Category Archives: Asian Security

China’s unsustainable Korean gameplan

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Decks are stacked against China keeping its stake in Korea game
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY
Japan Times, June 6, 2010

KOREAN DEMILITARIZED ZONE — One of the last Cold War relics, the Demilitarized Zone that cuts the Korean Peninsula in half, is the world’s most fortified frontier. Although this division has prevailed for almost six decades, it is unthinkable that it can continue indefinitely, despite renewed inter-Korean tensions over the deaths of 46 South Korean sailors in the sinking of a warship.

Just as the last two decades since the end of the Cold War have geopolitically transformed the world, the next two decades are likely to bring no less dramatic international change. One place where major geopolitical change seems inescapable is the Korean Peninsula.

Today, however, the spotlight is on the return of the Cold War between North and South Korea. Relations between the two Koreas have sunk to their worst point in many years, as South Korea’s neoconservative president — holding Pyongyang responsible for the sinking of the ship on the basis of a multinational inquiry that he ordered — has redesignated the North as his country’s archenemy. The North, in reprisal, has frozen ties with the South and banned its ships and airplanes from using the North’s territorial waters and airspace.

The deterioration in North-South relations, however, predates the March 26 sinking of the South Korean warship, Cheonan. It began soon after South Korean President Lee Myung Bak took office in 2007 and reversed the decade-long "sunshine policy" with the North that had been pursued by his two immediate predecessors, Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun. As part of his policy of squeezing the regime in Pyongyang, Lee also effectively cut off bilateral aid.

Lee’s strategy has little to show in terms of results. If anything, the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang has demonstrated a proclivity to throw caution to the wind, best illustrated by the manner it conducted a second nuclear test, launched a long-range rocket and fired several missiles — all in the span of a few weeks in April-May 2009.

Although none of the four powers with a history of intervention on the Korean Peninsula — China, Japan, Russia and the United States — has any interest at present in disturbing the political status quo there, events could occur that are beyond the control of any internal or external force. The trigger for unleashing a cascading effect can come only from an increasingly isolated, impoverished and unstable North Korea.

North Korea’s economic crisis is deepening, with food shortages and widespread malnutrition rife in a nation of more than 24 million people. Desperate government attempts at currency reform have only spurred hyperinflation and simmering social unrest. The South’s reversal of the sunshine policy has added to North Korea’s economic woes.

Another indicator of the looming uncertainty is the poor health of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Despite surviving an apparent stroke in August 2008 and returning to his feet, a shriveled Kim today looks palpably sick. On a recent visit to China, he was seen dragging his feet.

Kim Jong Il seems to be grooming his third son, the 26-year-old Kim Jong Un, to succeed him. In the coming months, Kim Jong Un is likely to assume a party position. But Kim Jong Un is too young and inexperienced to command popular respect and authority by succeeding an ailing father who may not last too long.

Given the worsening economy and the uncertainty over how long Kim Jong Il will survive, the decks seem stacked against the prolongation of North Korea’s totalitarian system for many more years.

Yet, China seems more intent than ever to maintain the North Korean regime, with or without Kim Jong Il. China continues to prop up the regime with economic aid, military hardware and political support. In fact, without the political protection it has continued to provide North Korea in the U.N. Security Council, the regime would have by now collapsed under the weight of international sanctions.

It is with such political protection that North Korea became the first nonnuclear member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to breach its legal obligations and go overtly nuclear. It is also because of Chinese policy and protection that the now-dormant six-nation talks on the North Korean issue made no progress.

Yet, China has cleverly played its diplomatic cards to emerge as the central player on the North Korean issue, with U.S. policy more dependent than ever on Beijing for any forward movement. But Beijing, intent on shaping a regional order under its influence, has little interest in helping out U.S. policy.

The reality is that China is being guided by its ancient zhonghwa ideology, which calls for an East Asian order led by China. According to zhonghwa, the entire region stretching from the Korean Peninsula to the Japanese archipelago is supposed to be within China’s sphere of influence, thus requiring it to exercise leadership through aid, leverage and diplomatic maneuver.

That may explain why Beijing, ignoring sensitivities in South Korea, warmly received Kim Jong Il on a recent state visit — a visit about which Seoul learned only after the North Korean strongman had arrived in China.

The fact is that China sees its interest best served by preservation of the status quo on the Peninsula. Korean reunification would not only change the geopolitical dynamics in Northeast Asia by creating a resurgent united Korea, but also bring U.S. influence and military to China’s doorstep.

Today, by continuing to play the North Korea card, Beijing is able to wield political leverage against the U.S. At the same time, it is able to keep the economically powerful South Korea — a U.S. ally that is double the size of North Korea demographically — at bay. The logic on which Chinese policy operates is simple: Outside forces like the U.S. cannot be allowed to exercise power in China’s backyard.

Yet, such is China’s growing clout that none will dare to criticize the political protection it provides North Korea — not even Lee’s government, despite the dual diplomatic snub Beijing has recently delivered, first by hosting Kim Jong Il and then shielding Pyongyang over the Cheonan crisis.

Through his hardline policy on Pyongyang, Lee has played into China’s hands. Beijing can only thank him for pushing North Korea onto its strategic lap.

Given the fact that it will be South Korea, like West Germany, that will have to bear the costs of reunification, the South should actively be seeking to open up the North, rather than working to further isolate it. The way to reduce the costs of reunification would be for the North to be integrated with the South economically before moves are made toward political integration. But Lee’s policy, in reversing the inter-Korean detente, has blocked such a path.

China has not tried to export its economic model to its client states. It is actually afraid that if North Korea begins to reform, its own ailing system could collapse under the weight of its contradictions. After all, despite its economic success, China itself must walk a tightrope on opening up to the outside world. Because of its opaque, repressive system, the more it globalizes, the more vulnerable it becomes internally. China has sought to open up only to the extent necessary to underpin economic growth.

It is doubtful it can prop up the North Korean system for very long. When Kim Jong Il passes away, events over three to four years could create an unstoppable momentum toward radical change in the North — and on the Peninsula as a whole.

Brahma Chellaney is the author of "Asian Juggernaut" (HarperCollins, 2010).
The Japan Times: Sunday, June 6, 2010
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China’s counterproductive actions in Asia

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China pushes
Japan and India closer to the U.S.

Brahma
Chellaney

The Sunday Guardian, May 30, 2010

China’s rise in one
generation as a global player under authoritarian rule has come to epitomize the
qualitative reordering of power in Asia and the
wider world. Not since
Japan rose to world-power
status during the reign of the Meiji
emperor in the second half of the 19th century has another non-Western power
emerged with such potential to alter the world order as China today. As the
2009 assessment by the U.S.
intelligence community predicted, China stands to more profoundly
affect global geopolitics than any other country. China’s ascent, however, is dividing Asia, not bringing Asian states closer.

            A fresh
reminder of that came recently when provocative Chinese actions prompted the new
Japanese government to reverse course on seeking a “more equal” relationship
with the United States and agree to keep
the American military base in Okinawa island.
That outcome is similar to the way Beijing has
been pushing India closer to
the U.S. through continuing military and
other provocations.

Given that the balance of power
in Asia will be determined by events as much in the Indian Ocean rim as in East Asia, Tokyo
and New Delhi
are keen to work together to promote Asian peace and stability and help
safeguard vital sea lanes of communication.
Japan and
India indeed are natural
allies because they have no conflict of strategic interest and share common goals to build
institutionalized cooperation and stability in Asia. There is
neither a negative historical legacy nor any outstanding political issue between them. If anything, each
country enjoys a high positive rating with the public in the other
state.

Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama’s visit to India
last December, soon after coming to office, showed he is keen to maintain the
priority on closer engagement with India that started under his four
immediate predecessors, especially Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe, Yasuo
Fukuda and Taro Aso of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), now in the
opposition. Mr. Hatoyama and his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) came to power
vowing to reorient Japanese foreign policy and seek an “equal” relationship with
the United
States. But events have forced a rethink.

How unstable the security environment
is in Japan’s own
neighborhood has been brought home by two recent incidents with
China and the renewed
tensions on the Korean Peninsula following the sinking of the South Korean naval ship.

One incident involving China occurred less than two months ago, on April
8, when a helicopter from a Chinese naval vessel in international waters south
of Okinawa flew to within 92 meters of a
Japanese defense force escort ship — so close that Japanese sailors could
clearly see a gun-wielding Chinese soldier. To compound matters, not only was
Tokyo’s diplomatic protest summarily dismissed by Beijing, but Chinese naval ships less
than two weeks later, on April 21, sailed between Okinawa and another Japanese
island chain to conduct a large-scale exercise. Once again, a Chinese naval
helicopter buzzed a Japanese escort ship. A Chinese military analyst called on
Japan to get used to
China‘s navy appearing in
Japan‘s exclusive economic
zone.

The second
incident happened last month. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi flew into a
rage after his Japanese counterpart, Katsuya Okada, politely suggested that
China cut its nuclear arsenal. At the
May 15 meeting in the South Korean city of Gyeongju, Mr. Yang yelled that his relatives had been
killed by Japanese forces in northeastern China during Japan’s occupation of China.
He almost walked out of the meeting.

The upshot of
such incidents and the greater volatility in the regional security environment is that
Prime Minister Hatoyama and his Cabinet are now convinced that this is not the
time to move the Futenma air base off Okinawa, even if it means breaking one of his DPJ’s
election campaign promises.

Significantly, there also have a number of
incidents that suggest that China is starting to muscle up to India.
The renewed Sino-Indian border tensions have resulted from growing Chinese
assertiveness on several fronts — border (Chinese
cross-frontier incursions have increased in a major way); diplomatic
(resurrecting its long-dormant claim to India’s Arunachal Pradesh state, which
is three times bigger than Taiwan); and multilateral (launching an international offensive to undercut Indian
sovereignty over Arunachal; for example, by successfully blocking the
Asian Development Bank from identifying that region as part of India in its $1.3
billion credit package last year). As the resistance to its rule in
Tibet has grown since last
year, Beijing has sought to present
Tibet as a core issue to its
sovereignty, just like Taiwan. Tibet now holds as much importance in Chinese
policy as Taiwan. In ratcheting up the
Arunachal issue with India,
Beijing seems to be drawing another analogy:
Arunachal is the new Taiwan that must be “reunified” with
the Chinese state.

In fact, the incidents with
Japan and India serve as another reminder that Chinese
policies and actions are counterproductively pushing these countries closer to
the U.S.

There is
realization in Japan and
India that each is located in
a very dangerous neighborhood and that their security ties with the U.S.
are critical.

India and Japan,
although dissimilar economically, have a lot in common politically. They are
Asia’s largest democracies, but with fractured,
messy politics. Just as India has progressed from doctrinaire
nonalignment to geopolitical pragmatism, Japan —
the “Land of the Rising Sun” — is moving toward greater realism in its foreign
policy.

Their growing congruence of
strategic interests led to a Japan-India security agreement in 2008, a
significant milestone in building Asian power stability. A constellation of
Asian states linked by strategic cooperation and sharing common interests is
becoming critical to ensuring equilibrium at a time when major shifts in
economic and political power are accentuating Asia’s security challenges. The Japan-India security
agreement was modelled on the 2007 Australia-Japan defense accord. Now the
Japan-India security agreement has spawned a similar Australia-India
accord.

The path has been opened to
adding strategic content to the Indo-Japanese relationship, underscored by the
growing number of bilateral visits by top defence and military officials. As
part of their “strategic and global partnership,” which was unveiled in 2006,
India and Japan
are working on joint initiatives on maritime security, counterterrorism,
counterproliferation, disaster management and energy security. But they need to
go much further.

India and Japan, for
example, must co-develop defence systems. India and Japan have missile-defense cooperation with
Israel and the U.S.,
respectively. There is no reason why they should not work together on missile
defense and on other technologies for mutual defense. There is no ban on weapon
exports in Japan’s U.S.-imposed Constitution,
only a long-standing Cabinet decision. That ban has been loosened, with
Tokyo in recent
years inserting elasticity to export weapons for peacekeeping operations,
counterterrorism and anti-piracy. The original Cabinet decision, in any event,
relates to weapons, not technologies.

As two legitimate
aspirants to new permanent seats in the UN Security Council, India and Japan should
work together to push for the Council’s long-pending reform. Asian peace and
stability would be better served if all the three major powers in Asia —
China, Japan and India — are in
the Council as permanent members. Beijing’s
provocative actions indeed underscore the risks of China remaining Asia’s sole representative among the Council’s permanent
members.

Impact of China’s rise on Asian security

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Beware China’s Determination to Choke Off Asian Competition

Brahma Chellaney
The Sunday Guardian, May 16, 2010
 
The ascent of China, while a symbol of the ongoing global power shifts, has been accentuated by major geopolitical developments — from the unravelling of the Soviet Union that eliminated a mighty empire to China’s north and west, to the manner the American colossus has stumbled after the triumphalism of the 1990s. The free world’s mounting problems, including Europe’s worries about its future, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the West’s troubled relationships with Moscow and Tehran, Japan’s uncertain demographic future and India’s internal challenges, have all helped Beijing to increase its strategic space, not just in Asia, but also in Africa and Latin America.
 

While Asia’s growing importance in international relations signals a systemic shift in the global distribution of power, it is the rising heft of a single country — China — that by itself is transforming the international geopolitical landscape like no other development. As world history attests, the dramatic rise of a new power usually creates volatility in the international system, especially when the concerned power is not transparent about its strategic policies and military expenditure. Therefore, China’s rise constitutes a strategic challenge by itself in Asia — a challenge that needs to be managed wisely, so that Beijing stays on the positive side of the ledger, not the negative side.

After all, in 25 years from now, China will clearly be more powerful and influential than it is today, with a greater propensity to assert itself on issues while projecting power far beyond its shores. China’s rapidly accumulating power already is emboldening Beijing to pursue a more muscular foreign policy. After having touted its “peaceful rise,” it has shown a creeping propensity to flex its muscle.

China’s economy has expanded 13-fold over the last 30 years, thanks to surging exports and copious investments. As a result, China already has arrived as a global economic player. Today, with its burgeoning foreign-exchange reserves, it is courted around the world to help resolve a host of financial problems. At the same time, it is true that China’s global ambitions get weighed down by its vulnerabilities, including authoritarian rule, an opaque culture, failure to accommodate ethnic nationalities like the Tibetans and Uighurs, and growing disparities in Chinese society.

Militarily, China is likely to continue to put the emphasis on indigenous research and development to further augment its capabilities. China already spends far more on its military than any other country in Asia.

