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Feb 18, 2016 Bradley Perrett | ShowNews
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A Vietnam People’s Air Force Sukhoi Su-30MK2.
China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact,” Beijing’s then foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, impatiently told Southeast Asian leaders looking for U.S. support in the South China Sea in 2010. The message was clear enough: they should do as they were told.
With a great power expressing such an attitude, and increasingly seeming to want control of just about all of the South China Sea, one might expect countries adjoining that body of water to begin hurried rearmament efforts. In fact, only two are clearly reacting to China—Vietnam strongly and the Philippines much less so. There is also a hint that concerns of Chinese dominance are influencing Singaporean defense procurement policy, though the city-state makes no such public suggestion.
Vietnam, with a maritime territorial dispute with China, has been shifting resources from its army to its navy and air force while keeping defense spending steady at around 2.2% of GDP. Its strategy is to make nearby waters dangerous to China in case of war, just as Beijing is trying to deter the U.S. from operating close to China, says Tim Huxley, Singapore-based executive director for Asia of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Hanoi’s key move has been building a submarine arm, a traditional weapon for a small naval power facing a large one, and all the more useful in this case because China’s anti-submarine capabilities are not strong.
In military preparations, the Philippines has responded only halfheartedly to the escalation of its dispute with China over features in the South China Sea in the past few years. The main move has been an order for 12 Korea Aerospace Industries FA-50 light strike aircraft in 2014 to restore the fast-jet force. According to Huxley, the Philippine armed forces have good plans for modernization, but the country’s politicians have other priorities. Defense spending was 1.1% of GDP in 2014, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
An enduring oddity of the Southeast Asian military scene is that the country that spends the most on defense is Singapore, a mere city-state with far fewer people than any nation on the South China Sea except for tiny Brunei. Moreover, Singapore—highly developed, efficiently run and lacking the internal security problems of its neighbors—deploys its hefty defense budget to maintain advanced-technology forces focused on external threats.
The Singaporean combat-aircraft fleet now boasts 40 Boeing F-15SGs, including 16 added in an unannounced top-up order. The strike power of those aircraft will be magnified by six Airbus A330 MRTT tankers that are on order to replace four smaller KC-135s. Moreover, Singapore, unlike Malaysia and Indonesia, operates airborne early warning and control aircraft, four Gulfstream 550 CAEWs fitted with electronic systems from Israel Aerospace Industries. While modernizing its 60 Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds, Singapore plans to order F-35s from the same manufacturer.
Singapore’s armed forces look so overly capable of defending against Malaysia or Indonesia that Sheryn Lee, of Macquarie University, Sydney, wonders whether the risk of involvement in confrontation with China has entered the city-state’s defense-procurement calculations. War with China would be just about the last thing that Singapore would want. But Lee suggests situations could arise in which Singapore may want to refuse Chinese demands backed by military force. An example would be an order from Beijing to cease supporting the U.S. in a confrontation in the South China Sea.
Singapore spent 3.3% of GDP on defense in 2014, according to Sipri.
Indonesia is has no territorial claim in the South China Sea that overlaps with China’s, though the famous dashed line that Beijing prints on maps intrudes on the Indonesian exclusive economic zone. Jakarta is aiming at raising the sophistication of its military but, according to Lee, “it’s clear that Indonesia’s force modernization is a reaction to keep up with developments in Southeast Asia.” Indonesia spent only 0.8% of GDP on defense in 2014, but the budget is supposed to rise.
Malaysia, another claimant in the South China Sea, was increasingly concerned about China’s activity there last year, notes IISS. “However, the country’s economic slowdown and the government’s prioritization of domestic spending continued to restrict efforts to develop the maritime and air capabilities that the armed forces’ leadership saw as a necessary response to China,” the think tank adds.
The Thai military, meanwhile, remains domestically focused—to the extent that it has been running the country since it took control in 2014. Thailand and Malaysia each spent 1.5% of GDP on defense in 2014.
