostly focused their efforts on industrial users, but in some cases were forced to compel homes, office buildings, and shopping malls to cut usage too.

The immediate cause is extreme weather – the region is experiencing its worst heatwave in more than half a century, sending demand soaring.

More on this: Gendering just transition

Meanwhile, in Chongqing, a megacity in Sichuan, rainfall has been 60 per cent less than the seasonal norm and 66 rivers spread across 34 counties have dried up, according to state media.

This has massively reduced the hydropower supply Sichuan relies on. At the peak of the drought, Sichuan’s hydropower fell to 440 million kilowatt hours, less than half of its normal level.

Other cities and regions are affected too, because Sichuan typically exports about a third of its hydropower to other provinces, and is still doing so.

Yet, diverting this power back to locals is not an option. Much of these exports go through dedicated network facilities with limited connectivity to local grids and are backed by fixed long-term supply contracts.

Sichuan’s struggles are a great example of a much deeper crisis of inflexibility in an era of transition. The availability of renewable energy is heavily linked to the availability of sunlight, the speed of wind, and water. To balance it out flexibly requires sufficient storage and network infrastructure.

China, like many other countries, doesn’t have this infrastructure in place yet. After all, when China’s power system was developed, it wasn’t designed to handle huge variations in renewable energy. While China is not alone in this struggle, it is handling a transition of far greater scale than other countries.

More on this: India’s road to a sustainable energy future

As it accelerates its clean power transition, China needs to heavily invest in its power system, especially in storage and its network. This will help it respond to abrupt changes in renewable energy, especially under long-lasting, extreme weather conditions.

Of course, this is not an easy task.

China will need to invest in battery storage and pumped hydropower, and smarter and more flexible grid technology. It must reform electricity markets to enable more flexible use of existing supply. And it will have to promote emerging technologies like hydrogen and thermal energy storage to help plug gaps in electricity generation.

Demoting China’s large coal-fired power station fleet to playing the supportive role of responsive back-up capacity, while clean energy provides the core of supply, is one attractive short-term solution.

However, China’s energy planners should look to the long-term. If they focus on attaining the country’s climate obligations – including achieving net zero emissions before 2060 – then China would only need to use coal-fired power as a last resort throughout its transition.

China’s recurring power crises highlight its need to rebuild its power system around clean energy. It must find a balance between its current energy security and its goal of achieving a clean energy future as soon as possible.

To do this, the country needs a long-term plan that not only invests in clean power generation, but also steps up investment in storage, transmission, and grid flexibility. This will do more for its transition than any generation target and stabilise its energy security in the process.

As China embarks on its truly massive energy transition journey, its leaders must remember that keeping the ship steady is just as important as seeing how fast it can go.

The post Executing China’s ‘Transition: Impossible’ appeared first on Policy Forum.

In the aftermath of the United States Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit in August, China has assertively pushed to regularise military exercises closer to Taiwan than it has previously.

In short, it has sought to make exercises it originally conducted temporarily in response to the visit a permanent fixture of its power projection.

In a way this new normal is just the old normal amplified.

In the month before Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, China repeatedly flexed its military muscle, conducting incursions into the island’s air defence identification zone.

As the visit approached, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) escalated its power projection, crossing the Taiwan Strait median line with PLA fighter jets and using PLA Navy carriers to encircle Taiwan.

Even compared with its actions during the 1996 Taiwan crisis, China’s large-scale military exercises around the island of Taiwan were flagrant. The PLA conducted its exercises closer to the island with a level of intensity that was much more threatening than in the past.

If this level of open military posturing were to become the new normal, nobody in the region would benefit. Not only could it escalate tensions directly to armed conflict due to high risks of miscalculation, but even without open fire, cross-strait relations could become too volatile for any meaningful dialogue to take place.

More on this: Conflict over Taiwan is not inevitable

The states of the region have to try and prevent this. If China’s extreme military measures are left unchecked, Chinese leaders could see this as a ‘failed’ or ‘weak’ response from regional powers, and as a concession. This could embolden hawkish leaders within China, priming the PLA to further pressure Taiwan or engage in other assertive military behaviour.

Apart from its international consequences, this situation would be a disaster for the security of the people of Taiwan.

