Asia Times: Southeast Asia


	May 8, 2002	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

ASEAN's military buildup threatens detente with China
By Alan Boyd

SYDNEY - Resurgent arms spending in Southeast Asia threatens to derail detente efforts with China as US pressure forces a strategic polarization with the shrinking communist bloc. Terrorism has provided a convenient peg for overhauling weapon systems that in some cases have been in active use since the Vietnam War. But the real target, say military analysts, is China's emerging economic clout.

Fearing intensified rivalry for natural resources, the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members will commit at least US$3 billion this year to weapon-modernization programs. That is double the average yearly expenditure in the decade prior to the 1997 financial upheaval, though economic pressures mean that much of the current package will actually be spread over two years.

There is also a disproportionate share credited to Malaysia, which reputedly has a war chest of $2 billion to spend on multipurpose fighter jets, battlefield tanks, helicopters and submarines. It has already spent $400 million on an air-defense system and portable rocket launders.

Singapore is looking for a replacement for its 50 A-4 interceptor fighter planes and wants to upgrade its F-5 squadrons. Thailand has added more used F-16s, is refurbishing its own F-5s and plans to lease two submarines. The Philippines wants to restart a $1.9 billion refurbishment program dating from 1996 that has been delayed by economic problems. Included in the order books are 24 new multi-role fighters, 19 used Skyhawk fighters, ground radar and maritime patrol aircraft. Indonesia has completed a delivery of Hawk combat planes and trainers that was disrupted by a human rights embargo but is still finalizing a Russian order for multi-role fighter planes and helicopters worth $650 million and separate plans for 24 patrol planes. Yet only in the Philippines, locked in a war of attrition with Muslim separatists, can a direct terrorism link be established. The US is expected to supply field weapons and equipment worth $250 million as part of its joint operation with Manila against the Abu Sayyaf movement.

Rather, ASEAN is taking a broader perspective that assumes background tensions between Japan and China will gradually split the region into two shadow alliances. Washington, standing firmly behind the Japanese, has used the terrorism threat as an effective lever for restoring the strategic balance: Southeast Asia has been told in uncertain terms that it must take sides. The problem is that ASEAN is working to a security script that was drafted during the days of Cambodian shuttle diplomacy, when the Cold War presented an identifiable enemy - even if it was hard to spot the good guys at times.

China, driven by its bitter ideological feud with the Soviet Union, was then a fringe member of the US alliance that backed the three non-communist factions against the Vietnamese and their Eastern Bloc allies. Now Vietnam has reluctantly been caught up in ASEAN's swing to the US and the Chinese are the new bogey. But Southeast Asia isn't totally sure what to do next.

One peristent obstacle is that the ASEAN members are also economic rivals, and they have their share of neighborly squabbles, usually over scarce resources such as oil and fish. Consequently, most states tend to keep a close eye on their closest borders when they buy weapons and there is a tendency to put image ahead of practicality. So Thailand has a helicopter carrier that is too expensive to operate. Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand should be using light patrol craft in their shallow waters but insist on buying unsuitable submarine fleets.

Competition was evident as far back as the early 1990s, when Indonesia and Thailand bought advanced F-16 fighter planes because Singapore had leased - and later purchased - its own squadron of the jets.

Undoubtedly some ASEAN defense forces are badly in need of a make-over. The Philippines, for instance, has only 11 airworthy combat planes and one naval frigate to enforce its territorial waters. But of equal concern is the inadequacy of Southeast Asia's security strategy, which is limited to a vague commitment to protect territorial boundaries and has no collective vision.

Malaysia's aggressive arms buildup suggests that the unilateral approach will continue, even as Southeast Asia begins to take a belated look at the deeper implications of China's spectacular economic rise. The Malaysian armed services are under-equipped, with 60 combat aircraft including trainers, four frigates and no main battle tanks. On a comparative population basis, only the Philippines forces are smaller.

There is also some truth to Malaysia's contention that it is merely resuming a procurement program that was disrupted by the financial crisis. Certainly the fighter plans were tentatively announced several years ago. But logically, a nation of 18 million does not need a weapons consignment of this magnitude unless it anticipates a pressing security threat or intends to cast its defense net over a much wider area. Kuala Lumpur does have border disputes with Indonesia, Thailand and China, including an unresolved claim over part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea that is contested by Beijing and several other ASEAN states.

However, it is unlikely Malaysia will ever be in a position to take defensive action, even with the addition of multipurpose fighter planes that might offer increased range, as it has restricted naval support and no tanker aircraft for midair refueling. Thus it can be assumed that the Malaysians perceive a far greater threat that could only be resolved in consort with other states within ASEAN. And the United States also probably does, although it is unlikely to admit as much.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad has softened his abrasive anti-American rhetoric since terrorist cells were unearthed in his own back yard, though he is probably not ready to embrace Washington in a defense alliance. More likely, he wants to send a message to China and any other countries with regional ambitions that at least one ASEAN country is getting serious about defense, even if the rest of the region can't make up its collective mind.

Singapore, with the highest per capita spending in Southeast Asia, actually went down that path long ago, and now has a highly capable force. But the reaction by conservative Malaysia will have far greater ramifications. Viewed by some as former Indonesian president Suharto's natural successor at the helm of ASEAN, Mahathir has been pushing since 1999 for a security pact that would involve all Asian countries, including potential foes China and Japan. Ironically, he saw the alliance as a way of averting the sort of "wasteful expenditure on arms" that he rightly saw as a natural consequence of improving economic conditions.

That initiative never went anywhere because it shut out the US, which among other things is a close economic partner and supplies most weapons in use in ASEAN. There might have been grounds for bypassing Washington in the late 1990s, when it shifted its security focus to Eastern Europe, but not under the current administration, which clearly intends to re-engage Asia in a strategic sense.

In committing his own country to a costly military buildup, Mahathir has signaled that he doesn't think detente will work, at least on the Asia-only terms that he would prefer. These terms will become redundant as a four-way axis evolves between the US, Japan, South Korea and Australia, with the evident intent of keeping China in its place.

Singapore already has a defense pact with the US, as do Thailand and the Philippines. Malaysia and Singapore are linked with US allies Australia and Britain through the five-power treaty, which also includes New Zealand. Indonesia and Malaysia are cooperating on an aircraft refurbishment deal. Thailand, Singapore, the US and Australia train together. Japanese peacekeepers, in their first post-World War II detachment, are serving under Thai commanders in Timor.

The structure already exists for a more formal security alliance and the arms are starting to flow in. ASEAN evidently recognizes that the security lines have been drawn, with the US wielding the pointer. Now all it needs is for someone to link the ends altogether.

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