Oceans of influence key to China’s long Pacific game

Australia’s new Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, made Australia’s pitch to the leaders of the Pacific Islands nations last week.

This was published 4 months ago

OPINION

May 31, 2022 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/oceans-of-influence-key-to-china-s-long-pacific-game-20220530-p5apip.html

Australia’s new Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, made Australia’s pitch to the leaders of the Pacific Islands nations last week. On Monday, China’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Wang Yi, made his. He sat down in Fiji with ministers from 10 Pacific island countries to invite them to join Beijing’s sphere of influence.

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, both toured the Pacific.

He has met with initial resistance. But this is only the beginning of the beginning. Whatever happens this week, “China will keep pressing its interests harder than ever,” Penny Wong tells me.

“We can expect more of what we have seen. Australia has our work cut out. We want to bring new energy and more resources to the Pacific and the new government wants to make a uniquely Australian contribution.”

She found that the region’s leaders welcomed the new government’s more active climate change policy and its more enthusiastic interest.

Australia has no time to waste and Wong wasted none. She arrived in Suva to begin her Pacific visit on day four of the life of the new government. It helps to turn up. In the last three years her predecessor, Marise Payne, had made just two trips to the Pacific, visiting just three nations.

As the head of the National Security College at ANU, Rory Medcalf, put it on Monday, “the fight is on in earnest.” Not that the fight wasn’t already on under the Morrison government, he adds, but “now we have more of a chance”.

“The Morrison government was making a national security effort but the missing link was the trust base,” says Medcalf.

“There’s no guarantee of success, but there’s a better chance of holding the line. By being more consistent and respectful in our own messaging we will have a better chance of persuading Pacific partners that harmful elements of China’s policy are to be resisted.”

The fight for what exactly? The Pacific island nations sometimes call themselves collectively the Blue Continent. Because rather than being conceived as a scattering of small islands, they want the world to see them as the masters of an enormous oceanic territory spanning over 30 million square kilometres. Which is equivalent to about a fifth of the earth’s total land area.

Beijing sees this as a fight for three-fold advantage, according to Medcalf. First is “the enormous, semi-tapped resource resources, fish stocks and seabed resources and minerals” controlled by the Pacific islands nations as the owners of their far-flung exclusive economic zones.

China’s government “will try to turn all these governments to allow China privileged access to the Pacific’s massive resource zone, there’s a pretty ugly logic to that”.

Second is the fight for geopolitical advantage. In the last three years, China has persuaded two more Pacific nations to turn away from Taiwan and give diplomatic recognition to Beijing instead.

The Solomons and Kiribati became the ninth and tenth of the 14 Pacific island nations to recognise Beijing. Only four retain ties with Taiwan. Beijing hopes to continue to “strangle Taiwan’s diplomatic presence” in the region, in Medcalf’s words. And recognition is precursor to the next fight.

Third is strategic. By establishing persistent military access to the Pacific islands nations that sit amid vital shipping lanes, China would acquire the ability to put its boot on Australia’s trade and military lifelines to the US and Asia.

This was the Japanese Imperial Army’s aim in World War II, and it’s the aim of the People’s Liberation Army today – in exactly the same zones of Pacific geography.

“Yes, it’s partly about knocking Australia out in any future confrontation or conflict, but it’s also very bad for Taiwan, it’s very bad for Japan, and it’s very bad for the US if China can dominate the sea lanes,” says Medcalf. “Because it restricts our trade with the US and Japan at any time and blocks it in the event of conflict.

“Australia’s position is crucial. China is going to want guaranteed access to all these oceans – the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean. Australia’s maritime footprint is an obstacle to all that.”

Professor Rory Medcalf: “China is going to want guaranteed access to all these oceans – the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean. Australia’s maritime footprint is an obstacle to all that.”CREDIT:ROHAN THOMSON

It takes only a glance at the globe to show that Australia sits at the confluence of these three great oceans, together occupying a third of the planet, perhaps more. So long as Australia is a US ally, it can complicate China’s access to all three. If Australia can be rendered neutral, it could complicate US access to all three.