Of course, there are many ways to challenge China’s behaviour. While avoiding war in the strait must always come first, the United States and its allies should also not ‘let a good crisis go to waste’.

The region’s China strategy needs a revival, starting with the United States. The countries of the Asia Pacific should encourage it to pursue a ‘two-track policy’ similar to how it approached the Cold War.

In the Cold War, the United States sought military containment of the Soviet Union on one hand, and the construction of a strong network of diplomatic partners on the other.

To apply similar logic to China and its behaviour in the Taiwan Strait, the region’s democracies should utilise American resources to contain China’s assertiveness militarily, while constructing a network of cooperation.

In military containment terms, these countries could strengthen deterrence by carefully conducting joint air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait.

More on this: A turbulent year ahead in cross-strait relations

With a focus on ‘innocent passage’ through the strait and freedom of navigation operations, the United States and regional powers like Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and others could use military operations to show the gravity of their disapproval of China’s aggressive behaviour. This will give their defiance of China’s unilateral and illegal claims in the region a grounding in hard power. As they do this, they should also build their soft power, and consolidate alignments that the United States has been forming across the region with its allies into a stronger, larger group.

For example, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad), which comprises the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, should offer more pragmatic benefits to its members to encourage better collaboration and prevent members feeling unvalued.

The inclusion of Taiwan in the Quad or a body like it should also be on the table.

While such an extreme step may have been an unrealistic proposition in the past, the PLA’s growing belligerence has changed this.

The United States would have to do this while continuing to espouse its ‘One China’ policy, but there is potential for a workaround. Granting Taiwan its own status of the Quad, or a new grouping like it, not as a member but as a ‘dialogue partner’ or something similar, could be a viable approach. This could make Taiwan more secure without turning up the heat too much.

Regardless of its exact shape, this experience shows that the Indo-Pacific needs a multilateral approach designed to institutionalise cooperation among like-minded countries on this issue.

Unfortunately, as the buffer between Chinese power and the people of Taiwan shrinks, a return to norms from before Pelosi’s visit isn’t achievable.

The Asia-Pacific region needs a new approach – one that balances strength with dialogue. Above all, its leaders must remember that in a crisis, complacency can be as dangerous a choice as acting rashly.

The post Resisting China’s push for a ‘new normal’ in the Taiwan Strait appeared first on Policy Forum.

Most of the 2.1 billion strong workforce in Asia and the Pacific are denied access to decent jobs, health care and social protection, but there is an array of polices and tools that governments can use to remedy these deficiencies and ensure that the rights and aspirations of these workers and their families are upheld and that they remain the engine of economic growth for the region.

A new report released today, the Social Outlook for Asia and the Pacific: The Workforce We Need, offers tangible solutions to immediately address alarming trends that both preceded the new coronavirus and were exacerbated by the pandemic.

While 243 million new people were pushed into poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, half of all people in our region already had been surviving without cash, a third without necessary medicine or treatment, and a quarter had gone without enough food to eat. This can lower productivity, which has fallen below the global average, but also tax revenues and future economic output.

With two-thirds of all workers in the region being employed informally, often with low wages, in hazardous working conditions and without a contract, half of our workforce are at the brink of poverty. People in our region are also at a higher risk of being pushed into poverty by health spending than anywhere else in the world, causing inequalities to widen further.

More on this: Creating a future without poverty

With more than half of all people being excluded from social protection, pandemics, disasters, economic downturns, or normal life events, such as falling ill, becoming pregnant or getting old, often have detrimental impacts on households’ wellbeing and life prospects.

The reality is harsh: our workers are generally ill-equipped to unlock new opportunities and fulfil life aspirations for themselves and their families, but also to face ongoing challenges emanating from megatrends of climate change, ageing societies, and digitalisation.

Climate-induced natural disasters cause businesses to relocate and jobs to disappear, disproportionately affecting rural communities.

Digital technologies are bringing disruptive change to the world of work and the digital gap is intensifying inequalities in opportunity, income, and wealth. Population ageing means that the number of older people will double by 2050, making policies to support active and healthy ageing ever more urgent.

None of these vulnerabilities are inevitable. With the right policies, our region’s workforce can become more productive, healthier, and protected.

