DEC,15 2020

US-led minilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific beyond security cooperation: Instrument for China containment or Regional order-building?

1. Introduction

 

At the center of the US Indo-Pacific strategy is the construction of a US-led security network. The Obama administration sought to develop this network through multilayered arrangements of minilateral linkages among US alliance and security partners. The Trump administration has also expanded existing minilateral security cooperation with like-minded states in the region. The minilaterals highlighted in this context include: (1) the TSD (the US-Japan-Australia), (2) the US-Japan-India and (3) the Quad (the US-Japan-Australia-India).

The US claims that the US’s linking among itself and its allies and security partners in the Indo-Pacific using ‘multilayered bilateral processes’ has become a key strategy for its regional multilateral security order-building. However, China perceives that the US-led alliance network exists to contain China itself and uselessly perpetuates Cold War tensions. Especially, China has been condemning the regionalization of individual US-led alliances and the linkage among them as creating a ‘mini-NATO’ that is designed to contain it. For example, from a Chinese perspective, the US, Japan, Australia and India re-initiated the Quad with an intention to assigning a role of encircling China under the name of the FOIP (Free and Open Indo-Pacific) against China’s behavior in the Indo-Pacific.

Then, what can the US and/or its allies do in order to mitigate such Chinese concerns while activating minilateral security cooperation? To address this question, this paper first introduces various US-led minilaterals that have been shaping in the Indo-Pacific. Second, it pays attention to new roles to be assigned to US-led minilaterals beyond security. It claims that the coordination of member states’ infrastructure investment has emerged as a new role. Also, it maintains that the coordination of member states’ contributions to regional maritime capacity building and maritime domain awareness has the potential to become a new role. Third, despite the new role(s), the paper points out that China can still perceive such roles in relation to China containment. Fourth, the paper examines how some members of the US-led security network have been working [and should work] in order to make US-led minilaterals function as an order-building mechanism rather than one for institutional balancing.

 

 

2. US-led minilaterals as a component of the US-led Indo-Pacific security network

 

Security minilaterals are defined as “meetings between small subsets of nations, typically three or four, designed to address common security interests in a more focused setting”. The TSD (the US-Japan-Australia trilateral), which was launched in 2001, is a good illustration of US-led security minilaterals in the region. The TSD, having been developed through conducting joint military exercises and holding four trilateral summit meetings up to today, has extensively enhanced the security cooperation between Japan and Australia. The US-Japan-India trilateral, launched in 2011, is another example. The Malabar military exercise between the US and India since 1992 has become the de facto military exercises of the trilateral since 2015. Following its first inclusion in 2007, Japan had participated in the Malabar exercises intermittently; but it has joined the exercises annually since 2015, thereby making the Malabar a trilateral military exercise.

The two trilaterals mentioned above contributed to the re-emergence of the Quad since 2017 (Quad version 2) among the US, Japan, Australia, and India after its short-lived appearance in 2007 (Quad version 1). Since President Trump announced US Indo-Pacific policies during his tour to Asian countries in November 2017, there have been eight meetings among high officials of the four countries with the two meetings in September 2019 and in October 2020 held at the foreign minister’s level.

Unlike Japan, Australia, which participated in the afore-mentioned Malabar military exercise in 2007, had been absent from it out of concern for China’s negative perception on its expansion. However, Australia expressed its intention to join the Malabar in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in the midst of the intensified perception of the China threat in Australia; but the requests were rejected by India. Yet, bilateral maritime exercises, the AUSINDEX, have been conducted between India and Australia biannually since 2015, and it compensates for Australia's absence at the Malabar exercises. That said, though, a border clash between India and China in 2020 significantly heightened a perception of the China threat in India, thereby resulting in India including Australia in the Malabar held in November 2020. In this sense, the Quad version 2 is not only the expansion of the TSD, but also the US-Japan-India trilaterals.

Moreover, the media has been raising the possibility of ‘Quad+’ as several non-Quad states, including the United Kingdom and France, are conducting military exercises with various Quad states in the Indo-Pacific. To note, French President Macron suggested during his visit to Australia in May 2018 that France, India and Australia set up a strategic axis against China in Indo-Pacific. Indeed, the three states held their first trilateral strategic dialogue at the vice-Minister’s level in September 2020. In sum, the US has been constructing a US-led security network and in doing so, it facilitates minilateral security cooperation and its expansion.

 

 

3. Assigning a role to US-led minilaterals beyond security cooperation: Coordinating infrastructure investment  

 

Though the US-led security network in the Indo-Pacific is still in the making, the US-led bilateral alliances, trilaterals, the Quad and the Quad+ have shaped the skeleton of the US-led security network in the Indo-Pacific. Then, the trilaterals and the Quad version 2 have already become minilaterals embedded within the US-led security network rather than ones that are comprising the network. That being the case, the trilaterals and the Quad version 2 are to find new roles that can facilitate the working of the network or fixing the problems/concerns of the network.