Medcalf says: “For China the most tempting part of the Pacific play is to set up a series of military access points [in the Pacific] where it can tie up the US in a conflict and neutralise Australia.”

Of course, Wang Yi did not present China’s interests in this way on Monday when he sat down with the Pacific leaders. He offered them help. In the form of a “Common Development Vision” agreement with a five-year action plan attached.

The draft, published by Reuters news agency last week, showed Beijing proposing a wide agenda for cooperation. It covers the fields of health and the pandemic, law enforcement and forensics, training for police forces, data networks and cybersecurity, a free trade area, support on climate change and development, and an offer to “strengthen exchanges and co-operation in the fields of traditional and non-traditional security”.

The president of the Federated States of Micronesia, David Panuelo, urged his colleagues to reject the agreement because it would move any signatory “very close into Beijing’s orbit, intrinsically tying the whole of our economies and societies to them”.

Evidently, some of the others agreed with him.

Australia currently gives more aid money, but Beijing’s development aid is much more conspicuous, building parliaments and sports stadiums, roads and ports in the time it takes Australia to conduct reviews and let tenders.

But no officials openly touched on Beijing’s real trump in this game – its ability to offer large bribes to Pacific politicians. Australia can’t compete on this. So, Penny Wong offers what Beijing can’t.

While she is adding half a billion in extra aid over four years, her “uniquely Australian” contribution will include more emphasis on shared connections with rugby and churches, work visas and immigration opportunities. And she’s promised to consult respectfully as she goes. It’s a beginning.

Peter Hartcher is political editor and international editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/oceans-of-influence-key-to-china-s-long-pacific-game-20220530-p5apip.html

Tiananmen masses axed as crackdown memorials erased in Hong Kong

 HONG KONG: For the first time in 33 years, church services to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown will not be held in Hong Kong, erasing one of the last reminders of China's bloody suppression of the 1989 protests.

By AFP - May 30, 2022 @ 5:17pm

https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2022/05/800776/tiananmen-masses-axed-crackdown-memorials-erased-hong-kong

A woman holding candles in the Causeway Bay district of Hong Kong after police closed the venue where Hong Kong people traditionally gather annually to mourn the victims of China's Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 which the authorities have banned and vowed to stamp out any protests on the anniversary. - AFP file pic

Since Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020 to snuff out pro-democracy demonstrations, once-packed candlelit vigils have been banned, a Tiananmen museum has been forced to close, and statues have been pulled down.

The annual Catholic masses were one of the last ways for Hong Kongers to come together publicly to remember the deadly clampdown in Beijing on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese government set tanks and troops on peaceful demonstrators.

But this year, they too have been cancelled over fears of falling foul of Hong Kong authorities.

"We find it very difficult under the current social atmosphere," said Reverend Martin Ip, chaplain of the Hong Kong Federation of Catholic Students -- one of the organisers.

"Our bottom line is that we don't want to breach any law in Hong Kong," he told AFP.

The Diocese, whose Justice and Peace Commission was a co-organiser, said its frontline colleagues were concerned they might violate Hong Kong law.

Discussion of the 1989 crackdown is all but forbidden in mainland China.

But in semi-autonomous Hong Kong, its history was often taught in schools and advocacy for ending the rule of the Chinese Communist Party was alive and kicking -- until the imposition of the security law.

In the space of months, decades of commemoration have been wiped out as authorities wield the law to refashion Hong Kong in Beijing's authoritarian image.

The Hong Kong Alliance, the most prominent Tiananmen advocacy group and the candlelight vigil organiser, was prosecuted as a "foreign agent" over incitement to subversion.

Last September, its leaders were arrested, their June 4 Museum was shuttered after a police raid, and digital records of the crackdown were deleted overnight under a police order to close the group's website and social media accounts.

For others, much like the organisers of the masses, uncertainty over where the new red lines fall has been enough to make them pull back.