It is also set to develop clear and deep linkages between trade and foreign policy, and between trade and power projection. That will mean a proactive, assertive Chinese foreign-policy posture in relation to countries and issues of vital interest. The creeping extension of China’s security perimeter is bound to increase international concerns about the opacity of its strategic doctrine and military spending.

China’s priority, of course, will remain what it has been for long: Boosting indigenous capabilities, especially its conventional and nuclear deterrence, and working to shift the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific in its favor. China’s increasingly sophisticated missile force remains at the heart of its military modernization. As part of a calculated strategy to project power far beyond its frontiers and strengthen its deterrent capabilities, China has placed missile prowess at the center of its force modernization. It is developing a range of land-attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, long-range surface-to-air missiles and anti-radiation missiles. As its nuclear-force modernization gains further momentum, shifts in China’s nuclear doctrine — from a defensive orientation to a more offensively-configured posture — would inevitably occur.

Broadly, Chinese naval power is set to grow exponentially, as Beijing expands its indigenous ship production and deploys naval assets far from its exclusive economic zone. Little surprise the Chinese Navy is beginning to show open interest in extending its reach and operations to the Indian Ocean — a crucial international passageway for oil deliveries and other trade.

That interest is manifest from the Chinese projects in the Indian Ocean rim region, including the building of a port at Hambantota in Sri Lanka, the modernization of the Bangladeshi port of Chittagong, and the construction of a deep-water naval base and commercial port for Pakistan at Gwadar, situated at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz — the only exit route for Persian Gulf oil. In addition, the Irrawaddy Corridor between China’s Yunnan province and the Burmese ports on the Bay of Bengal is set to become a key economic and strategic passageway involving road, river, rail and harbor links.

In the Pacific Ocean, as underlined by the rising frequency of Chinese naval patrols, Beijing also is seeking to extend its strategic perimeter there. What is being subtly suggested by Chinese analysts today — that the Western Pacific is China’s maritime zone of influence — could set the stage for an intensifying strategic competition with Japan.

Beijing, not content that Han territorial power is at its pinnacle, still seeks a Greater China. With 60 percent of its present landmass comprising homelands of ethnic minorities, modern China has come a long way in history since the time the Great Wall represented the Han empire’s outer security perimeter. Yet, driven by self-cultivated myths, the state fuels territorial nationalism, centered on issues like Tibet and Taiwan, and its claims in the East and South China Seas and on India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. China’s insistence on further expanding its national frontiers stymies a forward-thinking approach essential to building peace and stability in Asia.

It is thus not an accident that as its power grows, China seems more determined than ever to choke off Asian competitors, a tendency reflected in its hardening stance toward India. Hopes of a politically negotiated settlement of the lingering territorial disputes have dissipated amid Chinese muscle-flexing along the long, 4,057-kilometer Himalayan frontier. Indeed, it is approaching three decades since China and India began border negotiations, making them already the longest and the most-barren process between any two countries in modern history. In this period, the world has changed fundamentally.

Against India, the PLA is now better geared to wage a short, swift war by surprise, thanks to the significant upgrading of the military infrastructure and logistics on the Tibetan plateau. The state-directed demographic changes under way in Chinese-ruled Tibet also carry long-term military significance vis-à-vis India.

The India-China tensions explain why soaring bilateral trade is not a barometer of how well a relationship is doing. Trade in today’s market-driven world is not constrained by political differences — unless political barriers have been erected, as the U.S. has done against Cuba and Burma, for example. 

Two contending ideologies reemerge in the world

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The 60th Year of China’s Tibet Invasion

Brahma Chellaney

The Sunday Guardian, May 3, 2010

Francis Fukuyama, a deputy director in the
U.S. state department then, gained
intellectual
stardom by making the
self-righteous claim
in a 1989 essay that the conclusion of the Cold War marked the end of
ideological evolution, “the end of history,” with the
“universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human
government.” Today’s world demonstrates that Western liberal democratic values
and practices are anything but universal.

But, more importantly, just as they were two contending
ideologies during the Cold War, two contending ideologies are again staring the
world in the face — international capitalism, spearheaded by an America whose
political and economic pre-eminence is on the wane even as it retains its
military supremacy, and authoritarian capitalism, led by a fast-rising China.

The rise of China as a world player in one generation under
authoritarian rule is the single most-profound geopolitical development since
after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its
rise epitomizes the qualitative reordering of power that is under way in the
world.

China’s future, however, remains more uncertain
than ever. It faces a worrisome paradox: Because of an opaque, repressive
political system, the more it globalizes, the more vulnerable it becomes
internally. At the core of its internal challenges is how to make a political
soft landing.

Political modernization, not economic modernization,
thus is the central challenge staring at China.
But it won’t be easy for the communist leadership to open up politically without
unraveling a system that now survives on a mix of crony capitalism and
calibrated, state-dispensed patronage.

Unlike India, China first concentrated on acquiring
military muscle. By the time Deng Xiaoping launched his economic-modernization
program in 1978, China already had tested its first
intercontinental ballistic missile, the 12,000-kilometer DF-5, and developed
thermonuclear weaponry. The military muscle gave Beijing the much-needed security to focus on
civilian modernization, helping it to fuel its remarkable economic rise, which,
in turn, has armed it with ever greater resources to sharpen its claws. 

China’s economy has expanded 13-fold over the
last 30 years. Consequently, China has arrived as a global
economic player, with its state-owned corporate behemoths frenetically buying
foreign firms, technologies and resources. Add to the picture its rapidly
swelling foreign-exchange coffers, already the world’s largest. Beijing is well-positioned
geopolitically to further expand its influence.

Its defence strategy since the Mao Zedong era has been
founded on a simple premise — that the capacity to defend oneself with one’s own
resources is the first test a nation has to pass on the way to
becoming a great power. So, even when
China was poor, it
consciously put the accent on building comprehensive national power.

Communist China actually began as an
international pariah state. Today, it is courted by the
world.  As the latest
U.S. intelligence assessment
predicts, China is “poised to have more impact
on the world over the next 20 years than any other country.”

A long-term
strategic vision and unflinching pursuit of goals have been key drivers. But
China’s rise also has been aided by
good fortune on several fronts. Deng Xiaoping’s reform process, for instance,
benefited from good timing, coinciding with the start of globalization. The
Soviet Union’s sudden collapse also came as a great strategic boon, eliminating
a menacing empire and opening the way for Beijing to rapidly increase strategic space
globally. A succession of China-friendly U.S. presidents
since Richard Nixon also has helped.

The most important international factor in
China’s rise, however, is rarely
discussed. China’s rise owes
a lot to the West’s decision not to sustain trade sanctions after the
1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre, but instead to integrate Beijing with global
institutions through the liberalizing influence of foreign investment and trade.

The end of the Cold War allowed the United States and its allies to take a more
tolerant approach toward China by abjuring sanctions. Had the
U.S. treated
China post-1989 in the way
countries like Burma,
Iran and Cuba have been targeted for long, a less
prosperous and more insecure China would have
emerged.

Although China has come a long way since Tiananmen
Square, with its citizens now enjoying property rights, the freedom to travel
overseas and other entitlements that were unthinkable two decades ago, political
power still rests with the same party responsible for the death of tens of
millions of Chinese in state-induced disasters like the so-called Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural Revolution.  That the communist party continues to
monopolize power despite its past horrific excesses indeed is astonishing. This
is now the oldest autocracy in the world. And it is unthinkable that it can
survive for another 60 years. Before long, economic progress will challenge the adamantine political
system. The longest any autocratic system has
survived in modern history was 74 years in the Soviet
Union.

