Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

In our 23 November issue we looked at the sharp refocusing of US attention on the Asia-Pacific region and in particular at the way in which this was being openly welcomed in Southeast Asia.  We noted that China was “reaping as it has sown” given its confrontational attitude to South China Sea territorial disputes during the past year.  The past week has shown more evidence of this.

Firstly, there is the news that on 19 December officials from Japan, India, and the United States will meet in Washington for the first time to discuss Asia-Pacific regional issues.  This is exactly the kind of apparent ‘ganging-up’ that fuels fears in Beijing of a US-led “contain China” strategy.  Beijing’s anger will have been further stoked by US State Department spokesman Mark Toner making a point that the meeting was between “the three leading Pacific democracies” – a club from which China is by definition excluded.

On 5 December, Japan’s Kyoto news agency quoted Japanese officials as saying that the meeting is “expected to focus on maritime security in the light of China’s growing activities in surrounding waters”.  The next day, on 6 December, Japan revealed that another Chinese maritime research ship had been found operating within Japan’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), some 100km west of Okinawa.  The survey was being conducted in an area “different from prior notification”, and according to Japanese sources this is the seventh time this year that Chinese research ships have been identified sailing through waters near Okinawa Prefecture either without consent or in a different area to the one notified in advance.

China’s relations with India have also been going through a difficult patch, as we reported last week, and China will have been further disquieted by remarks by Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd that a trilateral pact between Australia, the US, and India is “worth exploring”.  His comments came a week before a six-day visit to India beginning on 7 December by Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith.  India was quick to deny that any such pact was under consideration, but China is unlikely to have been completely persuaded by the denial as the suggestion so clearly fits in with the general direction of travel being followed by China’s principal neighbours.

Besides, India is not shy in expressing its concerns about China, as can be seen by comments this week by naval chief Admiral Nirmal Verma to the effect that Chinese missile developments pose a threat to the region.  Speaking about China’s Dong Feng 21D anti-carrier ballistic missile, Verma said: “If it is a fully functional system, it generates a quite different category of threat that is there and certainly requires new measures to combat it.”

As for Australia’s relationship with the US.  Last Wednesday (30 November), Chinese spokesman Geng Yansheng slammed the US’s move to station troops in Darwin as being reminiscent of the Cold War.  He said: “Any consolidation or expansion of a military alliance that was forged in history is of the Cold-War model.”  He added that “any military theory aimed at provoking confrontation and safeguarding one’s security at the price of another’s is also backward-thinking”.