Tag: south china sea

Geopolitical Risks in Asia: An Update

AGAMI BRIEF
Agami Briefs are AAA’s outlook reports. Agami (आगामी) which means upcoming in Hindi, are concise memos on important forthcoming events. Agamis aim to inform Members of what to keep an eye out for and when.

Earlier in the year AAA gave a rundown of our top geopolitical risks for Asia in 2020. In light of the unprecedented challenges brought on by coronavirus, we are revisiting these picks with new views and opinions on the issues to watch. We wish all our Members good health during these difficult times.
Photo by Jérémy Stenuit

Needless to say, forecasts of the important issues to watch this year have been eclipsed as the coronavirus swept across the world. Some issues, however, remain salient. AAA’s own forecasting of the top geopolitical risks in Asia this year which included developments in the South China Sea, Hong Kong’s tenacious protest movement, and the U.S. presidential elections in November, have not lost relevance in spite of the world’s focus on coronavirus. Rather, the pandemic has added a new layer of complexity to these issues that will need to be accounted for as we move into the second half of the year. 

Tensions in the South China Sea

There have already been movements in the South China Sea that have caused concern and irritation for claimant states who are all dealing with health crises at home and who cannot effectively focus state resources to deal with another major crisis. So much of foreign policy depends on seizing the narrative in the public international – or at least regional – space, particularly on issues that countries do not have a competitive advantage on.

Being crowded out of that space at this time means that diplomats can no longer rely on megaphone diplomacy as a tactic but must either take the initiative or act in association with other like-minded parties. That has become increasingly difficult to achieve and renders even the slightest of moves in the South China Sea overtly hostile and egregious.

Hong Kong Protests

Hong Kong’s protest movement has seen a quick return ever since the easing of movement restrictions in the city. As the movement evolves into a broadchurch incorporating moderate liberal constituencies seeking a return to a more strict definition of one country two systems and groups actively opposed to China, there is both a risk that the movement could turn endemic and therefore unresolvable or too diverse in its objectives that it will inevitably invite more extremist factions to break away.

There are signs that the latter situation has been realised to a greater degree but it is still far too early to make a certain assessment. Nevertheless it seems apparent that the SAR government’s successful management of the pandemic has done little to improve trust with the people. If the point has not been made more clear – popular grievances in Hong Kong are no longer rooted in performance metrics and will be increasingly defined by the politics of ideology and identity.

US Presidential Elections

The U.S. presidential election will remain a defining event for Asia this year not merely because of the impact that U.S. relations has on Asia but because the result will either confirm or reject the importance of anti-China political positions in the U.S. mainstay for years, if not decades, to come.

It is no longer a surprise to anyone that a large cross-party bloc of the U.S. establishment has grown fiercely oppositional to China’s moves in many areas. It continues to be of interest how the flavour of that opposition develops. In the maximalist view, the average American will begin to think of China as a threat to world peace and this will have serious implications on how the strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China will play out in the next 5 years. In the minimalist view, the average American will perceive China as a party to be treated with caution and suspicion, but still by and large a competitor rather than a threat. How the coronavirus is understood in American society will play a critical role in the shifting of national perspectives towards China and will surely be a subject of considerable importance when election season begins later this year.

By Julia Perrotta and Hasumi Tano, Staff Writers

Top Geopolitical Risks in Asia This Year

AGAMI BRIEF
Agami Briefs are AAA’s outlook reports. Agami (आगामी) which means upcoming in Hindi, are concise memos on important forthcoming events. Agamis aim to inform Members of what to keep an eye out for and when. In this first brief, we look at the key elections happening in Asia for 2020.

Photo by US Navy

Tensions in the South China Sea

SCS disputes have gone on for at least 5 decades since China and South Vietnam fought a brief battle over the Paracel Islands in 1974, resulting in PRC control over the islands till this day. Numerous clashes between the navies and fishermen of China and other claimant states in Southeast and East Asia over the succeeding years have been a repeated source of resentment for the latter.

With China’s rise as a middle-income country and regional military power, these clashes have now seen a greater resolve from Beijing to assert its claims as an increasingly “core” issue.

Since Beijing’s rejection of a 2016 Hague ruling voiding China’s claims in the SCS based on its nine-dash line, Beijing has sought to enforce its claims through physical means. This strategy has weakened Beijing’s already halting efforts to establish a Code of Conduct (CoC) in the SCS and has also revealed the lack of options that other claimant states have to effect their sovereign claims to portions of the SCS.

This year, there is a possibility that Malaysia may file a UNCLOS legal suit to clarify the limits of its continental shelf, and Indonesia could follow a similar path in response to what it says are recent Chinese incursions into its exclusive economic zone north of the Natunas Islands.

As this year’s ASEAN chair, Vietnam is also likely to prioritize ASEAN unity against Chinese encroachments in the SCS and will not be satisfied with a watered down CoC.

If these developments take place, it is not implausible that Beijing will double down and seek to assert its claims over the SCS in a more forceful manner as they have done before. When that occurs, ASEAN will face its greatest test in recent years.

hong kong protest sign
Photo by Erin Song

Hong Kong Protests

Hong Kong’s protest movement is seeing a transformation into a permanent political movement with its mass weekly demonstrations seeing dwindling attendance since the new year.

A large number of district councils are now filled with pro-democracy individuals who are supportive of the protest movement. These district councils are expected to expand their mandate from a narrow administration of their constituencies to wider political interests, and should be seen as new staging grounds for future mass mobilisation.

Although Chief Executive Carrie Lam has managed to retain Beijing’s confidence, she will be reporting to a new Director at the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government of Hong Kong, Luo Huining. What steps he takes to assert Beijing’s authority or to manage the relationships between the now energized pro-democracy bloc in Hong Kong remain to be seen. But what is certain is that he will be eager to avoid any new protests from escalating as they did in 2019.

If Lam does not act to solve some of Hong Kong’s major woes in housing affordability and economic inequality, or makes a misstep in dealing with the outstanding legal cases involving protesters, we could see mass protests break out once more. If such protests last as long as they did in 2019, investors that held out last year may well pack up for good.

trump delivering remarks
Photo by The White House

US Presidential Elections

Very little can be predicted about the outcome of the US Presidential Election in November. If Donald Trump achieves reelection it will spell 4 more years of continued US withdrawal from Asia. By then, much of Asia would have recalibrated their strategic bets making any future US reengagement beyond 2024 an especially difficult task.

Even if the Democratic nominee triumphs, there is no guarantee that US presence in Asia will be strengthened nor that its Asian partners will throw caution to the wind and welcome the Americans back unconditionally.

The rise of nationalist movements in Japan and Southeast Asia that began well before Trump’s inauguration already presents a hurdle to building trust with any new US administration, though what other choices remain for countries facing a relentless China is anyone’s guess.

It is not clear how Trump or a new US president will deal with the on-and-off issue of North Korea. As it has been for decades, the North has never been a serious existential threat against the US – even while it claims to be so. The real impacts have always been viscerally felt in South Korea and Japan, and how the US president acts towards its East Asian allies – whether reassuring or extracting – will be a better marker of how the wider North Korean issue will be dealt with after the 2020 elections.

By Staff Writers