The threat
to the communist dictatorship extends beyond the ethnic and social unrest.
Reported incidents of grassroots violence have grown at about the same rate as
China’s GDP. The ethnic challenges —
best symbolized by the Tibetan uprising and the Uighur revolt — won’t go away
unless Beijing
stops imposing cultural homogeneity and abandons ethnic drowning as state
strategy in minority lands. But given the regime’s entrenched cultural
chauvinism and tight centralized control, that is unlikely to happen. After all,
President Hu Jintao’s slogan of a “harmonious society” is designed to undergird
the theme of conformity with the state.

China’s challenges actually center on its
political future. Although China has moved from being a
totalitarian state to being an authoritarian state, some things haven’t changed
since the Mao years. Some others indeed have changed for the worse, such as the
whipping up of ultra-nationalism as the legitimating credo of continued
communist rule. Unremitting attempts to bend reality to the dangerous illusions
the state propagates through information control and online censors risk turning
China into a modern-day Potemkin
state.

Today, China’s rapidly accumulating power raises
concerns because even when it was backward and internally troubled,
it
employed brute force to annex Xinjiang (1949) and Tibet (1950), to raid South Korea (1950), to invade India (1962), to initiate a border conflict with
the Soviet Union through a military ambush (1969), and
to attack Vietnam (1979). A prosperous,
militarily strong China cannot but be a threat to its
neighbours, especially if there are no constraints on the exercise of Chinese
power.

This year marks the 60th anniversary of China
becoming India’s neighbour — by gobbling up the traditional buffer, Tibet, which
was almost two-thirds the size of the European continent. As a result of that
event, Han soldiers arrived for the first time on India’s
borders. Yet India is officially celebrating 2010
as the year marking 60 years of Sino-Indian diplomatic relations. Does this
reflect low self-esteem or a refusal to face up to a harsh six-decade-old
reality?  

China-based cyber spying

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Cyber-warrior China opens new front against India

Brahma Chellaney

The Sunday Guardian, April 11, 2010

The detailed report released by a group of Canadian researchers on how a
China-based cyber spying ring has been systematically stealing top Indian
defence and security secrets for a number of months has spotlighted the growing
cyber threat India
confronts. It is unlikely that the
hackers are private individuals with no links to the Chinese government. Private
individuals are unlikely to engage in systematic pilferage of defence secrets
of a rival country over an extended period.

Let’s
be clear: The Chinese hackers are an irregular force of the People’s Liberation
Army. In war, this force will become the vanguard behind which the conventional
PLA divisions will take on India.
In other words, the regular PLA forces will wage war after the cyber
warriors have caused serious damage to the enemy to defend itself.

Cyberwarfare and cross-border terrorism are the two main
frontiers of asymmetrical warfare. In both, irregular or non-state actors are
employed by a state to wage attacks on another country. The sponsoring state
then feigns ignorance of the attacks carried out at its behest. Just as Pakistan pretends Lashkar-e-Taiba is not its
front against India, China claims
the Chengdu-based cyber ring is not its spying arm. In both cases, the enemy
hides behind a cover, underscoring the asymmetrical nature of the warfare.

With national security and
prosperity today dependent on the safekeeping of cyberspace, including the
virtual movement of finance and the flow of security data and other secrets,
cybercrime must be effectively countered as a priority.

The cyber
threat from China
is at two levels. The first is national, as manifest from thecyber
attacks already carried out in recent years against India’s National Infomatics
Centre (NIC) systems and the
ministry of external affairs. The previous national security adviser disclosed
that his own office computers had been hacked by the Chinese. The aim of such
attacks has been to engage in espionage and
also to overawe the Indian establishment.

By scanning and mapping India’s
official computer systems, China
is able to both steal secrets and gain an asymmetrical advantage over its
rival. Intermittent cyber intrusion in peacetime allows China to read
the content and understand the relative importance of different Indian networks
so that in a war, it knows what to disable in order to inflict pain and
punishment.

The second type of cyber threat from China is aimed at the individual
level. Individual targets in India
range from the functionaries of the Tibetan government-in-exile and Tibetan
activists to Indian writers and others critical of China. The most-common type of
intrusion is an attempt to hack into the e-mail
accounts of targeted individuals. Often the targets are subjected to the
so-called Trojan horse attacks by e-mail that are intended to breach their
computers and allow the infiltrators to remotely remove, corrupt or transfer
files.

At a time when China-based
cyber attacks are ramping up in the world, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton was right to recently declare that an attack on one nation’s computer
networks “can be an attack on all.” Singling out China for its Internet censorship,
Mrs. Clinton warned that “a new information curtain is descending across much
of the world.” Her statement’s Cold War undertones — likening the
“information curtain” to the Iron Curtain — amounted to an implicit admission
that the central assumption guiding U.S. policy on China
since the 1990s has gone awry: that assisting China’s economic rise would usher
in political opening there.

The strategy
to use market forces and the Internet to open up a closed political system
simply isn’t working. Indeed, the more economic power China has accumulated, the more
adept it has become in extending censorship controls to cyberspace. China deploys tens of thousands of “cyber police” who
block Web sites, patrol cyber-cafes, monitor the use of cellular phones and
track down Internet activists.

But the threat to countries
like India comes not from
what China
does domestically. Rather, it comes from the manner the experience, information
and knowhow gained in fashioning domestic cyber oversight is proving invaluable
to China
to engage in cyber intrusion across its frontiers.

The Canadian researchers, who had earlier
uncovered a vast Chinese surveillance system called “Ghostnet” that
could automatically scan overseas computer
networks and transfer documents to a digital storage facility in China,
have revealed in their latest report that the origin of the attacks against
Indian targets was Chengdu, which is also the headquarters of the PLA’s signal
intelligence (SIGINT) bureau. The Chengdu SIGINT station in China’s Sichuan
province is specifically tasked to monitor India.

Chinese hackers often try to camouflage the
point of origin of their attacks. They do so by routing their attacks through
the computers of a third country, like Taiwan
or Russia or Cuba.
Just as some Chinese pharmaceutical firms have exported to Africa spurious
medicines with “Made in India”
label — a fact admitted by Beijing
— some Chinese hackers are known to have routed their cyber intrusion through third
countries. But like their comrades in the pharmaceutical industry, such hackers
tend to leave telltale signs. But in the case of the India-directed cyber ring
that has just been uncovered, it was ensconced in China itself and openly operating
from there.

Despite its information-technology
skills, India
lacks offensive or defensive capabilities in cyberwarfare. It has developed no
effective means to shield its cyber infrastructure from the pervasive attacks
that are being carried out in recent years in search of competitive
intelligence and to unnerve
the Indian establishment.

India’s cyber vulnerability holds major
implications in a war situation. In peacetime, China
is intimidating India
through intermittent cyber warfare, even as it steps up military pressure along
the Himalayan frontier. In a conflict, China could cripple major Indian
systems through cyber attacks. With cyber attacks against Indian government,
defence and commercial targets ramping up, the protection of sensitive computer
networks must become a major national-security priority.

One mode of asymmetrical
warfare — Pakistan’s
unceasing export of terrorism — has traumatized India for long. It should not allow
itself to get similarly battered on the new frontier of asymmetrical warfare China
has opened over the past five years.  On both fronts, state actors are
employing non-state actors.

