By Rick Wallace, Tokyo correspondent
The Australian
The Australian
Sailors stand to attention on the deck of China’s aircraft carrier Liaoning, as China formally enters its first aircraft carrier into service. Picture: AP Source: AP
THE decks of the Liaoning were filled with saluting sailors rather than fighter aircraft and in the smog it was impossible to see Hu Jintao and other dignitaries at the commissioning ceremony for China’s first aircraft carrier.
The carrier itself is a retrofitted Ukrainian model and was once earmarked to be a floating casino in Macau. Compared with the 97,000-tonne, nuclear-powered George Washington, the centrepiece of the US Navy’s fleet in Asia, the Liaoning is a modest vessel.
Nevertheless, the official launch of China’s first aircraft carrier, in the northeastern seaport town of Dalian in September, may turn out to be the moment the world fully awoke to the significance of the arms build-up taking place in Asia.
Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning during a test. Picture: AP Source: AP
Having an aircraft carrier – even one described by Western analysts as a floating museum – is a potent symbol of a nation’s desire to project force in the open ocean. And China has wasted no time in using the commissioning of the Liaoning, on the eve of its decadal leadership transition, as a symbol of power, reportedly already conducting test flights on it.
Neighbouring countries – indeed, countries throughout the region – didn’t need the Liaoning launch to tip them off about this: they’ve been steadily upgrading defence capabilities in recent years to counter China’s rise.
According to a recent study by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, “several Asian countries are already among the largest defence spenders in the world”.
“In addition, unlike the defence budgets in many other regions, Asian defence spending continues to be on the rise in stark contrast to Europe and the US, where defence budgets have been declining in recent years.”
The latest figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute show the value of defence imports in Asia grew by 25 per cent across the four years to 2011. Put together with Oceania, the region accounts for 44 per cent of all arms imports.
These figures, of course, do not factor in the full total of China’s expenditure. Much of the production of its new nuclear submarines, warships and missiles is carried out domestically, leaving the true value shrouded.
But according to the CSIS study, even China’s official figures show spending has quadrupled in the past decade. At the end of last year, says the CSIS study, China was spending $90 billion a year on defence, or 40 per cent of the total defence spending from the five biggest arms spenders in Asia (China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan). The Stockholm Institute says the real total could be as much as $140bn a year.
Asian defence spending “accelerated visibly around 2005″, according to the CSIS, so is this the start of a new arms race? The experts can’t agree.
But one thing is certain: with its continued rise economically and militarily, China has everyone’s attention. This includes Australia, which is keeping a close eye on the security of shipping lanes for our exports and imports through the South China Sea.
China is in dispute with The Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia over control of strategic outcrops and hydrocarbon resources in a stretch of water that covers sea lanes used for half the world’s shipping trade.
Julia Gillard, attending the East Asia Summit in Cambodia this week, says Australia supports a code of conduct for rival claims in the South China Sea to avert clashes that affect these trade routes.
“We are talking about an area of the world that our shipping goes through to take our goods to the world,” she says.
“It is a heavily used trade route for Australia and consequently what happens with maritime security there is important to us.”
The US, which also supports a code of conduct to prevent maritime clashes, has made no secret of the redeployment of military assets under its “pivot” to Asia, which will see 60 per cent of its naval ships deployed in the Asia-Pacific.
The director of the Lowy Institute’s international security program, Rory Medcalf, has stopped short of calling it an arms race for now, but acknowledges the trend bears close study.
“I would be pedantic and hesitate to call it an arms race, but there’s very few headline writers in the world who would agree with me,” he says. “It is a competitive arms dynamic. There’s a lot of hedging and investment in niche capabilities.”
His point, and that of many analysts, is that while spending has grown markedly, it has not grown much as a percentage of gross domestic product. That’s broadly correct and certainly true of China, where spending has remained at about 2 per cent of GDP (about the same level as Australia). In comparison, the US continues to spend almost 5 per cent of GDP on defence.
Other Asian nations, particularly in Southeast Asia, have ramped up their spending dramatically, but off a very low base.
Medcalf says that although Southeast Asian powers are keen to match each other’s capabilities, the overall increase in spending is mostly about China’s rise. Smaller states know they can’t match China’s military machine but are investing in submarines and aircraft to avoid being pushed around in territorial disputes.
China is investing in missiles – its “carrier killer” DF-21 anti-ship missiles and its DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles – along with nuclear submarines, destroyers and aircraft. According to some analysts, it is helping to build a “string of pearls” in developing countries consisting of Indian Ocean ports where its warships can berth and resupply. It is also pursuing stealth aircraft technology. But all indications from the experts are that its stealth technology, like its blue water navy and its fighter aircraft, lag the US by many years in terms of capability and technology.