First, active labour market policies, through life-long learning and skill development, can support a green and just transition into decent employment and improve access to basic opportunities and adequate standards of living. Harnessing synergies between active labour market policies and social protection can help workers upgrade their skills and transition into decent employment while smoothing consumption and avoiding negative coping strategies during spells of unemployment or other shocks.

More on this: Tackling the pandemic of inequality in Asia and the Pacific

Second, extending social health protection to all can significantly improve workers’ health, income security, and productivity. COVID-19 demonstrated the weakness of a status quo in which 60 per cent of our workers finance their own health care and receive no sickness benefits. A focus on primary health care as well as curative health protection is needed, also to support healthy and active ageing. People who are chronically ill or live with a disability must be included in health care strategies. Given the large informal economy across the region, extending social health protection is the key policy instrument for achieving universal health coverage in our region.

Third, building on the ESCAP Social Protection Simulator, a basic package of universal child, old age, and disability social protection schemes, set at global average benefit levels, would slash poverty in our region by half.

Our analysis also shows that social protection helps increase access to opportunities, particularly for furthest behind groups. This income security would improve the workforce’s resilience. Extending social protection to all means increasing public spending by between two and six per cent of gross domestic product — an investment well-worth its cost. The Action Plan to Strengthen Regional Cooperation on Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific can guide action towards broadening social protection coverage.

With this information at hand, there is a long overdue need for action. The policy recommendations set out in the Social Outlook are a priority for most countries in the region. These require bold but necessary reforms. For most countries these reforms are affordable but may require a reprioritisation of existing expenditures and tax, supported by tax reform.

Decent employment for all and an expansion of social protection and health care should form the foundations of a strong social contract between the state and its citizens — one where mutual roles and responsibilities are clear, and where our workforce is given the security to fulfil their potential and be the force for achieving the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific.

The post The right policies can protect the workers of Asia and the Pacific appeared first on Policy Forum.

South Korea is a middle power. Its economy is usually ranked around 12th in the world by gross domestic product and, according to Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index, it is the fifth-strongest military power in the Indo-Pacific region.

As its past political leaders wished, the country has emerged from decolonisation as a ‘strong middle power’ with substantial hard power, an ability to make an impact, and international recognition. The recent invitation to South Korea to attend the G7 summit is testament to this.

It is therefore natural that many South Koreans take their country’s middle power status for granted. However, despite finding it intrusive and inconvenient, the government cannot ignore questions about whether South Korea will remain a credible middle power in years to come.

Fundamentally, South Korea’s status as a middle power rests on the United States remaining the hegemonic power in the region indefinitely.

South Korean policymakers must acknowledge that South Korea’s middle power status is heavily dependent on a US-led regional order and do more to branch out.

Under American leadership and thanks to American aid, South Korea’s economy has grown strongly over many decades. This high performance largely relied on China’s peaceful economic development within a US-led international system.

More on this: Strengthening South Korea’s voice

Indeed, the country has derived substantial direct benefits from its alliance with America, both to its economy and military. Economically, the United States provided massive post-war economic investment to the country, along with access to American markets. Militarily, it provided hardware, intelligence, and training that South Korea could not have generated alone.

South Korea’s close relationship with the United States has not only enhanced its economic and military power but has also helped boost its political clout in international affairs. The more the United States appears to value South Korea, the more respect it has received from other countries, and the more influence it can exert in the international arena.

What this means is that South Korea is a ‘dependent middle power’. Its relative power in both quantitative and qualitative terms is dependent on the United States.

But how can South Korea remain a middle power in the Indo-Pacific, when American primacy in the region may cease to exist?

In the Indo-Pacific century, South Korea finds itself in a very different and more contested region, where the enablers of its economic and military power could rapidly disappear in a time of crisis.

This is not an overly pessimistic view. As China’s power grows, it is becoming more frustrated with its place in the old US-led regional order, and thus wants to transform the landscape in its own image in coming years. American political leaders, from both the right and the left, are not happy with letting China decide the region’s future and are determined to preserve the status quo.

Leaders in South Korea, for their part, do acknowledge that their country is stuck between its security guarantor and its largest trading partner, and that a choice between them is just unthinkable.

They hope their country achieve a reasonable balance between the United States and China and the government continues to bandwagon economically with China while relying on the United States for their security.

