The joint naval exercises between Russia and the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), South-east Asia’s regional block, along the Strait of Malacca, last week, was an indicator that South-east Asian countries are intent on drawing in a third power in the region to stabilise the effects of the US-China rivalry in the region.
The exercise included joint tactical manoeuvring drills by ships, conducting signals training, and communication, as well as interviewing and screening tasks of a suspicious vessel. It also covered training in search and rescue (SAR) at sea.
Russia is the third country, after China and the US, to conduct naval exercises with the regional body.
The exercise also exhibits Russia’s growing alarm that the US is seeking greater control over the region through AUKUS, while also displaying Asean’s anxiety over heightened Chinese militarisation in the region.
All 10 members of Asean, participated in last week’s drills. Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar and Brunei provided warships or aircraft, with the Philippines taking part as a virtual observer
Russia is the largest arms supplier to South-east Asia. Between 2000 and 2019, it sold $10.7 billion-worth of defence equipment to Asean nations, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. The United States, which is the region’s second-biggest supplier, sold $7.9 billion. China sold $2.6 billion over the same period.
Russia has been selling tanks, warships, submarines, fighter jets and other weapons to the region. A year ago, it was revealed that an Indo-Russian joint venture was planning to export the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile to the Philippines and several other South-east Asian countries.
The joint naval exercises come at a time when both Asean and Russia seem increasingly alarmed about the irreconcilable differences between the US and China, including over Taiwan, in the Indo-Pacific, and want to assume a certain amount of equipoise in the South-east Asian region.
China’s militarisation of the South China Sea and its belligerence in the Indo-Pacific region has prompted the formation of AUKUS, a tri-nation alliance headed by the US and including the UK and Australia.
Russia, on its part, has been vocal in its criticism about the formation of AUKUS and has been excoriating the US militarisation of the Indo-Pacific region including South-east Asia. Indonesia and Malaysia, two nations from the Asean bloc, also held Australia culpable for what in their opinion was stoking an arms race in their neighbourhood through its submarine deal with AUKUS.
As a backgrounder, AUKUS is a new three-way strategic defence alliance between Australia, the UK and US, initially to build a class of nuclear-propelled submarines, but also to work together in the Indo-Pacific region, where the rise of China is seen as an increasing threat, and develop wider technologies. The deal marks the first time the US has shared nuclear propulsion technology with an ally apart from the UK.
Nuclear-propelled submarines, in this context, have longer range, are quicker and are harder to detect. But the UK national security adviser, Sir Stephen Lovegrove, had made it clear that AUKUS is about more than a class of submarine, describing the pact as “perhaps the most significant capability collaboration in the world anywhere in the past six decades”.
The reservations that Indonesia and Malaysia have expressed over Australia’s acquiring submarines under the auspices of AUKUS are unfounded, especially since it will take Australia 20 years before it gets them. In any case, it is Australia’s prerogative to arm itself against what it sees as China’s increasing aggressiveness in the region. China is busy militarising regardless, and Asean nations should be filled with more consternation about China’s bellicosity than Australia’s upgrading its navy, given that China has been stalling South-east Asian initiatives in the South China Sea, and is bullying and intimidating Asean nations over their claims to maritime territory.
Recently, there were renewed incidents with ASEAN members the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam in maritime areas in and around the South China Sea. Last month, China stopped Indonesia from oil drilling in the latter’s neighbourhood in the South China Sea. Also last month, the Philippines condemned the actions of three Chinese coast guard vessels that it said blocked and used water cannons on resupply boats headed towards a Philippine-occupied atoll in the sea.
China has impeded commercial activity like fishing or mineral exploration by countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, claiming that the ownership of territory belonged to China for hundreds of years.
Over the last five years, China has displayed exceptionable conduct in rapidly building artificial islands housing significant military infrastructure on what had been low-lying reefs in the South China Sea, in a region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Besides, China has maritime disputes with 6 of the 10 Asean bloc countries.
In fact, China claims 90% of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. On 12 July 2016, The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague dismissed Beijing’s claim to much of the South China Sea. It stated that there was no evidence that China had exercised exclusive control, historically, over the key waterway.
China has repeatedly said it does not accept the Court ruling and has continued to expand its South China Sea presence.
The South China Sea is a region of tremendous economic and geostrategic importance. One-third of the world’s maritime shipping passes through it, carrying over US$3 trillion in trade each year. Huge oil and natural gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed. It also contains lucrative fisheries, which are crucial for the food security of millions in South-east Asia.
So what purpose do the Russia-Asean navy drills serve? Russia is keen to exercise its influence in the region to counter increasing US focus (to check China) there. Some Asean nations have been rankled by Australia for allegedly setting off an arms race in the region. But they ought to actually be voicing concern over China’s rapid militarisation of and its unjustified claims in the South China Sea. So, is Asean really discomfited by AUKUS? Or are they sending a missive to China, that is the real villain of the piece in the region?
montes-musings.blog 
good one
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