The Big One.
India’s big anti-satellite moment.
India is a “space superpower”—or so said Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 27 when, in a surprise national address, he announced that the country had become the fourth to destroy a satellite in low-earth orbit. On that day, India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), the Indian agency tasked with the development of indigenous weapons, successfully destroyed Microsat-R, an Indian satellite that had been launched in late January, using a new kind of direct ascent hit-to-kill interceptor identified in a subsequent Indian statement as the “Ballistic Missile Defense interceptor.”
The event took the world by surprise. India has long had a latent anti-satellite capability, but had not in recent years conveyed any will to carry out an actual test demonstrating its capability. Immediately, many observers compared the test to China’s in 2007, but the more apt comparison might be the United States’ own similar anti-satellite demonstration in 2008. The altitude of the Indian intercept—around 282 km—was much closer to the 240 km or so that the U.S. intercept of the USA-193 satellite occurred at than the 800+ km at which China intercepted the Fengyun 1C satellite. (Fengyun 1C, however, was almost identical in total mass to India’s target satellite, the Microsat-R.)
In India, observers are seeing the test in the terms Modi presented it: Another moment of India’s coming out as a technological and space superpower. Harsh Pant, a commentator for The Diplomat, notes that “unequivocal assertion about the military nature of the tests is welcome for a country where enduring amnesia about the role of force in international relations circumscribes its emergence as a great power.” I had a different view in the Washington Post, where I identified the possible destabilizing consequences of India making strides in exoatmospheric hit-to-kill technologies. Manpreet Sethi of the Center for Air Power Studies in New Delhi pushes back on that, suggesting that the test has little to do with enabling new types of Indian strategies.
Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation shared an enormously useful database tracking all human anti-satellite tests—co-orbital and direct-ascent alike.
The database shows that even with the projected debris from India’s test, China’s 2007 test eclipses the total pieces of significant, trackable debris produced by the United States, Soviet Union, and India. (Russia has yet to complete a kinetic direct ascent anti-satellite test, but is developing a system known as the Nudol that would be ideal for the task.)
The military utility of the anti-satellite weapon demonstrated by India is dubious. In the India-Pakistan dyad, it is India that has a far greater reliance on space-based capabilities. In the India-China dyad, commensurate capabilities exist now on both sides. Even as Beijing has more satellites than Delhi, it will have redundancies and any conflict where India might begin to think about shooting down Chinese satellites is probably already one that India is poorly positioned to manage on the Earth’s surface. If anything, the true utility of the test will be electoral and in underscoring India’s growing ballistic missile defense credentials.
Bottom Line: India’s anti-satellite test underscores its arrival to the ranks of powers that overtly militarize space, but it’s unclear if it’ll materially change Indian military strategy.
Bonus: Don’t miss this terrific animated reconstruction of the Indian anti-satellite test, put together in the hours after Modi’s announcement by AGI.
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East Asia.
China’s relationship with Europe has been under the scanner recently. The big development? Italy’s decision to formally join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Italian government becomes the first major G-7 economy to formally accept a place in Xi’s nebulous signature foreign policy initiative. With Xi in Italy on the first leg of a three-country European tour, the two governments signed a memorandum of understanding on Rome’s participation in the initiative, which included China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) concluding agreements with Trieste and Genoa ports. Writing for The Diplomat, Shannon Tiezzi takes a look at one of the odd outcomes of Xi’s recent trip to Italy:
The lack of any headline agreements, other than the BRI memorandum of understanding itself, left Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio – one the strongest supporters of Italy’s China push – straining a bit for something to highlight. In the end, he was left to gush about the first shipment of oranges by air from Sicily to China, which he tried to spin as a “small revolution for our ‘Made in Italy’ products.”
Valbona Zeneli puts Rome’s BRI decision in a broader context: “With a government debt of 130 percent of the gross domestic product, Italy is hoping to finance some of its infrastructure projects with Chinese money. Since 2000, Italy has attracted a stock of $16 billion in Chinese investment.”
But Xi’s time in Italy, while under the microscope for the big BRI announcement, deserves to be compared with the Chinese president’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in France. Tiezzi writes on the contrast between Xi-in-Italy and Xi-in-France:
Xi’s trip to France, following close on the heels of his Italy visit, provided a fascinating contrast to the Italian approach. French President Emmanuel Macron made a pointed show of European unity by inviting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to join him for talks with Xi. All three signaled that they expected China’s markets to open more before they will consider joining the BRI. “We, as Europeans, want to play an active part [in the Belt and Road project],” Merkel said. “That must lead to a certain reciprocity, and we are still wrangling over that a bit.”