This is how President Moon Jae-in designed and implemented South Korea’s diplomacy – he embraced a strategy of bandwagoning with different great powers in different areas.

More on this: Taiwan and South Korea head in different directions

The problem, however, is that this strategy is no longer feasible. Bandwagoning alone cannot give South Korea the footing it wants in the region. If crisis struck, it would be weakened, scrambling to find its footing in a hotly contested region.

If South Korea wants to avoid a gradual decline, becoming a middle power in name only, it should make an effort to reduce its dependence on the United States.

The most obvious way for it to do this is to become an even stronger military power by enhancing its armed forces, but it’s frankly questionable whether it would be wise to use a much larger portion of its economic might on its military than it already does.

Moreover, more operational self-reliance would help but would not be enough for South Korea to compete with its potential adversaries in a real conflict.

Instead, South Korea must employ a strategy of coalition building around particular issues.

There are two arguments for this strategy.

First, the country can concentrate resources on issues of the highest importance to its interests, generating the best return on its investment of attention and money.

Second, it can enhance its reputation as a credible middle power by taking a leading role in addressing these issues diplomatically, rather than taking a military-first approach.

Specifically, Yoon Suk-Yeol’s new government should embrace the previous government’s New Southern Policy to continue to deepen ties with ASEAN. Working more closely with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue would be another important step to establish a platform for building strong, trusting, and durable relationships with other important players in the Indo-Pacific, namely Japan, India, and Australia.

Of course, defence assets are still important. The government must strengthen its strategic ties with other Indo-Pacific players that share common concerns, interests, and values and build new technical relationships that support its ability to defend itself.

To be a credible middle power in this Indo-Pacific century where American primacy can’t be taken for granted, it is vital for South Korea to further develop its own ability to win others over in a crisis.

Above all, South Korea must stop ignoring the reality that its middle power status is precarious, and engage beyond its current partners to enhance its international political influence and secure its future.

The post Can South Korea maintain its middle power status in the Indo-Pacific century? appeared first on Policy Forum.

Over the last 15 years, Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have ramped up their involvement international hydropower development, particularly in the Mekong River basin, which flows south from China through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam.

The Mekong River is crucial to the livelihood of those living near its banks, providing fresh water for irrigation, aquaculture, transportation, and fishing. While experts continue to analyse China’s development of dams on its portion of the Mekong, Chinese dam funding and construction in neighbouring countries in the lower Mekong basin (LMB) remain understudied.

The LMB encompasses five countries, but Laos contains over 80 per cent of the dams constructed by Chinese companies in the area.

Contrary to ‘debt trap’ arguments, Laos seems to be pursing these agreements with China with agency and freedom. While China is providing funding and know-how, these dam projects are being pursued of Laos’ own accord.

After all, these projects provide some big benefits. Between 2010 and 2011 alone, the total hydroelectric capacity in Laos from Chinese investments jumped from 200 megawatts (MW) to around 1,900 MW. As of 2019, it was estimated that Laotian hydroelectric capacity from dams with known Chinese involvement had reached 5,000 MW – enough electricity to power millions of homes.

However, these developments also have their have negative impacts. Officials view dams as a means of generating economic development, but many locals, experts, and non-government organisations contend that they are detrimental to the environment, especially fishing stocks, and that they exacerbate socio-economic issues.

Broadly, hydropower is viewed as a ‘green’ technology, but this is a reductive view. Researchers have shown that artificial bodies of water often contribute to decomposition in an area, accelerating the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide from organic matter.

More on this: Provincial players in China’s Belt and Road Initiative

In all, greenhouse gases from dams and reservoirs account for between one and two per cent of global emissions caused by humans, and this should factor into the calculations of decision-makers developing hydropower policies.

Further, the upfront cost of dams are deceptive, since dams regularly experience cost blowouts, and engineering difficulties in dam development often require costly adjustments to construction.

Finally, sometimes dams break – including while they are being built.

In 2018, Laos suffered a catastrophic dam collapse in the southern province of Attepeu. The collapse resulted in 71 confirmed deaths, at least 1,000 people missing, and tens of thousands impacted by the floodwaters, which reached as far south as Cambodia.