Six universities removed June 4 monuments that had stood on their campuses for years -- just before Christmas last year, three were whisked away within 48 hours.

The "Pillar of Shame" in the University of Hong Kong (HKU), an eight-metre-high sculpture by Danish artist Jens Galschiot, was dismantled, tucked into a cargo container and left on an HKU-owned plot of rural land.

At Lingnan University, a wall relief by artist Chen Weiming was banished to an underground storage room.

His "Goddess of Democracy" statue at the Chinese University of Hong Kong was sent to a secretive "safe place".

"They are trying to wipe out a shameful episode in history when the state committed a crime on its people," Chen told AFP.

The universities said they had never consented to the statues' presence, and that their removal was based on an assessment of legal risk.

Where the Goddess used to stand, only a faint mark from her square pedestal can now be seen.

The Pillar has been replaced by a new sitting-out area with pebble-shaped chairs and potted flowers.

"This is the meaning... after a few years nobody knows what happened there," the sculptor Galschiot told AFP.

He has been trying to take the Pillar back to Europe, but such is the sensitivity around it that the university refused to lend him its crew, and logistics companies dare not get involved.

They say "it's too complicated and it's too dangerous", Galschiot said.

The drive to remove all trace of Tiananmen is ongoing -- earlier this year, HKU covered a painted June 4 slogan on campus with cement and called it "regular maintenance".

In the city's public libraries, 57 Tiananmen books are restricted from general borrowers -- nearly double the amount since local news outlet Hong Kong Free Press counted last November.

Instead, the space for remembering the crackdown now lies

outside Hong Kong, with exiled dissidents setting up their own museums in the United States and activists planning to resurrect the Pillar of Shame in Taiwan.

On June 4, vigils will be held globally, with rights group Amnesty International coordinating candlelit ones in 20 cities "to demand justice and show solidarity for Hong Kong".

Tiananmen survivor Zhou Fengsuo, who lives in the United States, told AFP that in recent years he has seen more people joining such events in the West, including recently emigrated young Hong Kongers.

"I am grateful that Hong Kong for the last 30 or so years has carried the torch of commemorating Tiananmen," Zhou said.

"Now it's our job to do it outside of Hong Kong." -- AFP

https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2022/05/800776/tiananmen-masses-axed-crackdown-memorials-erased-hong-kong

Others:

https://arisechina.blogspot.com/2022/08/tiananmen-massacre-erased-from-hong.html

https://arisechina.blogspot.com/2021/12/renowned-tiananmen-massacre-monument.html

https://arisechina.blogspot.com/2022/08/beijing-keeps-trying-to-rewrite-history.html

UN human rights chief asks China to rethink Uyghur policies

BEIJING (AP) — The top U.N. human rights official said Saturday that she raised concerns with Chinese officials about the impact of the broad application of counterterrorism and deradicalization measures on the rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang region.

28 May 2022

By KEN MORITSUGU

In this image made from online video, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet speaks during an online press conference in Guangzhou in southern China's Guangdong Province, Saturday, May 28, 2022. Bachelet is on a six-day visit to China that includes Xinjiang, a region where the Chinese government has been accused of human rights violations. (United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights via AP)

Michelle Bachelet, who visited the northwestern region as part of a six-day trip to China, said the visit was not an investigation but a chance to have direct talks with senior Chinese leaders and pave the way for more regular interactions to support China in fulfilling its obligations under international human rights law.

“It provides an opportunity for me to better understand the situation in China, but also for the authorities in China to better understand our concerns and to potentially rethink policies that we believe may impact negatively on human rights,” she said in a video news conference before leaving the country.

Bachelet’s measured words, while expected, did not satisfy activists and likely will not sit well with governments such as the United States, which have been critical of her decision to visit Xinjiang. China’s ruling Communist Party, which has vehemently denied all reports of human rights violations and genocide in Xinjiang, showed no sign of being open to change in a government statement on the trip.

