Pearls and Irritations

In Asian media this week: America bolsters defence ties with Tokyo, Seoul and Manila. Plus: Diplomat a strong voice for polite countries; India planning Ukraine peace effort; BRICS nations interested in Belt and Road scheme; Beijing to unleash domestic demand; Olympic swimmers awesome but archers more so.

The US is fortifying its anti-China Western Pacific Wall, upgrading the command structure for its forces in Japan, formalising defence ties with Japan and South Korea and handing $US 500 million to the Philippines, to improve its Coast Guard and armed forces.

It has the support of the Quad – the grouping of Australia, the US, Japan and India – whose foreign ministers, meeting in Tokyo, expressed serious concern about the situation in the East and South China Seas. They did not name the country provoking their concern.

In a change said to be one of the biggest upgrades to the US-Japan alliance since its inception 70 years ago, operational command of the 55,000 US troops in Japan will be transferred from the Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii to Japan.

This would give US Forces Japan a direct leadership role over American forces there, The Japan Times reported. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said the change would facilitate deeper interoperability and co-operation on joint operations, in peacetime and during contingencies.

In a separate story, the paper also reported that defence chiefs from the US, Japan and South Korea reached a new trilateral security co-operation agreement. It is not legally binding but it is aimed at making the defence ties more difficult to reverse.

The new framework institutionalises three-way defence engagement, including high-level policy consultations, information-sharing and military exercises. A statement said it would contribute to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, in the Indo-Pacific and beyond – that is, it is aimed at both North Korea and China.

The Diplomat Asian news website said the $500 million in funding for the Philippines was announced by the US Defence Department early in the week. It reported Austin as saying the amount was unprecedented. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it was a once-in-a-generation investment.

At a meeting with Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Austin and Blinken discussed the importance of preserving the rights of all nations to fly, sail and operate, safely and responsibly, wherever international law allows. They also discussed the involvement of “like-minded nations” – Australia and Japan.

The meeting of Quad foreign ministers in Tokyo said they were concerned about intimidating and dangerous manoeuvres in the South China Sea.

The South China Morning Post said the meeting also produced encouraging initiatives on cyberspace, artificial intelligence and maritime security. It singled out a maritime legal dialogue designed to build expertise in international law.

China officially complained to Japan about comments made by the US and Japan, The Japan Times said. The remarks concerned China’s “provocative behaviour” in the East and South China Seas, its military exercises with Russia and the expansion of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Global Times, an official newspaper, said the meeting in Manila showed the US was using the Philippines as a proxy against China.
“it is not wise for Manila to blindly follow the US, which usually uses allies to the greatest extent possible to achieve its own goals and then abandons them at any time,” the paper said.

Undiplomatic envoy balances loud Western views

Kishore Mahbubani, the sage of Asian diplomacy, is often said to be pro-China. This, he says, is the greatest misunderstanding of his work.

Rather, he has tried to rebalance the global debate, which is dominated, he says, by strong and loud Anglo-Saxon voices telling everyone how the world is and how it should be.

“You never hear the Asian voices and so you get a very distorted perspective of how the world thinks,” he says.

Mahbubani is a former permanent secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry and has twice represented his country at the UN in New York. He has written several books on Asia and China’s challenge to American dominance.

He was interviewed by The Straits Times this week, to discuss his latest book, Living the Asian Century: An Undiplomatic Memoir. The book covers a tough childhood and a distinguished, if bumpy, career as a diplomat and author.

He says Asians tend to be culturally self-effacing. They believe it is polite to speak softly.

People in the West, however, appreciate his views because they like debates and they like hearing different opinions.

“To my Asian friends, I come across as being very cocky,” he says. “They say: ‘Oh, this guy talks too much’.

“But I’ve learned that unless you speak aggressively and boldly, your views don’t get heard. I hope that by being incredibly strong and aggressive in my views, I am rectifying a global imbalance in the debate between East and West.”

Modi to use Moscow ties for chance at peace

Asia remains the point of interest in efforts to start negotiations towards peace in Ukraine, with India seemingly aiming to play a part in resolving the conflict.

Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba visited China last month, for talks with Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart. Wang said China was committed to promoting a political settlement.

Now Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is reported to be planning a trip to Kyiv soon, looking to play the role of mediator.

