Australia has joined The Quad for military war games but refusing to be outdone, China launched its own show of strength.
Australia is there. So are Japan and India. It’s the latest in a rapid-fire stream of military exercises involving the West in the Pacific. But China refuses to be outdone, launching yet more live-fire drills in the East and South China Seas.
The Malabar 2021 Naval Exercise began in waters off Guam in the mid-Pacific on Thursday. Australia is its latest regular participant. That makes it a de facto expression of the military strength behind the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad, which includes Japan, India and the United States.
At the same time, a strike group centred on the British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and the Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen met up with the Japanese helicopter carrier Ise and the US assault ship USS America. They were busy near Okinawa and the Miyako Strait linking the East China Sea with the Pacific.
Beijing, however, refused to be outdone.
It launched the latest of its seemingly never-ending chain of combat exercises. One group passed close to allied forces.
“The Chinese military is responding to US moves to team up with its allies – including when the UK and Germany carry out freedom of navigation operations in the region,” former People’s Liberation Army Colonel Yue Gang told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post. “When the US steps up its presence in the region, China has to respond and show its muscle.”
GAME OF THRONES
US Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this week began a tour of South-East Asia. On a visit to Vietnam, she told President Nguyen Xuan Phuc: “We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the UNCLOS, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims.”
That pressure is already soaring at sea.
China claims almost all of the 2 million square kilometre South China Sea as its sovereign territory. However, nations that actually border the waterway, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Borneo, Taiwan and Indonesia, disagree.
But Beijing blames Washington for the international tension and unrest in the region.
China also claims the whole East China Sea, including islands between Taiwan and mainland Japan. South Korea claims some. Tokyo both claims, and occupies, most.
Buoyed by the exploding size of its navy and air force, China has been elbowing its way into these contested waters in recent years.
While many of its closest neighbours are reluctant to defy Beijing because of its economic and military might, a growing international presence is beginning to make itself felt.
And that’s angered China.
US ‘ANXIETY’
“With the advancement of China’s military modernisation over the past two decades, China has fully caught up with the US in terms of conventional military forces,” says Renmin University of China strategic analyst Zuo Xiying. “However, the US’ conventional deterrence capability in the Western Pacific has relatively declined.”
His Communist Party approved editorial states the expanded scope of the Malabar exercise exposes the United States’ “anxiety” about China’s rise.
Now Washington is seeking new ways to exert pressure on Beijing.
“To achieve this goal, the US has no other choice but to unite and rope in its allies and strategic partners, as well as to strengthen security co-operation among key allies and strategic partners,” Zuo writes. “Washington aims to strengthen maritime co-operation with allies and strategic partners, flexing muscles against China and demonstrating its deterrence capabilities and determination.”
Zuo stressed the potential for internal dissent within the Quad.
“Washington has taken aggressive defensive measures to counterbalance Beijing. On the other hand, India, Australia and Japan have their own interests in security issues. Washington cannot have a monopoly on the Quad mechanism, even though it is led by the US.”
MALABAR MIND GAMES
Coming hot on the heels of Australia’s Talisman Sabre and the United States’ Large Scale Global Exercise, this year’s Malabar war game represents a shift in emphasis.
Where Australian and US exercises focused on large-scale amphibious assault operations, the focus is now on a high-seas clash.
Warships, submarines and aircraft are being pitted against each other off Guam in the Western Pacific. Their manoeuvres include live-fire weapons drills.
Australia’s multipurpose frigate HMAS Warramunga is showing the flag. The Indian frigate INS Shivalik and corvette INS Kadmatt have travelled to Guam “as part of their ongoing deployment to nations in South-East Asia and the Pacific Ocean”.
Japan has sent three warships, including a helicopter carrier, and a submarine along with surveillance and anti-submarine aircraft. The United States is contributing three warships, P-8 anti-submarine aircraft, anti-submarine helicopters and special forces units.
While not formally taking part in the operation, Britain has its new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and support ships operating off Okinawa with US and Japanese vessels.
Malabar 2020 was the first time all four nations of the Quad participated in the war games at the same time. The move has attracted Beijing’s ire as an “attempt to contain” its territorial ambitions. But it was China’s attempt to push back its border with India in the Himalayan Ladakh region last year that prompted a strengthening of Quad ties.
BEIJING BITES BACK
“The strengthening of the Quad mechanism reflects the fact that China’s military growth is for sure putting enormous external pressure on the US in the Indo-Pacific region,” boasts the Communist Party’s Global Times news outlet.
But it also warns of continued escalation and a new arms race.
“As for China, there is definitely a need for it to counter the US’ strengthening of the security co-operation among the Quad countries.”
Beijing has been eager to be seen to be standing up to Washington.
Live-fire drills in the East and South China Seas ended on Thursday – the same day Malabar kicked off. The full extent of these exercises is uncertain. However, open-source intelligence analysis of satellite imagery reveals a new helicopter assault ship put to sea off Hainan Island.
One unit entered the Miyako Strait, a gap between the disputed Senkaku Islands and Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. Another flotilla, led by a new Type 055 guided-missile cruiser Nanchang, entered the Sea of Japan in a move touted as “a warning to Japanese right-wing forces and militarists”.
State-controlled media boasted the 12,000-tonne warship was “the most powerful” in the world.
“With advanced weapons and equipment like the Type 055 large destroyer, the PLA is fully capable of safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity, no matter if it comes to the island of Taiwan or the Diaoyu Islands, or if foreign forces interfere,” it said.
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @JamieSeidel
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