One of the concerns/problems with the US-led network in the Indo-Pacific is that it lacks a mechanism to respond to China's BRI. China has been expanding its investment in infrastructure construction and its provision of governmental and non-governmental aid in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Central Asia. The Quad states have been confronting the necessity of preventing China from spreading its political and economic influence in the region more widely through the BRI.

Indeed, each of the four Quad states has been increasing its infrastructure investment in the Indo-Pacific. Since the announcement on July 30, 2018 by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, that the US would invest seed money of USD130 million, the US has been putting forth efforts to cultivate public-private partnerships (PPP) for infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific. Japan provided a public fund of about USD35 billion in 2017 for quality infrastructure development. Likewise, Australia announced the Southeast Asia Economic Governance and Infrastructure Initiative in November 2018 and South Asia Regional Infrastructure Connectivity Initiative in January 2019. It also made the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility for the Pacific operational in 2019. India has been actively engaging with South Asian and Indian Ocean states to respond to China’s BRI in the sub-region. 

             Also, bilateral coordination has been enhanced. To name a few cases, in November 2017, after the summit meeting, the US and Japan launched the Japan-U.S. Strategic Energy Partnership (JUSEP) and signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on energy infrastructure in third countries. Indeed, private companies of the two states contributed to the start of the Jawa 1 Project in Indonesia on December 19, 2018. In the case of the Japan-India bilaterals, in order to develop the most underdeveloped area in India, the Northeast region, the two states set up the India-Japan Act East Forum in November 2017. Outside of India, the two states formed the ‘Asian African Growth Corridor’ (AAGC) in order to cooperate with each other for development projects across Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Africa.

Then, it would be much more efficient if they could coordinate their respective policies trilaterally and quadrilaterally. In that sense, a role has been assigned (or is being assigned) to US-led minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific: Coordinating member states' infrastructure investment to provide regional states with alternative sources to China's BRI investment. At the trilateral level, the US, Japan, Australia and India have been increasing certain trilateral infrastructure investments to respond to China’s expansion of influence in the region via its BRI. As an example of the US-Japan-Australia trilaterals, the U.S.’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade established a Blue Dot Network in November 2019 for infrastructure development by promoting PPP. In the case of the US-Japan-India trilaterals, the three states formed the Trilateral Infrastructure Working Group (TIWG) in February 2018 and launched the Indo-Pacific Infrastructure Trilateral Forum among private institutions in May 2018. At the Quad level, their intention to coordinate their infrastructure policies has been expressed whenever they have officially met and at various conference venues in which officials from the four countries have participated.

 

 

4. Additional role(s) to be assigned to the US-led minilaterals? 

 

The US and its allies and security partners have been interested in coordinating their individual policies on non-traditional security issues. In the case of the US, in addition to USD32.5 million under the Foreign Military Financing, the Maritime Security Initiative enables the US to provide USD425 million to Southeast Asian states from 2016 to 2021. Along with the US, Japan and Australia are also interested in contributing to regional states' maritime capacity building and maritime domain awareness. They have been providing (used) surveillance aircraft, patrol vessels and radar to targeted Southeast Asian states, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Indonesia in the form of official development aid (ODA). Also, they have been training officials of armed forces, coastal guards and coastal police from the above-mentioned Southeast Asian states.

On the front of maritime domain awareness, with such resources as the MSI, the US, Japan and Australia ultimately aim to produce a Common Operational Picture of the Indo-Pacific and to construct a Vessel Traffic System in the region. As an example of enhancing maritime domain awareness, there have been media reports that the US and Australia have been considering operating drones jointly with Indonesia in the Cocos Islands to monitor maritime activities in the Indian Ocean. It is in this sense that the Australia-India-Indonesia trilateral has been noted, as India and Indonesia agreed that the former develop the latter’s port, Sabang, located at the approaches to the Strait of Malacca. Its first meeting was held in Bogor, Indonesia in November 2017 at the senior official’s level and the second one held in Canberra, Australia in September 2018.

In most cases of the trilateral and quadrilateral meetings involving the US, Japan, Australia and India since 2017, maritime capacity building and maritime domain awareness (along with infrastructure investment) were one of the meetings' main agendas. In this sense, it is likely that selective US-led minilaterals will be given another role of coordinating maritime capacity building and maritime domain awareness among their members.  Indeed, the four countries have already been strengthening their defense cooperation at bilateral levels and via the US-Japan-Australia and the US-Japan-India trilaterals. Thus, the Quad may well be utilized as a mechanism through which the four states coordinate their respective contributions toward maritime capacity building and maritime domain awareness.