The statement, attributed to Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, accused some Western countries and anti-China elements of fabricating sensational lies about Xinjiang under the guise of human rights. It said that the government had adopted lawful measures to combat violent terrorism and brought security, stability and prosperity to the region in China’s northwest.

“The Chinese side pointed out that essentially, Xinjiang is not at all a human rights issue, but a major issue concerning upholding national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” the statement said. “All ethnic groups of Xinjiang belong to the family of the Chinese nation.”

Agnes Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said that Bachelet should condemn human rights violations in Xinjiang, and call on China to release people arbitrarily detained and end systematic attacks on ethnic minorities in the region.

“The high commissioner’s visit has been characterized by photo opportunities with senior government officials and manipulation of her statements by Chinese state media, leaving an impression that she has walked straight into a highly predictable propaganda exercise for the Chinese government,” Callamard said in a news release.

Bachelet, making the first visit by a U.N. high commissioner for human rights to China in 17 years, said she raised the lack of independent judicial oversight for a system of internment camps that swept up a million or more Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, according to estimates by experts.

China, which describes the camps as vocational training and education centers to combat extremism, says they have been closed. The government has never publicly said how many people passed through them.

Bachelet, who visited a prison and a former center in the Xinjiang city of Kashgar, noted the reliance by police on 15 indicators to determine “tendencies towards violent extremism” that could result in detention, the allegations of use of force and reports of unduly severe restrictions on religious practices.

“It is critical that counterterrorism responses do not result in human rights violations,” she said. “The application of relevant laws and policies, and any mandatory measures imposed on individuals, need to be subject to independent judicial oversight, with greater transparency of judicial proceedings. All victims must be able to seek redress.”

Bachelet described as “deeply worrying” the arrest of lawyers, activists, journalists and others under Hong Kong’s national security law, noting the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s reputation as a center for human rights and independent media in Asia.

She said it is important to protect the linguistic, religious and cultural identity of Tibetans and that they be allowed to participate fully and freely in decisions about their religious life. “I ... stressed the importance of children learning in their language and culture in the setting of their families or communities,” she said.

Before her trip, Bachelet heard from Uyghur families living abroad that have lost contact with their relatives. In her meetings in China, she said she appealed to authorities to make it a priority to take steps to provide information to families.

“To those who have sent me appeals asking me to raise issues or cases with the authorities, I have heard you,” she said. “Your advocacy matters and my visit was an opportunity to raise a number of specific situations and issues of concern with the government.”

The U.N. and China agreed to set up a working group to hold follow-up discussions on a range of issues, including the rights of minorities, counterterrorism and human rights, and legal protection, Bachelet said.

https://apnews.com/article/china-united-nations-terrorism-counterterrorism-michelle-bachelet-3203405d3420f6bea8c9e9fa2fa1a7fb

Chinese leader Xi defends record to UN human rights chief

By KEN MORITSUGUMay 25, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping defended his country's record to the top U.N. human rights official on Wednesday, saying each nation should be allowed to find its own path.

Xi, who heads the ruling Communist Party that allows no political opposition and strictly limits speech, criticized countries that he said lecture others on human rights and politicize the issue.

China’s Pacific plan seen as regional strategic game-changer

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — When China signed a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April it raised concerns from the U.S. and its allies that Beijing may be seeking a military outpost in the South Pacific, an area of traditional American naval dominance.

28 May 2022

By DAVID RISING and NICK PERRY

But China upped the ante further this week, reaching out to the Solomon Islands and nine other island nations with a sweeping security proposal that, even if only partially realized, could give it a presence in the Pacific much nearer Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and on the doorstep of the strategic American territory of Guam.

China insists its proposals are targeted at regional stability and economic growth, but experts and governments fear that beneath the surface, it is a brazen attempt to expand its influence in a strategically critical area.

David Panuelo, the president of Micronesia, one of the nations targeted by China, warned the others against signing on, saying it “threatens to bring a new Cold War at best, and a world war at worst.”