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A Vietnam People’s Air Force Sukhoi Su-30MK2.
China is a big country and other countries are small countries, and that’s just a fact,” Beijing’s then foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, impatiently told Southeast Asian leaders looking for U.S. support in the South China Sea in 2010. The message was clear enough: they should do as they were told.
With a great power expressing such an attitude, and increasingly seeming to want control of just about all of the South China Sea, one might expect countries adjoining that body of water to begin hurried rearmament efforts. In fact, only two are clearly reacting to China—Vietnam strongly and the Philippines much less so. There is also a hint that concerns of Chinese dominance are influencing Singaporean defense procurement policy, though the city-state makes no such public suggestion.
Vietnam, with a maritime territorial dispute with China, has been shifting resources from its army to its navy and air force while keeping defense spending steady at around 2.2% of GDP. Its strategy is to make nearby waters dangerous to China in case of war, just as Beijing is trying to deter the U.S. from operating close to China, says Tim Huxley, Singapore-based executive director for Asia of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
Hanoi’s key move has been building a submarine arm, a traditional weapon for a small naval power facing a large one, and all the more useful in this case because China’s anti-submarine capabilities are not strong.
In military preparations, the Philippines has responded only halfheartedly to the escalation of its dispute with China over features in the South China Sea in the past few years. The main move has been an order for 12 Korea Aerospace Industries FA-50 light strike aircraft in 2014 to restore the fast-jet force. According to Huxley, the Philippine armed forces have good plans for modernization, but the country’s politicians have other priorities. Defense spending was 1.1% of GDP in 2014, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
An enduring oddity of the Southeast Asian military scene is that the country that spends the most on defense is Singapore, a mere city-state with far fewer people than any nation on the South China Sea except for tiny Brunei. Moreover, Singapore—highly developed, efficiently run and lacking the internal security problems of its neighbors—deploys its hefty defense budget to maintain advanced-technology forces focused on external threats.
The Singaporean combat-aircraft fleet now boasts 40 Boeing F-15SGs, including 16 added in an unannounced top-up order. The strike power of those aircraft will be magnified by six Airbus A330 MRTT tankers that are on order to replace four smaller KC-135s. Moreover, Singapore, unlike Malaysia and Indonesia, operates airborne early warning and control aircraft, four Gulfstream 550 CAEWs fitted with electronic systems from Israel Aerospace Industries. While modernizing its 60 Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds, Singapore plans to order F-35s from the same manufacturer.
Singapore’s armed forces look so overly capable of defending against Malaysia or Indonesia that Sheryn Lee, of Macquarie University, Sydney, wonders whether the risk of involvement in confrontation with China has entered the city-state’s defense-procurement calculations. War with China would be just about the last thing that Singapore would want. But Lee suggests situations could arise in which Singapore may want to refuse Chinese demands backed by military force. An example would be an order from Beijing to cease supporting the U.S. in a confrontation in the South China Sea.
Singapore spent 3.3% of GDP on defense in 2014, according to Sipri.
Indonesia is has no territorial claim in the South China Sea that overlaps with China’s, though the famous dashed line that Beijing prints on maps intrudes on the Indonesian exclusive economic zone. Jakarta is aiming at raising the sophistication of its military but, according to Lee, “it’s clear that Indonesia’s force modernization is a reaction to keep up with developments in Southeast Asia.” Indonesia spent only 0.8% of GDP on defense in 2014, but the budget is supposed to rise.
Malaysia, another claimant in the South China Sea, was increasingly concerned about China’s activity there last year, notes IISS. “However, the country’s economic slowdown and the government’s prioritization of domestic spending continued to restrict efforts to develop the maritime and air capabilities that the armed forces’ leadership saw as a necessary response to China,” the think tank adds.
The Thai military, meanwhile, remains domestically focused—to the extent that it has been running the country since it took control in 2014. Thailand and Malaysia each spent 1.5% of GDP on defense in 2014.
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, glad to see two brothers shake hands than knife throwing at each other.
