At the end of November, the United States Coast Guard began conducting a course in vessel boarding with experts from the Philippines, Malaysia and Japan, saying it will “enhance the maritime law enforcement capabilities of the Philippine Coast Guard and the Philippine National Police-Maritime Group.” Though China was not mentioned in the press release, the context in which the course exists is that a number of countries have ongoing disputes with China over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, and China has been most assertive within those disputes.
The course is no aberration. Everywhere you look in the Indo-Pacific region, new forms of cooperation that push against China are showing up. This week, Japan and the U.S. signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on countering foreign information manipulation, a charge often leveled at China. Last week, the U.S. allowed South Korea to launch its first domestically produced spy satellite from a U.S. base, to the displeasure of North Korea, with which China has a mutual defense treaty. And this is before you get to more major strategic shifts, like the building of the Quad or AUKUS. In May, for instance, the Philippines agreed on new guidelines for its 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty with the U.S., clarifying conditions under which the U.S. would come to its defense. In April, it agreed on four additional military bases the U.S. would be given access to. And in August, talks between the two began on developing a port within that Philippines that faces Taiwan, according to Reuters.
The emerging reality, then, is that the U.S. is leading broad efforts to create a united front against China around Southeast and East Asia.
However, what stands out about these arrangements is that when you ask some of the politicians involved in them why they believe in them, it’s economic self-interest that comes up repeatedly as a key link in the chain, rather than democratic values or equivalent rhetoric.
“We have all these [shipping] routes that go through the Taiwan Strait. I think 30% of our container ships go through the Taiwan Strait, especially those ones going to the Middle East,” said Ji Seong-ho, a member of the Korean National Assembly, speaking at an event hosted by the Doublethink Lab think tank in Taiwan last week. “We [also] need to have crude oil be imported from overseas and … and if we need to take another route it’s going to be an economic negative to us. Therefore we want to uphold the value of democracy, and it is also very important to our economic development. That is very important to us, especially under the threat of China, and we can actually feel that threat quite concretely.”
Note the order: Democracy is invoked, but only after talk of crucial trade routes. Much like Taiwan, South Korea relies on imports to meet around 98% of its fossil fuel demand, owing to domestic resources being limited.
Japan’s concern over potential conflict — and willingness to push against China — is framed in similar terms by Shiori Kanno, a former member of the Japanese House of Representatives. Speaking at the same event as Ji, she said public attention in Japan is mainly focused on social security, but it has in recent years become focused on national security because of “unilateral” Chinese actions. These actions, she said, have created a sense among both conservatives and liberals that defense needs to be strengthened, resulting in Japan’s defense budget increasing significantly.
Offering an explanation for this shift in positioning, she said any military conflict across the Taiwan Strait would likely see Japanese military bases being used, but she also repeatedly noted that 3,124 Japanese companies operate in Taiwan, and that shipping around the Taiwan Strait would stop and trade with Taiwan would be cut off in the event of a Chinese blockade.
“There are estimates of economic losses in the event of just a trade cut-off with Taiwan due to the [hypothetical] crisis. Japanese GDP will fall one 1.4%. But I think … absolutely it will be … worse because as I mentioned previously … those 3,124 companies in Taiwan and most of the shipping round will stop…” she said.
For countries further away, there are other motivations in play. Stating that popular discourse in the Philippines did not engage much with the economic implications of a blockade over the Taiwan Strait, Adrian Amatong, a congressman in the Philippines House of Representatives, said that he personally was focused on a “bigger picture,” as he praised the Philippines’ new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., for turning against China.
“If we allow China to flex its muscle further, we could end up having nothing at all. Because first, a long time ago it was Mongolia, [then] Hong Kong, then Taiwan and inevitably it would be Japan and the Philippines. So the appetite of China for expansion is insatiable,” he said. The context for these remarks is that the Philippines has had the most direct confrontation with China in recent months of the countries mentioned here. In August, China began attempting to block a supply mission to a Philippine navy vessel intentionally stranded on Ayungin Shoal, using a water cannon. The issue remains ongoing.
However, we should note again: This angle still lines up with a broader sense of self-interest, even if it is not limited to the economic sphere.
So, protecting “democratic values” does come up as a justification for concerns about China’s role over Taiwan, but it’s not necessarily top of the list. This means that any coordination of forces in the region — many of whom also have major trade ties with China — will require coming to grips with that fact. It’s not going to be based on pure altruism, or a liberal fantasy of democracy-loving peoples standing together for the sake of a shared definition of freedom. It’s going to be a negotiation between different sets of self-interest.
Image: Philippine Coast Guard/Handout via Reuters
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