In Conversation: Humphrey Hawksley on Asian Waters
In Conversation: HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY ON ASIAN WATERS
THE STRUGGLE OVER THE INDO-PACIFIC AND THE CHALLENGE TO AMERICAN POWER
IN CONVERSATION WITH HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY
15 December 2020
What first drew you to write Asian Waters? How long has it taken you to research the book? Did any events in the Indo-Pacific or individuals surprise you during the writing of the book?
I have been reporting from Asia since the mid-1980s, and the South China Sea has always simmered. In 1988, when based in the Philippines, I reported on China taking Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands, killing more than 60 Vietnamese troops. A year later when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Beijing, the South China Sea dispute was high on his the agenda. Moscow offered to mediate, but it was overshadowed by the democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and their violent end.
In 1995, when I was BBC Beijing Bureau Chief, we broadcast the first photographs of China constructing what it called fishermen’s shelters on Mischief Reef. Both Johnson Reef and Mischief Reef are now fully operational Chinese military bases. In 1997, I published Dragon Strike: The Millennium War, a fact-based future history about a Chinese offensive to control the Asia-Pacific. All of this contributed to the research of Asian Waters, together with new reporting from the United States, China and the rest of Asia. The biggest surprise was this: How was it possible that China could end up with a string of illegal military island bases in international waters on one of the world’s most pivotal trade routes without any real confrontation, without a single shot fired in anger? This reality defines the new balance of global power and China’s reach within Asia.
In Asian Waters, you tell the story of Filipino fisherman Jurrick Oson, and his encounters with the Chinese Coast Guard at Scarborough Shoal. The story serves as an effective microcosm of China’s assertiveness in the region; paramilitary coercion mixed with economic self-interest.
How effective has China’s maritime program been in changing and undermining the status quo in the South China Sea? How have China’s actions shaped the opinions of everyday people like Oson who are reliant on fish stocks? Has China ‘won’ in the South China Sea?
China has certainly ‘won’ in the South China Sea for the moment. Its bases in the Paracel Islands to the northwest and Spratly Islands to the southeast give it effective military control. There is now a Pentagon advisory that U.S. naval forces should withdraw to beyond the First Island Chain, east of the Philippines if hostilities break out. Having said that, Britain and France are now redeploying their naval forces back to the region, to show Beijing that it would be up against the world’s most enduring and sophisticated military alliances should there be conflict. China has no allies.
The region, however, takes a pragmatic view. China is on their doorstep and more powerful than their countries can ever be. Therefore, they need to cut deals, while understanding that much of their fate depends on the relationship between China and the U.S. As Singapore’s prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said in early June about the future of the people of the region, “Their success—and the prospect of an Asian century—will depend greatly on whether the United States and China can overcome their differences.”
In the book, you recount a visit you made to the Opium War and Sea Battle Museum in Humen, where the British first came ashore in 1839. There you are told by a young student that the Opium War and the century that followed is taught from primary school, all the way to university.
What role does this recent history play in China’s conduct in the South China Sea? How important is the ‘Century of Humiliation’ in discourse relating to the disputed waters and beyond? Has history now become a tool for nationalism in China?
Much as the Battle of Britain and Dunkirk are embedded in British cultural psychology, so the Opium Wars and the Century of Humiliation are embedded in the Chinese one. It is incredibly important because history can be weaponized to serve the issues of the day. China is not alone in doing this. The Century of Humiliation began when British forces breached China’s southern coastal defences and lasted until 1949 when Mao Tse-tung’s Communist Party took power.
The mantra is that China will never be humiliated again. The South China Sea bases are known as the Great Wall of the Sea. The South China Sea does not rank alongside Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan as emotionally-charged nationalist flashpoints, but it is still central to the overall story-telling of Chinese power projection in order to protect against future invasion. It is ironic, of course, that the same colonial powers responsible for its humiliation, France, Japan and the United Kingdom, are working alongside the United States to balance China’s current expansion.
There’s a fascinating and even prescient 1959 intelligence report you highlight from Australia’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) which underlined both the importance of the South China Sea’s islands and China’s potential to make mischief amongst the international shipping lanes in the region.
