China–ASEAN Maritime Drills: How did it come to this?
By Aditya Vijay*
In February of 2018, the
military leaders of China and the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) met in Singapore and revealed plans to hold two joint military
drills later this year, supposedly in October and November. This development
perplexed many foreign policy experts and analysts. No one could decipher the
motives of the ASEAN countries in agreeing to hold maritime drills with what
many members of the association consider the primary aggressor in the South
China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have territorial
claims in the South China Sea, which directly conflict with Beijing’s
claims. This then begs the question as to why the regional bloc would allow military
cooperation with Beijing, when competing strategic interests are at stake. A possible
answer may be found through a closer inspection of China’s
economic ties and investments in ASEAN.
China has been ASEAN’s
largest trading partner for the last seven years. In fact, China–ASEAN trade
seems to be burgeoning ever more. Economists predict that total trade volume
between the two is expected to reach around USD 1 trillion by 2020.[1]
Individually, China is also the largest trading partner to Cambodia, Laos,
Vietnam and Myanmar. Myanmar’s example offers some perspective on the sheer
scale of China’s economic ties to ASEAN. Myanmar shares an
extensive land border with India and in 2013, the total value of India-Myanmar
trade stood at USD 2 billion. The total value of Myanmar-China trade for the
same year stood at USD 14 billion.
For Beijing, maritime and
military cooperation is the next logical step to build on the extensive economic
linkages it shares with ASEAN. Military cooperation is a crucial element in
China’s goal to consolidate its ‘peaceful
rise’ in the region. China, through its massive inflow
of investment into ASEAN had cultivated some goodwill among the bloc’s
leaders. But when Beijing first proposed joint military drills with ASEAN back
in 2015, it was immediately met with stern opposition and resistance. At that
time, tensions were still simmering in the South China Sea and the value of
Chinese economic investment in ASEAN countries was not quite enough for their
leaders to acquiesce to China’s request. However, fast forward to 2018, and it
seems that the territorial disputes in the South China Sea are only an
afterthought to most ASEAN nations, when they agreed to host joint military
drills with China. What exactly had changed between 2015 and 2018?
Examining the data for China’s
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow into ASEAN over the years, there is a
noticeably sharp spike in FDI in 2015. Compared to a total FDI of approximately
USD 8 billion in 2014, FDI stood at nearly USD 15 billion in 2015.[2]
This constitutes an 87.5 per
cent increase in FDI into ASEAN over the previous year. For comparison, the
year-on-year increase in FDI from 2013 to 2014 was around 10.7 per cent. An
analysis of the total value of China’s investment and
construction contracts in ASEAN over the years also shows a similar trend of a
significant increase in FDI in 2015 compared to the previous years. In 2014,
the total value of Chinese investments was a little less than USD 15 billion,
while it jumped to over USD 30 billion in 2015. The year 2016 saw total
investments worth around USD 30 billion, which was far greater than in any of
the years before 2015.[3]
The massive increase in FDI and
investment inflows into ASEAN from China since 2015 underlines Beijing’s
conviction that providing financial support to satisfy the economic needs of
the ASEAN countries is the best way to secure their approval for China’s
grand design for the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, it comes as no surprise
that the increased investment by China over the last two years has coincided
with reduced protestations by the leaders of ASEAN against Chinese aggression.
In fact, countries that were once highly antagonistic to Beijing, like the
Philippines, now seem to consider China as an ally. Given the recent
developments, it seems as though China’s economic overtures
to ASEAN have finally paid dividends. And indeed, until a suitable regional rival
can challenge China’s economic dominance, Beijing will have free reign
in bending smaller countries to its will with its own version of dollar
diplomacy.
*The author is Research Intern with CPPR. Views expressed by the author is personal and does not reflect that of CPPR.
Featured Image Source: CIE
[2]Edward Ng, “The Rise of
Chinese FDI into ASEAN”, 5 October 2017 https://en.nikkoam.com/articles/2017/10/the-rise-of-chinese-fdi-into-asean
[3]Edward Ng, “The Rise of
Chinese FDI into ASEAN”, 5 October 2017 https://en.nikkoam.com/articles/2017/10/the-rise-of-chinese-fdi-into-asean
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