Elephants and Grass: Reflections on #SLD19
Modi 2.0 takes shape; Kazakhstan votes; tanks for Taiwan
The Big One.
Who’s afraid of a little great power rivalry?
I’ve just returned from Singapore where I attended my third consecutive Shangri-La Dialogue, the premier Asian conference on defense and security issues hosted annually by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank. It’s been quite interesting tracking the change in mood from year to year since my inaugural participation in the dialogue in 2017 when delegates were primarily concerned with U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s burgeoning policies toward Asia and alliances in particular.
This year, the focus was—surprise—great power rivalry. More specifically, however, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong successfully set the tone for the weekend with his keynote address, which addressed how Asia’s small and medium-sized states might survive as the United States and China lock horns over trade and other issues. Lee evoked the frequently used analogy of grass being trampled when elephants fight. The Diplomat’s Prashanth Parameswaran offered his impressions from the dialogue here.
A few other reflections on Shangri-La, in no particular order:
China’s defense minister stole the show: General Wei Fenghe, China’s defense minister, put on a chilling performance in defense of the Chinese position on all matters, from the South China Sea to even providing a justification of the events of June 4, 1989, in response to a question. What made Wei compelling was not that what he said was convincing, but his demeanor: Wei projected confidence and relished in fielding the questions posed by the audience of delegates at the Dialogue, which is generally not a group particularly known for its sympathy to Beijing’s positions.
The U.S. acting secretary of defense fell flat: Patrick Shanahan, the U.S. acting secretary of defense, got the usual Saturday morning plenary slot that went to his predecessors, including Jim Mattis, but his performance failed to impress. That’s not just my view, but the opinion of multiple delegates I spoke to on the sidelines. Shanahan’s speech was wide-ranging in its focus, without putting forth any original ideas. The expectation this year that we’d learn what exactly the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy was went mostly unaddressed by Shanahan, who delivered a conventional speech following in the vein of speeches that Mattis and even Obama’s last defense secretary, Ash Carter, delivered at Shangri-La. Shanahan drew a sharp contrast to Wei in demeanor, appearing hesitant to field more questions from the crowd than he absolutely had to.
South Pacific makes a splash: For the first time, the South Pacific received a particularly prominent place at this year’s dialogue. This is a recognition of its growing salience as an area for strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific.
Korean Peninsula on the backfoot: Of lower prominence this year was the Korean Peninsula. While there was a plenary session devoted to the issue, outside of that, there was little focus. One exception would be the issue of the enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions with regard to illicit ship-to-ship transfers. For Western states and Japan, the issue was emphasized as an important component of enforcing the rules-based order in Asia. Implicit to this was the attractiveness of UNSCR enforcement as a rules-based order issue in Asia that had little directly to do with China (apart from the enforcement of ship-to-ship transfers in China’s territorial waters).
Southeast Asian skepticism of great power clashes. Throughout the conference, Southeast Asian participants expressed skepticism and concern about great power conflict and even the very concept of the Indo-Pacific, seeing it as odds with the notion of ASEAN centrality. PM Lee certainly provided one perspective, but the defense ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines all riffed on the same theme. On the sidelines, an Indonesian official reflected to me that the Shanahan-Wei tick-tock over the conference made him feel like “outsiders were debating in my living room.” For Southeast Asia, a return to the pre-2017 normalcy between the U.S. and China is the preference. The perception appears to be that the outcome of U.S.-China competition will not be to their advantage.
For more reflections on Shangri-La, I’d encourage you to listen to my recent podcast with my colleague Prashanth Parameswaran, who was also at the dialogue.
Bottom Line: As great power competition intensifies, Asia’s smaller powers grow anxious and work to secure their interests.
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South Asia.
On May 30, Narendra Modi was sworn in for a second term as India’s prime minister after his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) absolutely dominated India’s general elections, shattering the conservative predictions of most analysts. I got it wrong too—in a recent issue of this newsletter, I’d said the BJP would win, but likely need to form a coalition. Not only was that assessment off the mark, but the BJP actually upped its seat count from 282 after the 2014 general elections to 303. India still remains without a single convincing opposition party; the Indian National Congress gained 8 seats over its 44 in 2014, but this came at the expense of regional parties, many of whom yielded seats to the BJP. The BJP’s showing in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, was staggering: The party gained more seats there alone than the Congress did across India.