“Aside from the impacts on our sovereignty ... it increases the chances of China getting into conflict with Australia, Japan, the United States and New Zealand on the day when Beijing decides to invade Taiwan,” Panuelo warned in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, noting China has not ruled out using force to take the self-governing island, which it claims as its own territory.

A draft of the proposal obtained by The Associated Press shows that China wants to train Pacific police officers, team up on “traditional and non-traditional security” and expand law enforcement cooperation.

China also wants to jointly develop a marine plan for fisheries, and raises the possibility of a free trade area with the Pacific nations.

It targets Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Niue and Micronesia — and pointedly leaves out the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau and Tuvalu, all of which recognize Taiwan as a country.

Like many other nations, the U.S. has a “one China” policy, which does not recognize Taiwan, but also opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo.

The islands dot a vast area of ocean between the continental United States and Asia, and were a center of the Pacific Theater fighting during World War II following the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

After the U.S. fleet decisively beat Imperial Japan’s navy at the Battle of Midway in 1942, it embarked upon a campaign to take them back from Japan, starting with the invasion of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands and including fierce battles for the Tarawa atoll, now part of Kiribati, Peleliu, which is one of the Palau islands, and Guam.

Though the nearest is thousands of kilometers (miles) from Taiwan, they are nonetheless strategically important to China, should it invade the island.

From a military perspective, a Chinese presence on some of the Pacific islands would mean a better ability to delay U.S. naval assets and disrupt supply lines in case of a conflict, said Euan Graham, a senior fellow with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

“You only have to look at a map to deduce the basic logic of what China is up to,” he said.

“This is prime real estate. Most of it is water, but if you connect up those islands, archipelagos, that’s an island chain that runs between Australia and the United States, between Australia and Japan.”

China dispatched its top diplomat, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, this week to visit seven of the island nations and hold virtual talks with the other three in the hope they will endorse the agreement on May 30 at a meeting in Fiji.

The diplomatic blitz comes just after regional powerhouse Australia ushered in a new government, and Beijing may have decided to act now to try to catch new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese off guard, Graham said.

“This follows a period of shadowboxing between Australia and the United States and China for the last few years, in which there were clear suspicions that China was indirectly trying to make inroads through dual-use and infrastructure investment deals, but not doing so in an overt government-to-government way,” he said.

“Now this is China in the most visible, high-level way literally on a door-knocking tour of the region to try and lock in whatever gains it can.”

Albanese, however, was sworn into office in record time so he could take part in meetings with U.S. President Joe Biden and the leaders of India and Japan in Tokyo, and swiftly dispatched Foreign Minister Penny Wong to Fiji in her first week on the job.

“We need to respond to this because this is China seeking to increase its influence in the region of the world where Australia has been the security partner of choice since the Second World War,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Albanese said that “Australia dropped the ball” in its relations with the islands, largely over outgoing Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s stance climate change, and pledged to reengage with them. Many of the low-lying Pacific islands consider climate change their most pressing and existential threat, while Morrison continued to be a big supporter of Australia’s coal industry.

“We need to be offering more support and, otherwise, we can see the consequences with the deal that was done with the Solomons,” he said. “We know that China sees that as the first of many.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin defended his country’s proposal this week, saying it “is based on the principle of mutual benefit, win-win cooperation, openness and inclusiveness.”

“Our relations are not exclusive or posing a threat to any third party, and should not be interfered with by third parties,” he said.

Wang started his tour Thursday in the Solomon Islands, where a news conference was restricted to selected media and only one question was permitted of him, from China’s state-owned CCTV broadcaster.

On Friday he was in Kiribati, where the government announced in November it plans to end a commercial fishing ban in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Already, there are fears that China’s proposal may give its massive commercial fishing fleet unfettered access to the fragile grounds, said Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at New Zealand’s Massey University.

There are also concerns that any kind of base for Chinese commercial fishing fleets in Kiribati could also be used as an additional hub for Beijing’s surveillance activities, she said.

