Western Pacific Islands Look North
New Solomon Islands PM is a Technocrat and China focused, US hegemony in the Western Pacific, US military presence in the Asia Pacific,
‘Technocrat’ Manele takes reins as Solomon Islands PM, China tilt remains
Still, Jeremiah Manele signalled he may take a more balanced approach to the East-West power struggle, recently saying it's “important to treat every and all of our partners as equals."
By Colin Clark
SYDNEY — The new prime minister of the Solomon Islands in the Pacific appears unlikely to make major changes to his country’s foreign policy, having pledged to keep the “Look North” policy of working closely with China.
The former prime minister, Manessah Sogavare, who flipped the Solomons Islands foreign orientation from Taiwan and Australia to the Peoples Republic of China and signed a still-secret security pact with the PRC, has been replaced with an experienced government official, Jeremiah Manele, who also served Sogavare as foreign minister for five years.
The new prime minister possesses “the kind of knowledge and experience that is rarely seen among political leaders in Solomon Islands. It’s the best possible outcome in that respect, in terms of having a technocrat in the job, but it’s still a political job — and it’s, it’s the toughest political job there is there,” Mihai Sora, an expert on the Pacific Islands at the Lowy Institute here, told Breaking Defense.
By all accounts the election in the Solomons was peaceful and without major flaws. Sogavare made no attempt to hold onto power, withdrawing from the contest for prime minister when it became clear his coalition had not done terribly well in the vote.
“While Sogavare retained his seat in parliament, his party’s relatively poor performance in the election was seen as a rebuke of his record on key domestic issues, including addressing poverty and unemployment and improving healthcare and infrastructure,” according to Parker Novak, an expert on the region at the DC-based Atlantic Council.
Novak wrote that while Manele is likely to continue the Solomon’s embrace of China, he said the “more amiable” new PM “may seek to lower the rhetorical temperature and foster more constructive relations with Western countries.”
Sora, however, said that much of the election was likely more a question of domestic politics: newly elected independent MPs hoping to curry favor by voting for the new leader in hopes of better jobs and increased cash flow for their constituencies.
The former foreign minister has never led a government, and Sora noted that “in some respects, despite Manele’s deep experience in government, he is an unknown quantity. This will be the first time that we see him in a position where he can be directly responsible for the decisions the government takes. We haven’t had signals in any particular direction from him at this very, very early stage. He hasn’t even selected his cabinet yet.”
The independents’ motivation for supporting Manele “would most likely have been backing a winner and getting a shot at being in government and getting access to the privileges and benefits that that brings. There’s a huge differential for politicians, when they’re in government or when they’re in opposition,” Sora said. “So having that power at your fingertips is a very powerful device, a very useful device to retain the coalition.” Tellingly, the new prime minister “has apparently done a very good job of delivering through that development fund for his constituency.”
While the broad strokes of the Solomon Islands’ foreign policy is unlikely to change, it could soften. The first hint that Manele may nudge his country toward a more balanced approach than Sogavare took came in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. He said it is to “important treat every and all of our partners as equals,” adding the distinction that “Australia, our closest neighbor, is equally important.”
Manele was a career diplomat and served in his country’s civil service at the highest levels before becoming a politician, so he understands the levers of government. But if there’s one politician to watch in the Solomons, it’s still Sogavare, who has served as prime minister for more than nine years over four terms since 2000.
“A question remains, though: What role will Sogavare play moving forward? The wily political survivor remains as a member of parliament and Manele will need to account for the four-time prime minister’s views and preferences,” Novak wrote. “Sogavare’s decision to bow out of the race on Tuesday may have been welcomed in Western capitals, but it is unlikely to be the last word from the Solomon Islands’ ‘master of mayhem.'”
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US hegemony in the Western Pacific
By Zuo Xiying
Recently, two renowned strategists sounded the alarm bell about the US strategy toward China. Retired US diplomat Chas W. Freeman, Jr. wrote in the East Asia Forum that "Washington is playing a losing game with China." He believes US policies toward China, including launching a trade war, trying to crippling China with an escalating campaign of "maximum pressure," and "seeking to contain it" militarily will prove self-defeating. Similarly, Australian strategist Hugh White opined that the US is in danger of losing the contest over military supremacy over China and can no longer expect a swift and cheap victory in a war with China in the Western Pacific.