Both China and India have close ties with Moscow. They have continued to trade with Russia despite the West’s imposition of sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Our feeling today is… that we should not resign ourselves to the continuation of the current state of conflict,” Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar said in Tokyo, where he attended the meeting of Quad foreign ministers.

A report in The Japan Times said Modi had been criticised for visiting Russia early in July. But it said he told President Vladimir Putin the path to peace was through talks.

Jaishankar said: “It’s important for everybody to do whatever they can to see if… something improves and a move out of the battlefield and into the conference table can take place.”

Indian academic C. Raja Mohan, of the Institute of South Asian Studies, said Modi was likely to go to Kyiv, with the visit marking a reconfiguration of India’s approach to European security.

“The war in Ukraine… has put the question of Europe right at the top of India’s international agenda,” Mohan wrote in The Indian Express.

Modi’s planned trip to Kyiv, following his visit to Moscow, offered an opportunity to intensify India’s peace diplomacy.

“Limiting the conflict between India’s old friend Russia and its new partners in the West is in India’s long-term interest,” Mohan wrote.

Power shifting as world changes

A little-noticed aspect of the southward shift of global power is the increasing co-operation between the BRICS group of countries and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, says seasoned Asian business commentator Anthony Rowley.

“The United States and Europe may emerge from their current state of political brawling to find the world has changed… and that they are no longer in charge of it,” Rowley writes in his column in the South China Morning Post.

“Power is moving southward.”

Rowley describes the Belt and Road Initiative as a programme designed to project global influence through peaceful means. But Beijing cannot impose the programme to further its grand designs unless other countries want to take part.

Even other BRICS nations have been reluctant to join the scheme, for fear of alienating key Western powers. But Brazil, one of the biggest of the BRICS countries has said it plans to join the BRI programme.

“The rapidly expanding family of BRICS nations can economically benefit from taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative, in the form of infrastructure linking them to the world’s second-largest economy,” he says.

“Member nations also benefit from being connected to each other and having alternative sources of project financing.”

But two Singapore-based strategic analysts, Hoang Thi Ha and Cha Hae Won, say diversity within the Global South defies simplistic narratives. In a long essay, also published by SCMP, they ask if the term “Global South” captures the complex realities of regions like Southeast Asia.

“Southeast Asian nations…exhibit a range of development levels, security concerns and economic ties that set them apart from a monolithic view of the ‘developing world’,” they write.

“This nuance is often lost amid the grand pronouncements of major powers. As they compete to lead and represent the Global South, they risk papering over the very heterogeneity that defines it.”

‘External pressures’ – Politburo worries about Trump

China will aim to combat negative external pressures from the West and meet this year’s 5 per cent GDP growth target by boosting domestic demand and encouraging emerging sectors of the economy.

A meeting this week of the Politburo, the Communist Party’s top decision-making body, set out the economic priorities for the second half of 2024.

China Daily, an official newspaper, said the leadership highlighted challenges facing the economy, including negative external factors, lack of effective domestic demand, lingering risks in key sectors and growing pains in the transition between old and new drivers.

Structural reform would be the spearhead of growth. Entrepreneurship was to be encouraged further, to help Chinese companies become world class through reform, innovation and fair competition.

“We must enhance our awareness of risks and worst-case scenarios, come up with proactive responses, maintain strategic resolve and strengthen our confidence in development,” a Politburo statement said.

South China Morning Post said the statement’s wording suggested potentially more drastic policy support from Beijing to boost the private sector and restore investor confidence. The top leadership had vowed to unleash domestic demand, the paper said.

It quoted Su Yue, principal economist for China at the Economist Intelligence Unit, as saying special attention was given to private enterprises, high-growth companies and unicorn companies (start-ups valued at more than $1 billion).

“The urgency of stimulating the domestic economy is highlighted by increased external pressures, including the potential return of (former US president Donald) Trump,” Su said.

Salute to Olympics’ unbeaten team

Australia’s 4x100m women’s swimming team won a gold medal at the Olympics this week, an event in which Australia has now triumphed four times in a row. Awesome, as the sports announcers might say.

But another team has had even more stunning success. The South Korean women’s archery team on Sunday won its 10^th successive gold medal.

They defeated China 5-4, in what The Korea Times called a nail-biting shoot-off.

The women’s team event in archery was added to the Olympics in Seoul in 1988. South Korea remains undefeated in this contest.
Here’s a little salute to the champions: Jeon Hun-young, Nam Su-hyeon and Lim Si-hyeon.