How important is the South China Sea to China’s wider ambitions in the region? What strategic role do the islands now play for Beijing? How do the US and its allies, such as Australia, now hope to challenge Beijing in the region?
The 1959 Australian report is interesting because it came in the wake of the Korean War and before the Vietnam War, from a Western ally in the Asian region concerned about Chinese expansion. More than sixty years later the arguments still hold. The JIC report predicted China’s militarizing both the Paracel and Spratly islands. Australia’s suggestion that either the U.K. or the U.S. take control of the islands was ignored in London and Washington.
China’s control of the South China Sea complements its advances into the Indian Ocean region via the ports it has built—the ‘string of pearls’ of ports in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan through to Djibouti where, in 2017, it opened its first fully-operational overseas military base. In terms of challenges from the US and its allies, they are anchored by a group known as the Quad—Australia, India, Japan and the U.S. There are also efforts to create a broader coalition of what are referred to as ‘like-minded’ governments keen to uphold the current rules-based order.
These include countries like Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. These groupings need to be kept loose because of the regional mantra that governments do not want to be forced to choose between the U.S. and China. What is notable, however, is that Asia itself has failed to build its front to balance China’s power. It still relies on the U.S.
You highlight in Asian Waters the intense competition now underway between China and the US in Southeast Asia, both economically, diplomatically, and of course militarily.
How is Southeast Asia responding to increasing competition between the United States and China? Is Southeast Asia destined to be caught between Beijing and Washington in a battle for hearts and minds? Where does China have the greatest influence e.g. Cambodia, Thailand?
The great test of statesmanship over the next decade will be whether the U.S. and China forge common ground and avoid the polarization of Southeast Asia as happened during the Cold War. That would be a lose-lose scenario. We need to remember that although we talk of the Cold War, it was very hot in many parts of Asia, particularly Vietnam and on the Korean peninsula.
People of the region don’t want to be sucked into this type of conflict again. Cambodia and Laos are regarded by analysts as little more than Chinese colonies. Thailand is more and more under Beijing’s influence. Every government is deciding how best to handle its relationship with China.
As you highlight in the book, Rodrigo Duterte has taken the Philippines down a very different path and has pivoted heavily towards Beijing diplomatically. The Philippines, however, remains a key US ally. Has Duterte’s tilt towards China been successful in terms of Beijing’s growing influence?
Even though the Philippines’ nationalist strain hammers Washington from time to time, American ties with the Philippines are long and deep. The two governments maintain a defence treaty dating back to 1951 requiring the U.S. to support the Philippines should it be attacked by a foreign power. Whatever the pro-China rhetoric from Duterte, the Philippines would be unlikely to scrap the treaty, given the way Beijing continues to harass and claim its territory.
Whoever succeeds Duterte and whatever their view of China and the U.S. they will need to balance the country’s security and economic needs and ask how far the Philippines wants to go towards becoming a Chinese vassal state.
The chapter on Vietnam provides a fascinating look at the country’s history and its relations with China. In a military history museum you visit in Vietnam, there are exhibits and artifacts on Hanoi’s struggle against France and the United States, but few if any on the country’s recent clashes with China, in Cambodia, along the border in 1979 and more recently in the South China Sea.
How important is China to Vietnam in terms of trade and wider relations? How is Vietnam trying to manage China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea?
China is critical to Vietnam’s trade and more. Despite continuing tension over the South China Sea, neither Vietnam nor China is going anywhere. They share a border. They are both authoritarian one-party states. They need to forge a working relationship. They have a broad agreement—an “active comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation”—and a high level of trade. Having said that, Vietnam has a track record of giving a bloody nose to countries more powerful than itself such as France, the U.S., and China with which it fought a border war in 1979. It is challenging Beijing head-on in South China Sea skirmishes.
Technically, Vietnam does stand alone. But it has the support of the Philippines and, increasingly, Western governments such as Britain, France and the U.S. and regionally Japan and India. Vietnam stands on the front line of this ‘like-minded’ group of governments. It encourages fishing crews to venture into disputed waters, particularly around the Paracel Islands. It comes at a cost, though; many fishing boats have been rammed and their crews were beaten up.