This collapse was of a relatively small dam, and it must serve as a warning to the Laotian government, which is supporting the construction of much larger dams.

Moreover, environmental assessments are not optimistic about the health of the Mekong basin in Laos.

The Xayaburi dam on the main stem of the Mekong has already affected the quality of sediment for agriculture, access to migratory fish, and water levels. Further construction along the tributaries in the basin has only added to the pain.

Yet Laos isn’t slowing down. It’s now entering phase two of the Nam Ou River Cascade Hydropower Project in northern Laos, which consists of seven dams with a combined hydroelectric capacity of 1,270 MW. Although the development predates the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), it has since been brought under the BRI umbrella.

This presents significant challenges to northern Laos, a region with low population density and high poverty levels. The dams will worsen water quality issues, disrupt transportation, impact agricultural production, and could reduce fish biodiversity by more than two thirds.

Laos also faces significant financial commitments on these projects. The country has a foreign debt crisis, and its difficulty paying down this debt has resulted in concessions to China for the use of its projects.

In September 2020, the state-owned China Southern Power Grid Company obtained majority control of Electricite du Laos, the Laotian SOE which maintains its electrical grid.

Then, in March 2021, the terms of this concession were finalised, with a 25-year agreement allowing China Southern Power Grid Company ‘to build and manage its power grid, including electricity exports to neighboring countries’ forming part of the deal.

More on this: China’s path to decarbonisation

Effectively, Laos handed over its control of its power to a Chinese SOE. This alarmed skeptics of China’s infrastructure investments and means Laos can’t challenge China if their electricity interests diverge.

From the Laotian government’s perspective, the opportunity to expand on its energy generation is seen as an avenue to generate economic productivity. Its objective is to become the centre of electrical generation and a major exporter of electricity to the region – or the ‘battery of Southeast Asia’.

This is also why Laos is upgrading its domestic grid to handle larger loads for export, which also aligns with regional ambitions for an upgraded Southeast Asian grid.

To understand China’s motivations, it is important to examine the role Yunnan province plays.

Bordering Laos and containing the Chinese portion of the Mekong, China’s Yunnan province has been a key advocate of downstream investment. China has constructed dams on its portion of the Mekong, but the availability of space in the province is limited for future dams.

To accelerate the development of China’s inner provinces, there have been calls to use infrastructure in Yunnan to connect Chinese firms to Southeast Asian markets and resources via a ‘bridgehead strategy’.

It would include projects such as roads, railways, and dams, which would in turn see electricity demand grow. With pre-existing ambitions for a regionally connected grid and Laos willing to host more dams, there is massive scope for Chinese enterprises to construct more dams. They could then use Laos’ grid concessions to import energy generated from these projects into China. Energy shortages in China make this a near certainty.

While these projects have potential and align with the region’s energy ambitions, policymakers in China need to carefully consider the environmental and social impacts of their dams. In Laos, leaders must ensure projects don’t develop beyond their means.

Ultimately, both countries must remember that the Mekong River continues to flow beyond their borders – if their projects aren’t carefully and responsibly executed, the whole of Southeast Asia will feel the pain.

The post Giving a dam in the Mekong basin appeared first on Policy Forum.

A recent incident where the Australian warship HMAS Parramatta was closely tracked by a Chinese warship in the South and the East China Sea has sparked questions about Australia’s role in the contested area.

During the intercept, Chinese military assets, including a guided-missile destroyer and a nuclear-powered attack submarine, reportedly warned the Australian warship that it was in ‘China’s territorial waters’ and told it that it ‘must leave’.

Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles claimed the ‘regional presence deployment’ that the HMAS Parramatta conducted was routine, citing ‘freedom of navigation’ and ‘the global rules-based order’, and highlighting Australia’s role in a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’.

But does Australia really need to be doing this? Regional presence deployments have their pros, but they have their cons too.

For one, the defence minister’s argument is fair enough. Australia and its partners do have the freedom to challenge China’s illegal and excessive claims in the South China Sea. At the 2016 South China Sea arbitration, the tribunal made it clear that China’s claimed ‘nine-dash line’ does not have any legal basis under international law.