The costs for India to fight
two asymmetrical wars simultaneously will be high. India should treat the Canadian
report as a wake-up call to plug its vulnerabilities by developing appropriate
countermeasures. At the same time, it should have the capability to take the battle
to the enemy’s camp. Offence is often the best form of defence.

Cyber-terrorism: War by other means

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A new war, a new frontier

India’s abilities to ward off attacks on its computer networks and other infrastructure are basic at best

Brahma Chellaney Mint, January 22, 2010

 

 

Even though India showcases its world-class information-technology and knowledge skills and civilian space assets, it lags far behind China’s cyberspace capabilities. Worse, it has developed no effective means to shield its rapidly expanding cyber infrastructure from the pervasive attacks that are now being carried out both in search of competitive intelligence and to unnerve the Indian establishment.

In peacetime, China is intimidating India through intermittent cyber warfare, even as it steps up military pressure along the Himalayan frontier. In a conflict, China could cripple major Indian systems through a wave of cyber attacks. With cyber intrusions against Indian government, defence and commercial targets ramping up since 2007, the protection of sensitive computer networks must become a national-security priority.

The cyber threat is at two levels. The first is national, as manifest from the attacks already carried out against India’s National Infomatics Centre (NIC) systems, the office of the national security adviser and the ministry of external affairs. By scanning and mapping some of India’s major official computer systems, China has demonstrated a capacity to steal secrets and gain an asymmetrical advantage. Cyber intrusion in peacetime allows China to read the content and understand the relative importance of different Indian networks so that it knows what to disable in a war situation.

The second level of cyber threat is against chosen individuals. Such targets in India range from functionaries of the Tibetan government-in-exile and Tibetan activists to Indian writers and others critical of China. The most-common type of intrusion is an attempt to hack into the e-mail accounts. The targets also can face the so-called Trojan horse attacks by e-mail that are intended to breach their computers and allow the infiltrators to remotely remove, corrupt or transfer files.

To be sure, it is not easy to identify the country from where a particular cyber attack originated if it is camouflaged. Through the use of so-called false flag espionage and other methods, attacks can be routed through the computers of a third country. Just as some Chinese pharmaceutical firms have exported to Africa spurious medicines with Made-in-India label — a fact admitted by Beijing — some Chinese hackers are known to have rerouted their cyber intrusion through computers in Russia, Iran, Cuba and other countries. But like their comrades in the pharmaceutical industry, such hackers tend to leave telltale signs that allow investigators in the victim countries to trace the origin of the disguised attacks to China. Then there are many cases where the attacks have directly originated in China.

So the reasonable supposition at the highest levels of the Indian government is that most cyber attacks have been carried out from China. That is also the conclusion Google reached when it reported “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China” and threatened to end “our business operations in China.” Cyber strikes are just the latest example of how China’s actions — from manipulation of the renminbi’s value to the large-scale dumping of artificially cheap goods — are beginning to rankle other nations, undercutting its claims of a “peaceful rise.”   

Let’s be clear: If China can carry out sophisticated cyber attacks on at least 34 U.S. companies, including Google, as part of a concerted effort to pilfer valuable intellectual property, it certainly has the capability to outwit the elementary safeguards found in most Indian computer systems. Google today is crying foul but it was instrumental is aiding online censorship controls in a country that is most fearful of the free flow of information. It custom-built for China a search engine that expurgates the search results of references and Web sites that Beijing considers inappropriate. Now, Google itself has become a victim of China’s growing cyber prowess, in the way the appeasement of Hitler had recoiled on France and Britain.

Hackers in China have been carefully studying different software programmes to exploit their flaws. For example, hackers have found openings that allow them to infect victims’ computers through booby-trapped documents stored in the Acrobat Reader format. Opening such a document allows the hackers to automatically scan and transfer computer-stored files to a digital storage facility in China as part of a vast surveillance system dubbed “Ghostnet” by Canadian researchers. This is what happened when computers of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala were methodically attacked last year. Officials in Germany, Britain and the U.S. have acknowledged that their government and military networks also have been broken into by Chinese hackers.

It seems unlikely that the hackers, especially those engaged in systematic cyber espionage and intimidation, are private individuals with no links to the Chinese government. It is more likely that the hackers are tied to the People’s Liberation Army. In war, this irregular contingent of hackers would become the vanguard behind which the regular PLA divisions take on the enemy.

India already is on the frontlines of one mode of asymmetrical warfare: Terrorism. That type of warfare has traumatized and bled India for long, with the country exposing itself as a soft state through the absence of an effective response. Now a new frontier of asymmetrical warfare is being opened against India, not by state-sponsored non-state actors but by state actors. It cannot fight two asymmetrical wars simultaneously, one against terrorists and extremists and the other against a state flouting international norms and wedded to cybercrime. The two asymmetrical wars indeed are a reminder that unconventional threats cannot be defeated through conventional forces alone. That is why India should treat the growing cyber attacks as a wake-up call to plug its vulnerabilities by developing appropriate countermeasures on a priority basis.

Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi. Comments are welcome at theirview@livemint.com

Strategic landscape in Asia

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THE ASIAN CENTURY

Asia’s Changing Power Dynamics

Brahma Chellaney

Project Syndicate

NEW DELHI – At a time when Asia is in transition, with the specter of a power imbalance looming large, it has become imperative to invest in institutionalized cooperation to reinforce the region’s strategic stability. After all, not only is Asia becoming the pivot of global geopolitical change, but Asian challenges are also playing into international strategic challenges.

Asia’s changing power dynamics are reflected in China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy, the new Japanese government’s demand for an “equal” relationship with the United States, and the sharpening Sino-Indian rivalry, which has led to renewed Himalayan border tensions.

All of this is highlighting America’s own challenges, which are being exacerbated by its eroding global economic preeminence and involvement in two overseas wars. Such challenges dictate greater US-China cooperation to ensure continued large capital inflows from China, as well as Chinese political support on difficult issues ranging from North Korea and Burma to Pakistan and Iran.

But, just when America’s Sino-centric Asia policy became noticeable, Japan put the US on notice that it cannot indefinitely remain a faithful servant of American policies. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s government is seeking to realign foreign policy and rework a 2006 deal for the basing of US military personnel on Okinawa. It also announced an end to its eight-year-old Indian Ocean refueling mission in support of the US-led war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, China’s resurrection of its long-dormant claim to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and its needling of India over Kashmir (one-fifth of which is under Chinese control), is testing the new US-India global strategic partnership.

The US has chartered a course of tacit neutrality on the Arunachal Pradesh issue — to the delight of China, which aims to leave an international question mark hanging over the legitimacy of India’s control of the Himalayan territory, which is almost three times as large as Taiwan. Indeed, the Obama administration has signaled its intent to abandon elements in its ties with India that could rile China, including a joint military exercise in Arunachal and any further joint naval maneuvers involving Japan or other parties, like Australia.

Yet, the recent Australia-India security agreement, signed during Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s visit to New Delhi, symbolizes the role of common political values in helping to forge an expanding strategic constellation of Asian-Pacific countries. The Indo-Australian agreement received little attention, but such is its significance that it mirrors key elements of Australia’s security accord with Japan – and that between India and Japan. All three of these accords, plus the 2005 US-India defense framework agreement, recognize a common commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law, and obligate their signatories to work together to build security in Asia.