Several of our South Asia contributors at The Diplomat have addressed various components of what a Modi 2.0 government means for India, its region, and the world.
Vishal Arora looks at the role of the Indian media in paving Modi’s path to victory. Harsh Pant reflects on the agenda ahead for Modi, domestically and in terms of foreign policy:
In his first term, Modi had succeeded in articulating a global role for India as a leading player in the international system, one which shapes global rules and is not merely a rule-taker. In his second term, he should be focusing more on how to operationalize this idea into concrete policy outcomes. This will involve building an institutional framework which can engage in long-term strategic thinking more effectively than in the past as well as strengthening the economic and military building blocks of India’s comprehensive national power.
Krzysztof Iwanek writes on the Modi administration’s most unorthodox cabinet appointment: S. Jaishankar, a former diplomat and bureaucrat, has been raised to the rank of cabinet minister and appointed India’s external affairs minister. Iwanek praises the appointment, underscoring Jaishankar’s resume as the perfect one for this day and age of great power contest. Iwanek also offers three lessons from Modi’s victory on india.
Bottom Line: Modi’s second term begins with a spate of important appointments and a serious set of foreign policy challenges ahead.
Central Asia.
Kazakhstan is days away from an election that’ll be anything but free and fair. That’s not unusual. What is unusual is the omission of a name from the ballot this time: Nursultan Nazarbayev is not running for the presidency. The Kazakh leader resigned on March 19, shocking international observers and Kazakhs alike.
However, his anointed successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is ready to step in. Indeed, Tokayev has been stewarding Kazakhstan in role as interim president, all under the watchful eye of Nazarbayev, who remains very much dominant in the country.
The Diplomat’s Catherine Putz offers a primer on what to expect as Kazakhstan prepares to vote this weekend. As she writes, “The stage is set for a democratic play, and the actors know their lines.”
As the post-Nazarbayev era continues to develop in Kazakhstan, The Diplomat’s Paolo Sorbello took a look at the legacy of the country’s long standing post-Soviet ruler:
Not unlike a deity, Nazarbayev had the ability to unite a vast country under his rule. Now that his divine presence has become even more ghostly, Elbasy [the “leader of the nation”] will continue to be the guarantor of unity until his final hours. It is difficult to forecast whether this delicate unity will last once the real “post-Nazarbayev” era kicks off.
That “real” post-Nazarbayev era may have to wait until Nazarbayev’s death.
Bottom Line: As Kazakhstan votes, few surprises are expected.
Asia Defense.
Recent reports suggest that the Trump administration is about to announce its largest combined arms package for Taiwan. Reuters reports, citing four sources, that a sale of 108 General Dynamics M1A2 Abrams tanks—valued at around $2 billion—is still being pursued:
An informal notification of the proposed sale has been sent to the U.S. Congress, the four sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the possible deal.
The potential sale included 108 General Dynamics Corp M1A2 Abrams tanks worth around $2 billion as well as anti-tank and anti-aircraft munitions, three of the sources said. Taiwan has been interested in refreshing its existing U.S.-made battle tank inventory, which includes M60 Patton tanks.
The deal for Main Battle Tanks has been of interest to Taipei for some time now. President Tsai Ing-wen had discussed it earlier this year, alongside a separate bid for F-16V fighters—a much higher ticket-value item for Taiwan. Taiwanese sources had reported in April that talks over the M1A2X, the variant of the tank on offer for Taiwan, were progressing.
Many observers expressed confusion at why Taiwan was so enthusiastic for the purchase of main battle tanks, which would appear to be low on the list of critical materiel to defend against an amphibious invasion. The M1A2X, however, is being sought as a modernization of Taipei’s existing fleet of M60A3 Patton and CM-11 Brave Tiger tanks. Separately, with the United States as its only overseas arms provider and the Trump administration’s focus on expanding defense exports, a deal like the M1A2X may open the doors to greater things.
The timing of this deal will be worth watching. There appears to be a small probability that a final acknowledgement of a possible sale might come before the suspected Trump-Xi meeting slated for the G20 summit later this month. In that case, the already shaky boat of U.S.-China ties could be rocked further.
Bottom Line: U.S.-Taiwan talks for the sale of 108 tanks continue behind the scenes.
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