At the very beginning of June Singapore hosted the annual Shangri-La Dialogue summit that proved to be one of the most notable international forums which discusses the issues of security in the Asian-Pacific Region (APR) in the broad sense of this term, which means that the Indian Ocean is also considered a part of it in this context.
It should be emphasized time and time again that the development of the geopolitical game as a whole largely depends on the state of affairs in the APR.
Although the competition between the two of its major players, that are the US and China has gone global a long time ago, but it is in the APR that experiences direct consequences of this confrontation.
Both of those players have the opportunity to discuss the problems that sets them apart during various bilateral meeting held by the elected representatives of these states, but Shangri-La Dialogue along with the ASEAN Forum provides an additional dimension to these discussions, since they are being held multilateral format during these events, with the inclusion of representatives of such influential players as, for example, Russia, Japan, India, Australia.
The Singapore latest forum could be described, speaking metaphorically, as a colloquium of doctors assembled for establish a diagnosis that would allow them to cure the APR from the disease that it has been suffering.
Regardless of the noble cause of the above mentioned summit, it should be noted that the major players that were represented there often enjoy complicated relations with each other, and their assessments of the nature and causes of regional problems are often conflicting. That prevents them from developing a coordinated course of actions that would ensure sure recovery of the patient. Moreover, there’s every reason to believe that the sorry condition that the patient was found is was provoked by the actions of some of the participants that are sitting in the colloquium.
In this case, however, to describe the Shangri-La Dialogue summit more carefully, it is necessary to use very a different set of metaphors, for example, from popular cinema.
In particular, an image of the resort hotel would come in handy, where several groups of respected gentlemen gathered regardless of the problems that have had in joint business.
The latest round of the Shangri-La Dialogue talks, like the previous ones, provided little to no grounds for optimism. For the situation in the APR in recent years has frozen somewhere in between the extreme options, on the one hand, mutually beneficial, cooperation, on the other, countries are taking sides that now and they’re going to defend those vigorously.
There was a glimpse of hope that this situation would change when Donald Trump took office. His initial rhetorics against the key geopolitical opponent was related consentrated on purely economic matters, which was quite consistent with his pre-election isolationist rhetorics.
But even before Trump got elected, one could notice that his statements would start to contradict each other. In particular, statements about the need for a radical increase in the US military spendings which could serve as an indication that there’s a external military threat that should be taken seriously. On its parry and must “sharpen” the reformed US armed forces. However, the US is amassing overseas which means that internal offense have once again been considered secondary.
The Korean peninsula, the East China Sea and the South China Sea, Taiwan – these are the zones of the latent, yet obvious US-China confrontation of recent years. And if someone could have the illusion that the new president would reduce the level of American military presence in these zones, they were shattered on May 25, when a US destroyer entered a 12-mile zone around one of the artificial islands in the South China Sea, controlled by China.
It should be noted that the practice of stinging Beijing where it hurts the most was typical for the latter years of Obama’s presidency. Apparently, this practice has been put to extensive use yet again which served as an alarming signal for those visiting the Shangri-La Dialogue summit.
There is no doubt that the US was in the driving sit at the Singapore forum. Most US representatives, just like the representatives of the states aligned with the US, who were present at the summit where pretty high-ranking, while China and its allies would send regular diplomatic figures to attend it.
The fears of the former side were expressed at the opening forum by Malcolm Bligh Turnbull – the sitting Prime Minister of Australia. In his view, should Beijing adopt its own version of the Monroe Doctrine, this would have negative consequences for all countries in the South-East Asian subregion.
But China’s official rhetorics bears no indication that some document of that sort has been in play, although, everyone is free to interpret Beijing’s actions in his own way.
Among the reasons that the Australian prime minister could use historical analogies of that sort could be China’s claims on the 80-90% of all the South China Sea waters and the alleged construction military installations on the artificial islands that it builds.
In territorial disputes with China, the positions of its southern neighbors are now backed up by last year’s refusal of the Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration to recognize the legality of these claims. The same decision has also been used by the US to justify of its long-standing accusations against China.
In the speech given by the Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada declared full support to the actions the US Navy has been taking in the South China Sea, while stressing Tokyo’s intention to strengthen the “special strategic partnership” with Australia and India.
The speeches of representatives of other opponents of China contained mentions about the need to respect the sovereignty of all the countries of the region as well, along with the claims that the international law and freedom of navigation should be universally respected. At the same time, China was not mentioned directly in those speeches.
In this regard, a retired Indian general Parmendra Singh turned out to be a notable exception, since he demanded to prevent China’s militarization of the South China Sea islands and urged it pursue the denuclearization of North Korea.
As for the speech given by US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, he has not just made it clear that a US destroyer entered the 12-mile zone controlled by China intentionally, but has also devoted a lot of time to the discussion of the North Korean nuclear program, pushing forward the idea that Washington has been voicing for a long while now – that the key to the Korean crisis lies in the hands of China’s elected representatives.
However, immediately after the Singapore forum, China’s Global Times would feature an article that would note Washington’s “key responsibility” in the Korean crisis, thus returning the ball on American side.
It is truly alarming that a forum that is designed to allow players to discuss difficult questions in a calm atmosphere has made the situation even more tense.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.“
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