For a long time, the US military goal in the Western Pacific has been to maintain dominance and primacy. Washington does not want the existence of any military competitor on par with it. In the Western Pacific, it has encountered four competitors - the UK, Japan, the former Soviet Union and China. In each period of time, the US military objective in the region had and has been to coordinate with Washington's overall strategy in the Asia-Pacific region. This is to make sure no one else can dominate the Western Pacific. In other words, Washington won't tolerate any other power to become the sole hegemonic element in Asia or the Pacific Ocean.
The competition between China and the US in the Western Pacific is about military strength. This ranges from quantity to quality, combat concepts, and the national strategy. China's military power is growing. Over the past decade, its air and navy forces, as well as missile capabilities, have seen a sharp rise. The development has brought great pressure to the US. It has never met a country that can pose such a huge challenge in both military strength and technology - anywhere, let alone in the Western Pacific.
China's military development has followed its own pace. But this fact of life cannot be ignored: China has been developing its military strength while facing threats from the US. Washington's moves range from rebalancing the Asia-Pacific region to the Indo-Pacific Strategy to provocations in the South China Sea. The latter involves increasing the so-called freedom of navigation operations and close-in reconnaissance activities. These have collectively forced China to increase corresponding military deployments. Washington may have sensed some "threats" from China, but the US seems to have exaggerated the "dangers." Meanwhile, Washington defense authorities are taking advantage of the "threats" to seek bigger budgets and enhance ties with their allies.
Strategists like Freeman and White are all sending warnings. In January, US scholar Michael Swaine, among others, wrote a report for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft entitled "Toward an Inclusive & Balanced Regional Order: A New U.S. Strategy in East Asia." The report stressed that the need for a more defensive, denial-based (not control- or primacy-based) US and allied force posture in the Western Pacific.
Behind the warnings and suggestions is this fact: The US deterrent in the Western Pacific is gradually weakening. This is also why some US congressmen pushed forward the Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Regardless of the Asia-Pacific Stability Initiative, the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, Indo-Pacific Deterrence Initiative, the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, or the most recent Strategic Competition Act, the problem they aim to solve is the declining deterrent of the US in the Asia-Pacific.
Currently, China is gaining more and more advantages over the US in the first island chain. Yet it is undeniable that the US still holds greater advantages in terms of military strength and its alliance system - in other words, dominance - in the Western Pacific, especially within the second island chain. There may be a tug-of-war of the balance of power between the two countries over the upcoming five to 10 years in the region. During this period, with the change of power on both sides, their understandings of the situation may also change. Worse, a minor issue could spark a severe conflict.
When the term "conflict" is raised, all eyes would be cast on the island of Taiwan. There has been much talk about a war between China and the US over Taiwan. But it is worth mentioning that the interests of China and the US over the Taiwan question are asymmetric. For China, Taiwan is a matter of sovereignty and core interests never to give up. But the importance of Taiwan to the US is much less.
The late Singaporean top leader Lee Kuan Yew once said in an interview in 2011 that the US could militarily intervene one time when the Chinese navy and air force is not strong enough. "But next time, next time, and next time. It never ends, because for China, Taiwan is a core issue. For America, it is a peripheral issue."
As White also wrote in his article, the US can only expect "a long and very costly war." Nuclear weapons could be the last option but "no president could afford to ignore the risk."
When the US is in a predicament of choices, its hegemony in the Western Pacific can hardly be sustained.
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NB: The author is a research fellow at the National Academy of Development and Strategy, Renmin University of China. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn
US military presence in the Asia Pacific
By APRN (repost from 2022)
The United States continues to be the world’s top military spender. It spent USD 877 billion in 2022, surpassing the military expenditures of the succeeding ten countries combined (SIPRI, 2022).
The billions of dollars are spent on producing war materiel, investing in military research and technology, and maintaining its military presence outside American soil.
Currently, the US military is present in more than 80 countries with 750 bases across the globe in the guise of global peace-keeping and security (Vine, 2021).
In the past decade, the US hegemony in Asia and in the world was challenged by the rise of China and Russia as formidable contending powers. The US is now exhausting everything in its arsenal to assert itself as the sole global superpower.
West Asia
Despite its withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, ending its 20-year occupation of the country, the US maintains its presence in West Asia through bases and military facilities in almost every country surrounding Iran as the US considers them as a threat and challenge to its hegemony in the subregion. Most of these are located and concentrated in the Gulf countries namely Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain. (Vine, 2021)
However, the US military foothold in these countries is meant primarily to advance and protect its interest in oil reserves and other resources (Chomsky, 2004). It sustains its political influence through its Global War on Terror which contradicts its own policies in connecting to the Muslim world (Maghraoui, 2006).