Illegal practices like the nine-dash line must be challenged to protect international law and regional presence deployments do this. In other words, there must be countries that are willing explicitly challenge illegal claims. This practice is known as being a ‘persistent objector’.

More on this: The truth behind China’s fishing ban in the South China Sea

Some might suggest leaving this to the United States, but while the US Navy has been doing similar exercises for many years, these can lack legitimacy, because the United States is not a party to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Australia, on the other hand, is a party to UNCLOS. This gives the Australian Defence Force a stronger hand internationally when the country claims its regional presence deployments are intended to defend the UNCLOS.

Still, Australia must approach its role as a persistent objector carefully.

Any military exercise in the South China Sea should be precisely calculated to challenge China without provoking responses that could escalate to live fire, or even open war in the South China Sea.

As it stands, some experts believe the current possibilities of miscalculation are too high. Law of the sea expert Professor Donald Rothwell noted that Australian assets are often sailing through these waters without allied back-up – if things were to turn sour, Australia could be caught out.

Moreover, Australia must consider how ASEAN countries respond to regional presence deployments. Some countries, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, tend to welcome more extra-regional power engagement in the region.

More on this: The US-ASEAN summit and the South China Sea Code of Conduct

On the other hand, other countries, such as Indonesia, tend to be more cautious about outside military presence. They are concerned it might destabilise the region and increase tensions for little payoff.

This might be a reasonable concern. After all, China has responded negatively to increasing Australia’s military engagement. For instance, an Australian P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane was recently targeted by a laser from a Chinese warship while in flight over Australia’s northern approaches.

Also, while Australia is well-suited to being a persistent objector as a party to UNCLOS, existing tension on other issues between China and Australia can affect that role. Chinese decision-makers might raise questions about the intentions of objection in the South China Sea if other tensions, like over trade policy, heat up.

In all, while its role as a persistent objector in the South China Sea is reasonable and important, Australia must be very careful not to provoke an open escalation in the disputed area.

It should challenge China’s illegal claim, but acknowledge that regional presence deployments are not the only way. Given sensitivities to other tensions and concerns among ASEAN countries, it should combine its military operations with other actions to make its intentions clear.

For instance, in 2020 many countries sent diplomatic notes to the United Nations Secretary General requesting China uphold the 2016 tribunal ruling in response to Malaysia’s extended continental shelf proposal. This is also a form of challenge and action like this can broaden Australia’s objection to the nine-dash line claims.

While the Australian objection in the South China Sea is important, it carries risk, and the worst-case scenario could provoke China into an open escalation. With so much on the line, Australia has to be very careful and pursue a balanced approach.

The post Australia’s role in peace in the South China Sea appeared first on Policy Forum.

The United States-led reconceptualisation of the Asia Pacific as the ‘Indo-Pacific’ has been partly driven by the recognition that the Indian and Pacific Oceans are increasingly linked by the problems they face.

However, this process has been primarily shaped by American anxiety about its dominant military position in the region, with direct reference to China’s growing power. Countries that have subscribed to the concept, but especially the United States, have taken a reactive and military-centric policy approach that fails to account for the region’s complexities.

The most prominent example of this are the United States’ Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM)’s ‘spatial boundaries’. While there are practical reasons for the United States Department of Defense to have boundaries for its commands, these will be necessarily arbitrary. Unfortunately, adhering to these imagined, superimposed boundaries is inherently flawed for the purpose of building a coherent concept of the Indo-Pacific.

The lines dividing the Department of Defense’s INDOPACOM, African Command, and Central Command in the Western Indian Ocean Region (IOR) ignore the increasingly linked security and development of states in east Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the rest of the Indo-Pacific. Transnational issues like climate change, pandemics, crime, trade, and migration cross these bureaucratic borders, whether American systems recognise them or not.

Despite this, the Indo-Pacific white papers produced by the Trump and Biden administrations focus almost entirely on East Asia and Southeast Asia, with the notable exception of India, which officials view as pivotal to the new regional construct. Even the recent Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity exhibits these pitfalls.

More on this: Greening national security policy in the Indo-Pacific

It is impossible to hide from the fact these regions receive this focus because of their importance to competition with China. Such a close focus on East Asia and Southeast Asia at the expense of other regions while espousing an inclusive concept of the Indo-Pacific reveals its reactive, military-centric character.