An Asian geopolitical divide centered on political values would, of course, carry significant implications. And, while Asia – with the world’s fastest-growing markets, fastest-rising military expenditures, and most-volatile hot spots – holds the key to the future global order, its major powers remain at loggerheads.

Central to Asia’s future is the strategic triangle made up of China, India, and Japan. Not since Japan rose to world-power status during the Meiji emperor’s reign in the second half of the nineteenth century has another non-Western power emerged with such potential to alter the world order as China today. Indeed, as the US intelligence community’s 2009 assessment predicted, China stands to affect global geopolitics more profoundly than any other country.

China’s ascent, however, is dividing Asia, and its future trajectory will depend on how its neighbors and other players, like the US, manage its rapidly accumulating power. At present, China’s rising power helps validate American forward military deployments in East Asia. The China factor also is coming handy in America’s efforts to win new allies in Asia.

But, as the US-China relationship deepens in the coming years, the strains in some of America’s existing partnerships could become pronounced. For example, building a stronger cooperative relationship with China is now taking precedence in US policy over the sale of advanced weaponry to Asian allies, lest the transfer of offensive arms provoke Chinese retaliation in another area.

While the European community was built among democracies, the political systems in Asia are so varied – and some so opaque – that building inter-state trust is not easy. In Europe, the bloody wars of the past century have made armed conflict unthinkable today. But in Asia, the wars since 1950 failed to resolve disputes. And, while Europe has built institutions to underpin peace, Asia has yet to begin such a process in earnest.

Never before have China, Japan, and India all been strong at the same time. Today, they need to find ways to reconcile their interests in Asia so that they can coexist peacefully and prosper.

But there can be no denying that these three leading Asian powers and the US have different playbooks: America wants a uni-polar world but a multi-polar Asia; China seeks a multi-polar world but a uni-polar Asia; and Japan and India desire a multi-polar Asia and a multi-polar world.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010.
http://www.project-syndicate.org

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Japan and India are natural allies

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The Japan-India partnership to power a multipolar Asia

Japan Times

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s India visit is part of Japan’s growing economic and strategic engagement with that country. Given that the balance of power in Asia will be determined by events as much in the Indian Ocean rim as in East Asia, Tokyo is keen to work with New Delhi to promote peace and stability and help safeguard vital sea lanes.

Japan and India indeed are natural allies because they have no conflict of strategic interest and share common goals to build institutionalized cooperation and stability in Asia. There is neither a negative historical legacy nor any outstanding political issue between them. If anything, each country enjoys a high positive rating with the public in the other state.

Hatoyama’s yearend visit, designed to fulfill a 2006 bilateral commitment to hold an annual summit meeting, shows he is keen to maintain the priority on closer engagement with India that started under his four predecessors — Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda and Taro Aso of the Liberal Democratic Party. Hatoyama came to office vowing to reorient Japanese foreign policy and seek an "equal" relationship with the United States. But he and his Democratic Party of Japan had said little on India.

Today, Hatoyama’s government has put Washington on notice that Japan cannot indefinitely remain a faithful servant of U.S. policies. With Tokyo seeking to rework a 2006 basing deal with the U.S., besides announcing an end to the eight-year-old Indian Ocean refueling mission in support of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Japan no longer can be regarded as a constant in America’s Asia policy.

This has been further highlighted by Hatoyama’s re-examination of a secret agreement between the LDP and the U.S. over a subject that is highly sensitive in the only country to fall victim to nuclear attack — the storage or transshipment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan.

Against this background, New Delhi must be pleased that Hatoyama’s visit signals continuity in Tokyo’s India policy. It also shows that at a time when Asia is in transition, with the specter of power disequilibrium looming large, Tokyo wishes to invest in closer economic and strategic bonds with India.

As Asia’s first modern economic success story, Japan has always inspired other Asian states. Now, with the emergence of new economic tigers and the ascent of China and India, Asia collectively is bouncing back from nearly two centuries of historical decline.

The most far-reaching but least-noticed development in Asia in the new century has been Japan’s political resurgence — a trend set in motion by Koizumi and expected to be accelerated by Hatoyama’s efforts to realign the relationship with the U.S. With Japanese pride and assertiveness rising, the nationalist impulse has become conspicuous at a time when China is headed to overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy by the end of 2010.

Long used to practicing passive, checkbook diplomacy, Tokyo now seems intent on influencing Asia’s power balance. A series of subtle moves has signaled Japan’s aim to break out of its postwar pacifist cocoon. One sign is the growing emphasis on defense modernization.

China’s rise may have prompted Japan to strengthen its military alliance with the U.S. But in the long run, Japan is likely to move to a more independent security posture.

Although the two demographic titans, China and India, loom large in popular perceptions on where Asia is headed economically, the much-smaller Japan is likely to remain a global economic powerhouse for the foreseeable future. Given the size of Japan’s economy — its GDP was just under $5 trillion in 2008 — annual Japanese growth of just 2 percent translates into about $100 billion a year in additional output, or nearly the entire annual GDP of small economies like Singapore and the Philippines.

Still, given China’s rapid economic strides, Japan has been readying itself for the day when it is eclipsed economically by its neighbor. Leading-edge technologies and a commitment to craftsmanship, however, are expected to power Japan’s future prosperity, just as they did its past growth.

India and Japan, although dissimilar economically, have a lot in common politically. They are Asia’s largest democracies, but with messy politics and endemic scandals. Hatoyama, in office for just three months, already has come under pressure following the indictment of two former secretaries over a funding scandal.

In both Japan and India, the prime minister is not the most powerful politician in his own party. Fractured politics in both countries crimps their ability to think and act long term. Yet, just as India has progressed from doctrinaire nonalignment to geopolitical pragmatism, Japan is moving toward greater realism in its economic and foreign policies.

Their growing congruence of strategic interests led to the 2008 Japan-India security agreement, a significant milestone in building Asian power stability. A constellation of Asian states linked by strategic cooperation and sharing common interests is becoming critical to ensuring equilibrium at a time when major shifts in economic and political power are accentuating Asia’s security challenges.

The Indo-Japanese security agreement, signed when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Tokyo in October 2008, was modeled on the March 2007 Australia-Japan defense accord. Now the Indo-Japanese security agreement has spawned a similar Indo-Australian accord, signed when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd traveled to New Delhi last month.

The path has been opened to adding strategic content to the Indo-Japanese relationship, underscored by the growing number of bilateral visits by top defense and military officials. As part of their "strategic and global partnership," which was unveiled in 2006, India and Japan are working on joint initiatives on maritime security, counterterrorism, counter-proliferation, disaster management and energy security. But they need to go much further.

India and Japan, for example, must co-develop defense systems. India and Japan have missile-defense cooperation with Israel and the U.S., respectively. There is no reason why they should not work together on missile defense and on other technologies for mutual defense. There is no ban on weapon exports in the Japanese Constitution, only a long-standing Cabinet decision. That ban has been loosened, with Tokyo in recent years inserting elasticity to export weapons for peacekeeping operations, counterterrorism and anti-piracy. The original Cabinet decision, in any event, relates to weapons, not technologies.

As two legitimate aspirants to new permanent seats in the U.N. Security Council, India and Japan should work together to persuade existing veto holders to allow the Council’s long-pending reform. They must try to convince China in particular that Asian peace and stability would be better served if all the three major powers in Asia are in the Council as permanent members.

Never before have China, Japan and India all been strong at the same time. Today, they need to find ways to reconcile their interests in Asia so that they can coexist peacefully and prosper.

Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
The Japan Times: Wednesday, Dec. 30, 2009
(C) All rights reserved

Hatoyama comes calling

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Powering a dynamic, multipolar Asia

Brahma Chellaney

The Hindu newspaper, December 30, 2009

Given that the balance of power in Asia will be determined by events as much in the Indian Ocean rim as in East Asia, India and Japan have to work together to promote peace and stability.

The visit of the new Japanese Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is part of Japan’s growing economic and strategic engagement with India. Japan and India indeed are natural allies because they have no conflict of strategic interest and actually share common goals to build stability, power equilibrium and institutionalised multilateral cooperation in Asia. There is neither any negative historical legacy nor a single outstanding political issue between them. If anything, each country enjoys a high positive rating with the public in the other state.

Mr. Hatoyama’s year-end visit, fulfilling a 2006 bilateral commitment to hold an annual summit meeting, shows he is keen to maintain the priority on closer engagement with India that was set in motion by his predecessors, Junichiro Koizumi, Shinzo Abe and Taro Aso of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), now in the opposition. Mr. Hatoyama came to office vowing to reorient Japanese foreign policy and seek an “equal” relationship with the United States. But he and his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) had said little on India.

Today, just when America’s Sino-centric Asia policy has became unmistakable, Mr. Hatoyama’s government has put Washington on notice that Japan cannot indefinitely remain a faithful servant of U.S. policies. With Tokyo seeking to rework a 2006 basing deal with the U.S., besides announcing an end to the eight-year-old Indian Ocean refuelling mission in support of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Japan no longer can be regarded as a constant in America’s Asia policy. This has been further highlighted by Mr. Hatoyama’s re-examination of a secret agreement between the LDP and the U.S. over a subject that is highly sensitive in the only country to fall victim to nuclear attack — the storage or trans-shipment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Japan.

Against this background, New Delhi must be pleased that Mr. Hatoyama’s visit signals continuity in Tokyo’s India policy. It also shows that at a time when Asia is in transition, with the spectre of power disequilibrium looming large, Tokyo wishes to invest in closer economic and strategic bonds with India.

As Asia’s first modern economic success story, Japan has always inspired other Asian states. Now, with the emergence of new economic tigers and the ascent of China and India, Asia is collectively bouncing back from nearly two centuries of historical decline.

The most far-reaching but least-noticed development in Asia in the new century has been Japan’s political resurgence — a trend set in motion by Mr. Koizumi and expected to be accelerated by Mr. Hatoyama’s efforts to realign the relationship with the U.S. With Japanese pride and assertiveness rising, the nationalist impulse has become conspicuous at a time when China is headed to overtake Japan as the world’s second largest economy by the end of next year.

Long used to practising passive, cheque-book diplomacy, Tokyo now seems intent on influencing Asia’s power balance. A series of subtle moves has signalled Japan’s aim to break out of its post-war pacifist cocoon. One sign is the emphasis on defence modernisation. Japan’s navy, except in the nuclear sphere, is already the most sophisticated and powerful in Asia. China’s rise has prompted Japan to strengthen its military alliance with the U.S. But in the long run, Japan is likely to move to a more independent security posture.

Although the two demographic titans, China and India, loom large in popular perceptions on where Asia is headed economically, the much-smaller Japan is likely to remain a global economic powerhouse for the foreseeable future. Given the size of Japan’s economy — its GDP was just under $5 trillion in 2008 — annual Japanese growth of just 2 per cent translates into about $100 billion a year in additional output, or nearly the entire annual GDP of small economies like Singapore and the Philippines. Still, given China’s rapid economic strides, Japan has been readying itself for the day when it is eclipsed economically by its neighbour.

Leading-edge technologies and a commitment to craftsmanship are expected to power Japan’s future prosperity, just as they did its past growth. Its competitive edge, however, is threatened by the economic and social implications of a declining birth-rate and ageing population. With a fertility rate of just 1.37 babies per woman in 2008 — America’s is 2.12 — Japanese deaths have started surpassing births in recent years. Permitting immigration on a large scale is no easy task for the Japanese homogenised society. But just as Japan has come to live with the discomforting fact that today’s top sumo wrestlers are not Japanese, it will have to open its research institutions and factories to foreigners in order to raise productivity.

India and Japan, although dissimilar economically, have a lot in common politically. They are Asia’s largest democracies, but with messy politics and endemic scandals. Mr. Hatoyama, in office for just three months, has already come under pressure following the indictment of two former secretaries over a funding scandal. In both Japan and India, the Prime Minister is not the most powerful politician in his own party. Fractured politics in both countries crimps their ability to think and act long term. Yet, just as India has progressed from doctrinaire nonalignment to geopolitical pragmatism, Japan — the “Land of the Rising Sun” — is moving toward greater realism in its economic and foreign policies.

Their growing congruence of strategic interests led to the 2008 Japan-India security agreement, a significant milestone in building Asian power stability. A constellation of Asian states linked by strategic cooperation and sharing common interests is becoming critical to ensuring equilibrium at a time when major shifts in economic and political power are accentuating Asia’s security challenges. After all, not only is Asia becoming the pivot of global geopolitical change, but Asian challenges are also playing into international strategic challenges.

The Indo-Japanese security agreement, signed when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Tokyo in October 2008, was modelled on the March 2007 Australia-Japan defence accord. Now the Indo-Japanese security agreement has spawned a similar Indo-Australian accord, signed when Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd came to New Delhi last month. As a result, the structure and even large parts of the content of the three security agreements — between Japan and Australia, India and Japan, and India and Australia — are alike.

Actually, all three are in the form of a joint declaration on security cooperation. And all of them, while recognising a common commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law, obligate their signatories to work together to build not just bilateral defence cooperation, but also security in Asia. They are designed as agreements to enhance mutual security between equals. By contrast, the U.S.-India defence agreement, with its emphasis on arms sales, force interoperability and intelligence sharing — elements not found in the Australia-Japan, India-Japan and India-Australia accords — is aimed more at undergirding U.S. interests.

The key point is that the path has been opened to adding strategic content to the Indo-Japanese relationship, as underscored by the growing number of bilateral visits by top defence and military officials. As part of their “strategic and global partnership,” India and Japan are working on joint initiatives on maritime security, counterterrorism, counter-proliferation, disaster prevention and management, and energy security. But they need to go much further.

India and Japan, for example, must co-develop defence systems. India and Japan have missile-defence cooperation with Israel and the U.S., respectively. There is no reason why they should not work together on missile defence and on other technologies for mutual defence. There is no ban on weapon exports in Japan’s U.S.-imposed Constitution, only a long-standing Cabinet decision. That ban has been loosened, with Tokyo in recent years inserting elasticity to export weapons for peacekeeping operations, counterterrorism and anti-piracy. The original Cabinet decision, in any event, relates to weapons, not technologies.

As two legitimate aspirants to new permanent seats at the U.N. Security Council, India and Japan should work together to persuade existing veto holders to allow the Council’s long-pending reform. They must try to convince China in particular that Asian peace and stability would be better served if all three major powers in Asia are in the Council as permanent members. Never before have China, Japan and India all been strong at the same time. Today, they need to find ways to reconcile their interests in Asia so that they can coexist peacefully and prosper.

(Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the Centre for Policy Research in New Delhi and the author of Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan,with a new U.S. edition scheduled for release in March.)