Northeast Asia
The US “Pivot to Asia” strategy is meant to counter China’s rapidly-growing influence in the region. Since 2011, it has buttered up its political and military allies in East Asia.
After World War II (WWII) and Japan’s defeat, the country entered a bilateral security treaty with the US in 1952. Five years later, Japan began to host US military forces and facilities across the country with a concentration on the island of Okinawa. Japan became instrumental in ensuring US presence in the subregion from thereon. In 2022, Japan spent a whopping USD 8 billion to support the US military stationed on its soil in the face of a “growing threat from China, the nuke-powered North Korea, and Russia”.
The same reason is used by the US to maintain its toehold in South Korea. After the civil war and the partition of the Korean peninsula, the Republic of Korea and the US signed its Mutual Defense Treaty. This year has seen the biggest Foal Eagle activities, the annual joint military exercise between the two countries, since its suspension in 2018. In the guise of fending off the “Communist North Korean threat”, the US effectively hinders Korea’s reunification.
The US is also strengthening its military ties with Taiwan. Although it no longer hosts US military bases and personnel since 1979, the Taiwanese government said that it will “cooperate more actively” with the US to combat China’s expansionist threat.
Pacific
Aiming to contain its rival superpowers and maintain its global hegemony, the US also ensured its presence in the Pacific. The RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific), a biennial naval warfare exercise—recorded as the largest in its history—can be considered the US’ “show of force” in the subregion.
The Marshall Islands have been used as a nuclear testing site by the US from 1946 to 1958 and have suffered loss and damages and are yet to be compensated. Moreover, the US controls a handful of its military facilities there.
The same goes for Guam which remains a US territory and military zone and is peppered with over 33 bases and 22 lily pads (Vine, 2021) with a new one opened just last January.
The recent and pending US-Pacific Island Fourm Partnership Act is a new step to strengthen and cement its control in the subregion.
Despite these, the US is still expanding its military-industrial complex in the subregion’s immediate vicinity.
The Philippines
Considered its oldest ally in the Southeast, the Philippines has been a historically strategic and indispensable country to the US since the late 1800s and even after WWII.
The oldest active military agreement between the two countries is its Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT). Enacted in 1951, the treaty enabled the US to implicate the Philippines in conflicts it considers a “common danger”.
From the ‘60s to the ‘80s, the presence of the US military bases was opposed by Filipinos which eventually led to its termination in 1992. But the US did not leave the Philippines.
In 2002, the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) was signed by the two countries which allowed the US military to store its equipment, supplies, and other arsenal in the Philippines.
On the other hand, the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) enacted in 2004 allowed US military forces to enter the country back and forth. This law has led to the annual Balikatan (literally “shoulder-to-shoulder” in Filipino) Exercises between the US and the Philippines.
Ten years later, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) agreement was signed. It was met with resistance as it practically reestablishes US bases in the country. The agreement ensures that the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) facilities in “agreed locations” can be used rent-free by the US military.
The current relations between the two governments are being boosted by the installation of a former dictator’s son as the new Philippine president.
Aside from being swiftly congratulated by the Biden administration, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has visited the US twice within the first year of his administration. Moreover, three top US officials have already paid State visits to the Philippine presidential palace. This is despite the contempt order issued by American courts for the Marcos family’s historic violation of human rights and plunder during its patriarch’s 21-year reign.
Under Marcos Jr’s rule, the biggest Balikatan was held with over 17,600 participating US and Philippine military troops. Additionally, four (4) more “agreed locations” under EDCA were approved.
On May 3, the US-PH Bilateral Defense Guidelines were signed by Marcos Jr as a grand gesture during his White House visit. With this reaffirmation to the MDT, the US can now meddle with the Philippine government’s defense budget, military investment, and other fiscal aspects relating to peace and security. Additionally, it expands the US’ political role in the Philippine military – all in the name of combating “transnational and “nonconventional threats”.
The US needs these developments, as the Philippines is one of its four “force postures”in the Indo-Pacific which includes Japan, Guam, and Australia (IBON Foundation, 2023).
By resurrecting the ghost of the Cold War-era ‘red scare’ and conflating it with China’s expansionist ideals, the US is igniting the possibility of a full-blown war while mouthing ‘peace’. It disregards the right to self-determination and the sovereignty of countries by offering its hand as an ally of justice and champion of democracy.
In fact, the US has a long history of supporting dictators worldwide and subverting democracy. These things considered, the real threat to peace, democracy, and people’s rights is no other than the US.
But while it continues to show its military might and support anti-democratic leaders and policies worldwide, the oppressed people of the world continue the struggle for freedom, liberation, and self-determination.#
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