Recent months have seen a continuing increase in military activities in the South China Sea, particularly by the United States and China, but also by ‘bit players’ like India and Japan. These activities only serve to heighten tensions in the region at a time when the priority should be to demilitarise the area.
Recent developments in the South China Sea are a serious cause for concern for Southeast Asian states, which have a huge interest in ensuring the safety and security of these waters given their importance for international shipping. Ongoing militarisation in the disputed waters increases the risks of unintended military confrontations, threatening regional stability.
Western and Asian governments and commentators have pilloried the Chinese government for its inscrutability on the so-called ‘nine-dash line’ in the South China Sea. Because the nine-dash line allegedly lacks a basis in international law as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), they have hectored China to clarify the line’s meaning and to derive all maritime claims from the textual provisions of the Convention.
Recent naval manoeuvres and land reclamation activities in the Spratly Islands have drawn attention to the risk of incidents at sea leading to growing tensions and even conflict in the South China Sea. On Tuesday 27 October 2015, the United States Navy sent its state-of-the-art guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen into waters within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, which China claims. Chinese naval vessels shadowed the USS Lassen until it left the waters around Subi Reef and Mischief Reef.
There has been a great deal of soul-searching about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s statement on the anniversary of the end of the Pacific War. On 15 August 1945, Emperor Hirohito made his ‘jewel voice broadcast’ of surrender to the Allied forces, accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and ending World War II in the Pacific. After 70 years, some might wonder what the big deal is over recognising wartime history.
Bougainville went to the polls in May 2015 for the third Autonomous Bougainville Government election since the signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001. The election was a significant political milestone for the region, marking the beginning of a five-year window in which a referendum on independence is scheduled. It also saw the first woman elected in an open seat of the House of Representatives, Josephine Getsi of Peit constituency.
Papua New Guinea’s recent period of exponential growth places it among the world’s most rapidly developing economies.
Between 2005 and 2014, PNG’s economy expanded at a real annual rate of 6.6 percent and income per capita reached US$2,081. Growth benefitted from macroeconomic stability and low volatility in output. Since 2009, a large amount of investment in the natural resources sector powered that growth. Support also came from the huge increase in demand for commodities worldwide, particularly in Asia.
The current strategic environment in the Asia Pacific can be characterised by an intensifying competition (mixed with some cooperation) between China and the US. As the strategic competition between these two countries is likely to intensify, whether they prefer to accommodate or confront each other will have spillover effects on other Asia Pacific countries’ decisions.
Japan–Australia security ties are now stronger than ever. Both countries have a long history of cooperation in multilateral contexts such as peacekeeping missions or regional institution building but recently this has been strengthened to include more direct bilateral and trilateral defence cooperation, such as that with the United States. Since 2007, bilateral and trilateral military exercises have been conducted fairly regularly and they include combat operations, anti-submarine warfare and tactical manoeuvres.
Talks between China and South Korea on boundary delimitation in the Yellow Sea offer a chance to improve bilateral relations and the prospect of extending the agreement to other seas, in particular the South China Sea.