© Copyright 2000 – 2009 The Hindu

New Australia-India security accord

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Asia’s new strategic partners
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY
The Japan Times, December 10, 2009

The recently concluded India-Australia security agreement has come at a time when tectonic power shifts are challenging Asian strategic stability. Asia has come a long way since the emergence of two Koreas, two Chinas, two Vietnams and a partitioned India. It has risen dramatically as the world’s main creditor and economic locomotive. The ongoing global power shifts indeed are primarily linked to Asia’s phenomenal economic rise.

Even so, Asia faces major challenges, as underscored by festering territorial and maritime disputes, sharpening resource competition, fast-rising military expenditures, increasingly fervent nationalism and the spread of transnational terrorism and other negative cross-border trends.

In that light, an expanding constellation of Asian countries linked by strategic cooperation and sharing common interests can help foster power stability and build institutionalized cooperation. A close India-Australia strategic relationship indeed is a critical link in this picture, given the common security interests in several spheres that bind the two democracies.

Unfortunately, the Indo-Australian relationship hasn’t gone too well ever since Kevin Rudd two years ago became the free world’s first Mandarin-speaking head of government. Among his first actions, he pulled the plug on the nascent India-Japan-Australia-U.S. "Quadrilateral Initiative" and reversed his predecessor’s decision to export uranium ore to India. For reasons unrelated, the growth in Indo-Australian educational and defense ties also came under pressure, even as India remained Australia’s fastest-growing merchandise export market.

Rudd’s India visit last month has helped to put the bilateral relationship on an even keel and, more importantly, to elevate it to a strategic partnership. The new security agreement will help add concrete strategic content to the relationship.

Underlining the significance of their new accord, India and Australia have agreed to "policy coordination" on Asian affairs and long-term international issues, and to work together in Asian initiatives like the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum. Toward that end, they will institute regular defense-policy talks, including consultations between their national security advisers, and set up a joint working group on counterterrorism. They also have agreed to cooperate on maritime and aviation security and participate in military exercises and other service-to-service exchanges.

Like the October 2008 Indo-Japanese security accord and the June 2005 Indo-U.S. defense agreement, the India-Australia declaration is a "framework" understanding that is to be followed by an action plan with specific steps. In fact, all these three bilateral accords call for advancing security cooperation in wide areas that extend from sea-lane security and defense collaboration to disaster management and counterterrorism.

The Indo-Japanese security agreement, signed when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Tokyo last, was modeled on the March 2007 Australia-Japan defense accord. Now, the India-Australia accord follows that lead. Its structure and even a large part of its content mirror that of the Japan-Australia and Japan-India declarations.

Actually, all three — the Japan-Australia, Japan-India and Australia-India agreements — are in the form of a joint declaration on security cooperation. And all three, while recognizing a common commitment to democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law, obligate their signatories to work together to build not just bilateral defense cooperation, but also security in Asia. They are designed as agreements to enhance mutual security between equals. By contrast, the U.S.-India defense agreement, with its emphasis on arms sales, force interoperability and intelligence sharing — elements not found in Australia-Japan, India-Japan and India-Australia accords — is aimed more at undergirding U.S. interests.

Paradoxically, Rudd, having nixed the Quadrilateral Initiative, has come full circle implicitly by plugging the only missing link in that quad — an Australia-India security agreement. With the Indo-Australian accord, quadrilateral strategic cooperation among the four major democracies in the Asia-Pacific region — Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. — is set to take off without the aid of an institutional mechanism like the Quadrilateral Initiative.

Such cooperation, of course, is intended to be in a bilateral framework. But the bilateral cooperation inexorably will help lay the foundation for greater cooperation and coordination at trilateral and quadrilateral levels among these four powers.

Australia, Japan and the United States already are engaged in institutionalized trilateral strategic dialogue, while India, Japan and the U.S. have held naval maneuvers since 2007, the last time being in April-May this year off the Okinawa coast. In addition, the quad members jointly staged major naval-war games in the Bay of Bengal in September 2007, roping in Singapore, too. Indeed, the coordination established among the Indian, Japanese, Australian and U.S. militaries in rescue operations following the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami has helped promote closer cooperation among them on disaster relief.

Make no mistake: The U.S. has actively encouraged Indian defense cooperation with Australia and Japan, which are tied to the U.S. by security treaty — the ANZUS treaty in the case of Australia and a 1951 treaty with Japan that was revised in 1960.

Closer Indian defense ties with key Asia-Pacific members of America’s hub-and-spoke global alliance system, in fact, are a natural corollary to the U.S.-India strategic tieup, which seeks to institute a "soft" alliance without treaty obligations, but with complex arrangements extending from the defense-framework accord and nuclear deal in mid-2005 to the recent End-Use Monitoring Agreement. As part of this tieup, India placed arms-purchase orders with the U.S. worth $3.5 billion just last year.

But while the U.S. has treaty commitments to defend Australia and Japan, its reciprocal security obligations to an emerging de facto ally like India are unclear. It also is doubtful whether security accords of the Japan-Australia, Australia-India and Japan-India type translate into tangible gains for the parties’ national defense against visible threats, even though they do aid their diplomacy and are likely to contribute to Asian power stability.

Australia’s own recent defense white paper, by unveiling the country’s biggest military buildup since World War II, serves as a reminder that there is no substitute to building adequate national deterrent capabilities, even for a country under the U.S. security umbrella. Japan, for its part, is likely to move to a more independent security posture in the years ahead, even though a muscular Chinese approach has prompted Tokyo in this decade to strengthen its military alliance with the U.S.

More broadly, Rudd’s government — through its record of being hyper-responsive to Chinese concerns, including on the Quadrilateral Initiative — has taken the lead for the U.S. in certain spheres. Just as Canberra has sought to balance its ties with Tokyo and Beijing, as well as with New Delhi and Beijing, the Obama administration now is following in those footsteps. Indeed, the new catchphrase coined by the Obama administration on China, "strategic reassurance," signals an American intent to be more accommodative of Chinese ambitions.

Or take another example: China’s resurrection of its long-dormant claim to India’s northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. Just as Australia has publicly chartered a course of neutrality on the Arunachal issue — to the delight of Beijing, which aims to leave an international question mark hanging over the legitimacy of India’s control over that large Himalayan territory — U.S. policy is doing likewise, albeit quietly. Indeed, the Obama administration has signaled its intent to abandon elements in its ties with New Delhi that could rile China, including a joint military drill in Arunachal and any further Indo-U.S. naval maneuvers involving Japan or more parties like Australia.

In New Delhi, Rudd underscored both the promise and limitations of the new Australia-India strategic partnership. While lauding the new security agreement, he contended disingenuously that his continued refusal to sell India uranium was "not targeted at any individual country," although India is the only country affected by his policy. Worse still, he proffered a specious justification — India’s nonmembership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). That treaty has no explicit or implicit injunction against civil nuclear cooperation with a nonsignatory. Rather, it enjoins its parties to positively facilitate "the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy," so long as safeguards are in place.

Any restriction is not in the NPT but in the revised 1992 rules of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group that, paradoxically, were changed with Australian support last year to exempt India.

Eventually, Canberra will come round to selling India uranium. After all, how can Canberra continue to justify selling uranium to authoritarian China but banning such exports to democratic India, even though the latter has accepted what the former will not brook — stringent, internationally verifiable safeguards against diversion of imported uranium to weapons use? Canberra will not be able to plow a lonely furrow on India indefinitely.

Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and the author of "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan."
The Japan Times: Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009
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