The Solomon Islands and Kiribati both shifted their allegiances from Taiwan to mainland China in 2019, and are seen as among the most amenable to China’s proposal. Vanuatu is also seen as likely in that camp, having just signed a contract with China for a runway extension at its Pekoa airport.

But Powles said Panuelo’s letter echoed strong overall concerns about the Chinese proposal, and that there are “significant areas of concern” about many areas, including the increased engagement in fisheries and the security cooperation agreements.

“It will only change things if countries agree to adopt this communique, and it doesn’t sound like people are particularly happy about it,” she said.

Graham said he did not think any country would see the Chinese proposal as a need to choose either Beijing or the West, but that even if a few countries signed on it could have significant effects.

“If they could get the Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Vanuatu, that right there is some pretty important real estate,” he said. “From a purely geostrategic point of view that would change the odds, that would dramatically alter Australia’s future defense planning.”

In his letter, Panuelo stressed to the others that Micronesia would reject the proposal.

“Geopolitics like these are the kind of game where the only winning move is not to play,” he said.

___

Rising reported from Bangkok.

https://apnews.com/article/china-new-zealand-australia-beijing-57693d7d7efc52401d042d5691de2e10

OTHERS:

China wants 10 Pacific nations to endorse sweeping agreement

By NICK PERRYMay 26, 2022

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — China wants 10 small Pacific nations to endorse a sweeping agreement covering everything from security to fisheries in what one leader warns is a “game-changing” bid by Beijing to wrest control of the region.

EXPLAINER: What’s at stake for China on South Pacific visit?

May 26, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting the South Pacific with a 20-person delegation this week in a display of Beijing's growing military and diplomatic presence in the region.

China’s foreign minister starts Pacific tour in the Solomons

By NICK PERRYMay 26, 2022

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a 20-strong delegation arrived in the Solomon Islands Thursday at the start of an eight-nation tour that comes amid growing concerns about Beijing’s military and financial ambitions in the South Pacific region.

China’s FM visits Kiribati, where fishing ground is at stake

By NICK PERRYMay 27, 2022

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — China's foreign minister on Friday arrived on the remote Pacific nation of Kiribati, where the future of a vast fishing ground is at stake.

The planned four-hour visit by Wang Yi was his second stop on an eight-nation tour that comes amid growing concerns about Beijing’s military and financial ambitions in the South Pacific region.

China’s foreign minister visits Samoa to deepen Pacific ties

May 28, 2022

BEIJING (AP) — China's foreign minister met with the leaders of Samoa on Saturday on the third stop of an island-hopping tour aimed at deepening China's ties with Pacific nations.

The two sides signed an economic and technical cooperation agreement, a handover certificate for an arts and culture center and the Samoa–China Friendship Park, and an exchange of letters for a fingerprint laboratory for the police, a Samoan government news release said.

Biden’s IPEF a signal to China it wants better ‘balance of power’ in region

From Singapore to Malaysia and Philippines, Asean’s interest in Biden’s IPEF a signal to China it wants better ‘balance of power’ in region

• After Trump withdrew the US from the TPP, Washington’s economic disengagement from the region had enabled China to ‘grow its economic footprint in Asia unhindered’

• The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is being viewed by the region as a chance for the US to ‘regain a foothold in the region’, both economically and politically

Maria Siow

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Published: 5:00pm, 27 May, 2022

US President Joe Biden, India’s PM Narendra Modi and Japan’s PM Fumio Kishida at the IPEF
launch event in Tokyo.   Photo: Reuters

The move by seven Asean states to sign up for Washington’s new trade pact, even as few details about the deal are known, is not only a signal of support for US re-engagement with the region but a bid to better ensure the balance of power in the neighbourhood, analysts say.

Last week, US President Joe Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), a pact that covers supply chains, digital trade, clean energy and anti-corruption efforts.

Twelve economies in the Asia-Pacific signed up at its launch, with the participating countries saying in a joint statement that the IPEF would help prepare them for the future following disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Of Asean’s 10 members, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam came on board. The others who joined were Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, with all participating economies accounting for 40 per cent of the world’s GDP, according to the White House.

Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, said many Association of Southeast Asian Nations members had signed on even though the proposed deal was “less than what they might have hoped for”.

“(They) are clearly keen to support the effort by the US to re-engage with the region after the disastrous episode with the Trump administration,” Menon said, referring to former US president Donald Trump’s decision to exit the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in 2017.

Tan See Seng, research adviser at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), said the US’ withdrawal from the TPP was “an educational moment for the Asian region”.

Noting that American ambivalence towards the pact was bipartisan, Tan said Washington’s economic disengagement from the region had enabled China to “grow its economic footprint in Asia unhindered”.

“Against this backdrop, I think Asian countries see the IPEF as America’s attempt to regain a foothold in the region, not just economically, but more crucially, politically,” Tan said. “Participation in the IPEF is a signal to China that some Asian states much prefer a balance of power and influence in the Indo-Pacific region.”

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Wednesday described the IPEF as an attempt to disrupt regional cooperation and a tool of coercion.

Earlier in May, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accused the US of sowing division in the region, while on Monday he underlined China’s commitment to economic development in the Asia-Pacific region.

China’s nationalistic tabloid Global Times said on Tuesday that as the IPEF had not been approved by the US Congress, its political sustainability was in question since it was unclear “whether the Biden administration can be re-elected”.

Ngeow Chow Bing, director of the Institute of China Studies at the University of Malaya, said it was unsurprising that the seven Asean countries would “sign up first and talk later”, as there were “no significant harm, risks or costs” involved.

“Joining at this stage has almost zero costs, but not joining will risk them being seen by the US as being ‘in China’s pocket’ and will lose them other opportunities in the future,” Ngeow said, adding that since IPEF was about economic matters, Asean countries likely thought that China would not react too strongly.

Aaron Rabena, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said the seven Asean states were eager to capitalise on economic opportunities with the US wherever possible.

“These countries also want the US to be felt economically in the region as it seems to be the missing link in the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy,” Rabena said, referring to Washington’s strategy of building a free and open region, bolstering security and building resilience, with an eye on China as a threat.

 Asean holdouts

Apart from geopolitical reasons, the absence of the three remaining Asean members – Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – is due to these countries’ transitional economic status from central planning to free markets, Menon said.

These Asean members would find it difficult or costly to deal with some of the trade rules and standards involved, Menon said, adding that it also explained why they were not members of the CPTPP or other trade agreements with higher standards.

The successor to the TPP, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has 11 member countries and came into effect in 2018. It has high standards for investment, financial services, intellectual property, the environment and labour rights.

Deborah Elms, executive director of the Asian Trade Centre, said while Washington was not currently offering market access in the form of lower tariffs, this did not mean that there would be no market benefits available.

“Some members might benefit from expedited processing of goods at the border or from improved access to testing facilities and easier qualification for products,” Elms said, adding that these could be important for companies and might be included in the IPEF later on.

“It’s just not certain at the moment,” Elms said. She pointed out that the US may not have tried to attract Phnom Penh and Vientiane, as given their status as Least Developed Countries, they already had market access benefits into the US unlike other Asean members.

Protectionist sentiments in the US have prevented market access which is commonly found in trade deals or free-trade agreements.

Tan from RSIS said the Cambodian and Laos economies were so reliant on China that there was “no perceptible need for them to look to the US”, especially since the US had been highly critical of Cambodian leader Hun Sen’s crackdown on domestic opposition in his country.

Ngeow from the University of Malaya said the three least-developed Asean members were perceived by the US as “not sufficiently distant from China, and hence do not deserve to be ‘rewarded’ in a US-led initiative”.

Economic ties between China and Asean have grown rapidly over the years, with trade in goods ballooning from just US$9 billion in 1991, to US$685 billion in 2020. Last year, China’s direct investment in Asean reached US$14.4 billion.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3179436/singapore-malaysia-and-philippines-aseans-interest-bidens-ipef?