On spending figures, as well as technological might, the US still leads the way and remains the guarantor of freedom of navigation in the Asian seas.
But amid tight budgetary pressure, defence spending in the US is unlikely to stay this high in percentage terms, with much riding on the so-called fiscal cliff at the end of the year. Most of the assets it places in Asia under the pivot will be ships and aircraft removed from other areas.
The US is shifting fighter aircraft (F22 Raptors) into its bases in Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, as well as Osprey vertical take-off aircraft, and it will eventually have another aircraft carrier deployed in the Asia-Pacific to complement its West Coast force of four carrier groups and the USS George Washington group, based in Japan’s Yokosuka base.
It does have, however, some new vessels under construction. Defence columnist Kirk Spitzer, who writes for Time magazine’s Battleland site, says up to four new littoral conflict vessels (a new class of battleship suitable for clashes in shallow coastal waters) will be deployed from Singapore.
But it is submarines, Spitzer says, that are the main game. “Submarines remain the biggest concern in the South China Sea. You start sinking ships there and basically all commerce stops. For the US, subs are a major concern because if you have a carrier group in the South China Sea, then they could do a lot of damage.”
The US has a fleet of 60 subs, including nine nuclear-powered vessels, and has more subs deployed in Asia than elsewhere, according to a recent AP article.
“There’s a submarine arms race going on right now,” another American defence specialist who chooses to remain nameless tells The Australian. “Every country that has a coastline in Asia is investing in submarines.
“It’s primarily driven by China because everybody is obsessed with China, but everybody is concerned about their neighbour, too.
“It’s about access. When you get out on the high seas the US has the game wrapped up, but when you get into the coastal areas it’s a free-for-all.”
Indonesia, South Korea, India and Singapore have all recently purchased or built submarines, or are planning to do so so.
Australia, too, is buying or building new subs to replace the trouble-plagued Collins class. The government also has committed to purchasing up to 100 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters to replace our ageing fighter fleet, albeit with significant delays.
Medcalf, who has dubbed Australia “the odd man out” in the region for cutting overall defence spending, says that while these projects are on the drawing board, there is a great scepticism in the defence community that the government can “square the circle” in accomplishing these goals within the budget it has allocated. A technology swap deal with Japan recently brokered by Defence Minister Stephen Smith and first revealed in the The Australian could alleviate some of the uncertainty on costs by allowing Australia to buy Japanese engines for the subs.
Japan, the other main regional power, is limited by caps on military spending and its peaceful constitution, but it is forging ahead with the US on a missile shield that’s ostensibly about protecting against North Korean missiles but in reality is also about China.
The US and Japan recently announced a second X-band radar site would be installed in the south to complement the one in the northern island of Hokkaido. It will help improve missile-interception capabilities. Japan also is upgrading its fighter fleet by purchasing 42 Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
South Korea’s defence spending has not been growing as fast as other countries of late but it did recently reach agreement with the US to extend the range of its ballistic missiles to hit any point of North Korea. That will involve upgrades to its missiles and it is also upgrading its KF-16 fighter fleet.
Still, Spitzer, like Medcalf, hesitates to call the build-up an arms race. “I don’t really see it. You have an arms build-up, but it’s not an arms race,” he says. “Even the arms build-up is not that significant. I don’t see it contributing to any sort of imminent armed conflict.”
Spitzer says it also is important to look at the quality of soldiers, noting that China spends about $40,000 a soldier a year compared with the $240,000 in Japan and almost $500,000 in the US.
Another overlooked element of the defence build-up amid all the focus on China and the US pivot is India, which received 10 per cent of all arms imports in the four years from 2007 to 2011. It “is likely to remain the largest recipient of major conventional weapons in the coming years”, according to the Stockholm Institute report.
“They are buying subs, surface ships and aircraft,” Spitzer says. It’s about Pakistan, but also about China, against which it fought an all-but-forgotten war in the 1960s, he says.
Roughly half the goods transported between countries go through the South China Sea and this accounts for $1.2 trillion of trade each year.
Add to that the large gas reserves, territorial conflicts and important fish stocks in the area, and it is no surprise that the region’s inhabitants are hedging their bets with arms purchases.
Everyone’s definition of an arms race is different, but when even Bangladesh – growing rapidly but still one of the poorest countries – is buying a submarine perhaps there’s something worth watching going on.
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