You highlight in the book India and its Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). You focus on the history of this party and its recent conduct in government since 2014.
How worried are you by India’s turn towards Hindu nationalism after the 2019 general election? Are we seeing India under the BJP shift towards a more assertive, Hindu identity-based politics?
Narendra Modi is a populist leader who won in a landslide by appealing to the divisive instincts of his ethnic base. This is dangerous for India because of its weak institutions and its embedded corruption and poverty. According to the United Nations, India has more people living in slavery than any other country. In geopolitical terms, India will remain largely ineffective until it tackles these problems.
The U.S. knows it cannot rely on India as it does, say, Japan, while China sees India not as a serious military or economic competitor but as a regional power that needs to be a skillfully managed. This situation was in place long before Modi came to power. The opposition Congress failed to face up to the challenges that keep India weak. That India’s long-term military partner is Russia, and the Soviet Union before that complicates any formal alliance with Western democracies.
In 1999 US President Bill Clinton famously called the India-Pakistan border the most dangerous place on earth, given the tensions between Islamabad and New Delhi and the prospect of conflict between these two nuclear-armed powers.
How concerned are you over tensions between India and Pakistan, over terrorism in Kashmir and nuclear arms? Is the situation in South Asia comparable to the Cold War or some ways worse? How important was the role AQ Khan played in developing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal?
While India-Pakistan tension will continue for the foreseeable future, the dystopian nuclear scenarios of a decade or so ago have abated, ironically because of China’s increased influence. Beijing now has a massive economic and political investment in Pakistan and it would be against its interest to encourage or even allow a flare-up between the two countries. The low-level Pakistani response to India’s removal of Kashmir’s autonomous status in October 2019 may be an indication of this.
A Q Khan was pivotal in developing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability and made Pakistan the world’s biggest proliferator of nuclear weapons technology. This, and Pakistan’s track record of sponsoring and exporting terror, means that both Washington and Beijing have to be vigilant in their relationship with Islamabad while also being the two global powers than can keep Pakistan in check.
Asian Waters doesn’t just cover the role of China in the South China Sea, but also in the Indian Ocean Region where competition is now underway between India and China for influence in states like Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Mauritius.
How important is the Indian Ocean to India’s sense of security for itself? How much influence does China have in South Asian states such as Sri Lanka? What role is the Belt and Road Initiative playing in the Indian Ocean? Is the Indian Ocean now an arena for Sino-Indian rivalry?
The Indian Ocean is evidence that Delhi is almost incapable of projecting power. It has allowed China to build ports and airports in Sri Lanka: other global players would call this sort of territory their back yard – the U.S. in the Caribbean and Latin America; China in the South China Sea and Russia in its Bastion of Defense into the North Atlantic. India has no such projection. Therefore Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nepal and even tiny Bhutan are slipping away from it. The Belt and Road Initiative has become very much part of building infrastructure in South Asia. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor from the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar to Xinjiang with an initial investment of $50 billion is the biggest of these projects.
India-Japan cooperation has been strengthened in recent years because of Chinese expansion. But like the smaller Asian countries, both Japan and India know that if Asia’s rise is to continue they have to find some form of accommodation with Beijing. The unpredictability of the Trump administration creating uncertainty about long-term U.S. support has given momentum to Sino-Japanese-Indian rapprochement. Having said that, developments in the past month, with confrontation in the South China Sea and the East China Sea and military tension on the disputed Sino-Indian border shows, that the concept of a unified, peaceful Asia is still a long way away.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Humphrey Hawksley is a BBC foreign correspondent who in a long career has reported from the Asia Pacific numerous times. His journalism led him to cover the Sri Lankan Civil War and the Tamil Tigers and in1994 he opened the BBC’s television bureau in China. He has reported extensively from conflict zones including Iraq and Timor Leste and in 1999 he was arrested in Serbia during the Kosovo War. His book Asian Waters has now been republished as a second edition and can be found here.