 

 

5. Regional allies’ efforts to mitigate competition between the US and China over non-security issues in Indo-Pacific 

 

In order to assuage China's criticism/concerns and consequently to undermine China's attempt to build a counter-balancing bloc, US allies and security partners have been attempting not to provoke China unnecessarily. For example, Australia has been inviting China to the joint military training exercises with the US, the Kowari, since 2014, including about ten Chinese soldiers in those exercises annually. Also, in Southeast Asia, Thailand invites China to their major military exercises with the US, Cobra Gold. In the midst of an intensifying military confrontation between the US and China in the South China Sea, China and ASEAN conducted a joint naval military exercise in 2018.

India joined the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) on June 9^th, 2017 led by Russia and China. Also, India has been promoting the ‘inclusive’ nature of Indo-Pacific, which was well expressed in Prime Minister Modi’s speech in June 2018 at the Shangri La Dialogue Pacific and in press briefs India’s Ministry of External Affairs released after the Quad meetings.

Japan announced its conditional participation in the ‘plus-sum BRI’ in 2017. Asei Ito contrasts ‘plus-sum BRI’ and ‘zero-sum BRI’ using the competition for high-speed rail construction in Indonesia and Thailand between Japan and China as an example.  In bidding for the contracts, China seeks to expand its infrastructure exports; and Japan sees this as a zero-sum game, since only one country can win either contract.  However, were Chinese state-owned enterprises and Japanese trading companies to work jointly together with a third country to develop and operate industrial parks and electric power infrastructure, such projects could produce a “plus-sum” outcome for all concerned.

To pursue the ‘plus-sum BRI’, Japan worked with China to organize the Japan-China Third Country Market Cooperation Forum on October 26, 2018 to promote “exchange between private companies in Japan and China, with a focus on Japan-China economic cooperation projects by the private sector in third countries”. During that time Tokyo and Beijing agreed to work on the possibility of building a high-speed railway system in Thailand as a joint venture. Were that to succeed, it would help lessen the tension that competition might otherwise engender between the two nations over the BRI. During Prime Minister Abe’s participation in the Forum, Tokyo and Beijing signed a total of 52 memorandums of cooperation on infrastructure investment initiatives in third countries, with details of the various public-private partnerships involving Japan, China and third countries to be worked out as they are developed.

In this context, it should be noted that South Korea has been pursuing the New Southern Policy and striving to find a nexus with the US Indo-Pacific strategy. Since both the US and South Korea are interested in increasing their investment for infrastructure construction in Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Pacific, assigning a role of coordinating the three states' infrastructure investment to the US-Japan-South Korea, the US-India-South Korea or US-Australia-South Korea trilaterals could be a starting point. Since the US, Japan, Australia, India and South Korea are all technologically developed states, the trilaterals could specialize in coordinating bidding and funding for projects which involve high tech and entail security safety issues such as digital city, smart city, telecommunications, and so on and so forth. The creation of a trilateral forum or fund would give greater room (or an excuse) for South Korea to participate in China's BRI without making the US misperceive that South Korea tilts toward China.

On the other hand, US allies and security partners may not join minilaterals for marine capacity building and maritime domain awareness out of concern for China's position, while they may address those issues individually. That is because China suspects that, as long as contributing states are the US and its allies and receiving states are Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia, all of which have (potential) territorial disputes with China, such minilaterals are intended to constrain China's marine activities in the Indo-Pacific. With assistance from the US, Japan and Australia, receiving states can improve their marine capacity to confront non-traditional security issues at hand. They can be equipped to respond to the IUU (Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated) fishing practices of the Chinese more effectively.

It is in this context that Australia and Indonesia have some reservations in fully engaging in maritime cooperation. There have been media reports that Australia and Indonesia were considering joint maritime patrols in the South China Sea, but both governments have not officially confirmed the possibility. Also, it may be a reason why minilateral security cooperation has not been officially launched among Australia, Indonesia and Japan, as it may be perceived to be formed for trilateral cooperation for maritime security.

In the context of mitigating Chinese concerns over US-led minilaterals, US allies and security partners have been developing and operating minilaterals in which they are involved apart from the US as mechanisms to avoid unnecessarily seeming to exclude China in favor of US-led groupings only. For example, the Japan-Australia-India trilateral was set up in June 2015 at the Secretary level. The trilaterals mainly discussed maritime security issues, counterterrorism and regional connectivity. There have been four official meetings with the most recent one held on December 13, 2017, though there have been trilateral meetings at various academic and think-tank conferences, including the one held on August 13, 2019 organized by Griffith University. Also, it should be noted that the afore-mentioned Australia-India-Indonesia triangle defines the Indo-Australia as “a strategic triangle within the Indo-Pacific, comprising Australia, Indian and Indonesia”.

In sum, it should wait and see how various minilaterals would develop and what roles they would assume, not to make the US-led network serve as part of an outright China containment. It will be sure, though, that US allies and security partners will make a significant impact on whether the minilaterals would evolve as an instrument for order-building or China containment.