Whole sub-regions are sidelined by American policymakers working on the Indo-Pacific construct. The American Indo-Pacific white papers completely ignore the South Pacific, for example. Apart from revealing American intentions, leaving holes like this in the Indo-Pacific construct creates vulnerability and undermines its legitimacy.

In contrast to the United States, China has increased its engagement with countries in the area for the past two decades.

Several countries in the South Pacific have signed on to the Belt and Road Initiative and China has sought to further strengthen relations through a Common Development Vision. However, it was only China’s security deal with the Solomon Islands that prompted American decision-makers to commit to opening new embassies and grow America’s aid presence in the region.

The South Pacific’s experience shows that as it stands, the United States neglects its partners in the Indo-Pacific until they become useful for geopolitical competition with China.

This competition-first approach ignores these countries’ hopes for their future. It is why when they call for investment or actionable commitments to climate change mitigation, so many of these countries view China as having listened better than the United States. China, at least, has provided a comprehensive development policy to these countries.

More on this: Understanding competing visions of the Indo-Pacific

Rather than helping its case, the United States’ renewed focus in the South Pacific in response to a security deal actually further highlights its reactive and inadequate approach.

Until the Indo-Pacific construct involves real trade and climate change policies that address the needs of the broader region, and pursues development for its own sake rather than for its geopolitical objectives, these patterns will continue.

Furthermore, viewing China’s activities in the region through a purely military lens denies South Pacific countries the very agency and sovereignty the United States claims to protect, all while appearing profoundly hypocritical to the parties they’ve neglected.

The idea of the Indo-Pacific only makes sense if officials genuinely account for the intertwined nature of the security and development dynamics that span its various sub-regions.

Doing this requires working beyond the INDOPACOM spatial boundaries, in recognition of these dynamics. For example, a functional Indo-Pacific policy cannot ignore the role that east African and Persian Gulf countries play in the IOR and the Indo-Pacific at large.

While military issues will always remain important, the security needs of most of the region are intrinsically linked to economic development and the effects of climate change. These are the issues that will decide their future and their biggest security concerns.

What this approach shows is that the United States is likely to overplay the challenges that China poses and underplay how much cooperation is possible. It is committing itself to promoting a status quo that no longer exists at the expense of its own, and the region’s, long-term interests.

Ultimately, an Indo-Pacific policy that serves primarily to protect American power, rather than solve these problems, is not fit for its espoused purpose – to contribute to ‘cooperation, stability, prosperity, development, and peace within the region.’

The post Why America’s Indo-Pacific strategy is flawed appeared first on Policy Forum.

Following Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s national address with The Australian National University last week, and as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its sixth month of warfare, how have Ukraine and its Western allies responded? What have those allies learnt from this invasion? And what does this geopolitical situation mean for the rising tensions over the status of Taiwan? Dr Charles Miller and Dr Marija Taflaga join Professor Mark Kenny to discuss these questions and more on this episode of Democracy Sausage. Listen here: https://bit.ly/3SBTfnx

Charles Miller is a Lecturer at ANU School of Politics and International Relations with a focus on military conflict.

Marija Taflaga is the Director of ANU Centre for the Study of Australian Politics and a Lecturer at ANU School of Politics and International Relations.

Mark Kenny is a Professor at ANU Australian Studies Institute. He came to the university after a high-profile journalistic career including six years as chief political correspondent and national affairs editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and The Canberra Times.

Show notes | The following publications and articles were mentioned in this episode:

Special Address by President Zelenskyy

The Federal election and Ukraine’s resistance

United 24

Inside the city of the damned: What’s going on in Putin occupied Kherson has been hidden from the world. But insider accounts obtained by veteran war reporter DAVID PATRIKARAKOS expose unimaginable evil – and the awesome courage of the Ukrainian resistance, David Patrikarakos for the Daily Mail.

Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We’d love to hear your feedback for this podcast series! Send in your questions, comments, or suggestions for future episodes to podcast@policyforum.net. You can also Tweet us @APPSPolicyForum or join us on the Facebook group.

This podcast is produced in partnership with The Australian National University.

The post Democracy Sausage: Ukraine’s journey from cold war flashpoint to crowdfunded war appeared first on Policy Forum.