Macron added later, in a meeting with Xi, that China and the EU must “accelerate work… on modernizing the WTO to better respond to issues around transparency, overcapacity, state subsidies and dispute settlement.” He also pushed against China’s human rights record, promising France would continue to bring up “concerns … on the question of respecting fundamental rights in China.” Macron even referred to China’s oppression of the Muslim Uyghur ethnic group, a point of neuralgia for Beijing.
Critically, France, which has taken a much more forceful stance toward China, has not suffered for it financially. More Chinese investment flowed into France in recent years than to Italy, showing that perhaps Rome’s acquiescence is less a result of Chinese influence over the years, but a play to improve its position as a potential destination of Chinese funds.
Bottom Line: Italy has become the first G-7 country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative, but it has a long way to go to catch up to its European peers in attracting Chinese funds..
A New Era: Japan’s new imperial era has a name and it’s “Reiwa”—the first-ever to be chosen from a classical Japanese source instead of Chinese. “Like the flowers of the plum tree blooming proudly in spring after the cold winter, we wish the Japanese people to bloom like individual flowers with the (promise of the) future. With such a wish for Japan, we decided upon ‘Reiwa,’” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, explaining the reasoning behind the government’s choice for the term that’ll come to describe the upcoming imperial reign of Emperor Naruhito.
Southeast Asia.
Thailand’s first democratic elections since the May 2014 coup led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha have not yielded the sort of result that its democrats had hoped for. Day after day passed in the aftermath of the March 24 voting and the uncertainty, ambiguity, and confusion only grew about the nature of the outcome. Nicholas Mueller reported for The Diplomat on the result:
… the vote count was released by the Thai Election Commission, which announced that the pro-military party of Palang Pracharath, headed by junta chief and leader of the 2014 coup Prayut Chan-o-cha, won with 8.4 million votes. Pheu Thai, the main opposition party, received 7.9 million followed by the new opposition party of Future Forward with 6 million.
As Erin Cook observes in The Diplomat:
There continues to be focus on various efforts by the Thai junta to introduce different forms of institutional engineering ahead of the elections to affect its outcome. But added to this are perceived irregularities that have surfaced which have further muddied the waters and intensified suspicions about the role of institutions in polls.
The chief focus with respect to these irregularities has been on the election commission itself. The failure of the commission to release results in a timely fashion as promised Sunday evening has fundamentally undermined trust in the institution, whatever the reasons for this might be. Reports from across the country of mismatched results and “ghost votes” flooded social media, while opposition forces jumped on the opportunity to call for legal interventions.
As this newsletter was written, Thai voters still lacked clarity on who won, chipping away at the legitimacy of the elections themselves. The pro-military Palang Pracharat party is still running a victory lap based on the preliminary Election Commission results, but the pro-democracy opposition has still claimed it has the right to form a government thanks to an announcement alliance among seven different parties. Government formation is expected to take place sometime in May, when a final result will be clarified, but these intervening weeks are critical for how the election result may or may not stick in Thai society. The anti-military alliance already claims to have the necessary seats to reach a majority in the 500-seat House of Representatives, Thailand’s lower parliamentary house.
Bottom Line: After a hotly anticipated election, Thai politics are in total gridlock as preliminary results from the Election Commission come under question and an anti-military alliance consolidates its position.
Don’t Miss It: U.S.-Vietnam cooperation continues along a range of axes. Washington has followed through on the delivery of six patrol boats worth $12 million to assist in Hanoi’s maritime capacity building. “Delivering these patrol vessels represents deepening U.S.-Vietnam cooperation in the areas of maritime law enforcement, maritime search and rescue, and maritime humanitarian assistance operations within Vietnam’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone,” the U.S. embassy in Vietnam said in a statement.
Central Asia.
Astana is now Nur-Sultan and Nazarbayev is no longer president—transition continues in Kazakhstan and it appears, apart from sealing in the personality cult with renaming the capital, that the country’s Leader of the Nation is trying to maintain order above all. The Diplomat’s Catherine Putz has called it the dénouement of the Nazarbayev era. She describes what’s likely to follow:
At present, it looks like [interim President] Tokayev will serve out the rest of Nazarbayev’s term. The next presidential elections were scheduled to take place by April 2020, but early elections are the norm in Kazakhstan. Presidential polls were moved forward in 2015, 2011, 2005, and 1999, not to mention the snap parliamentary election in 2016. The last few days have moved quickly, from resignation to a new president, and the rollercoaster could just be beginning.
Putz identifies Nazarbayev’s politically inclined daughter, Dariga Nazarbayeva, who is among the most powerful people in the country now.
The positioning of Dariga is significant, teeing her up for an easy presidential bid. She has long sat among the potential successors floated by speculating analysts, along with Tokayev and several others close to Nazarbayev. Others have (and will continue to) dive into the kremlinology of Kazakhstan’s opaque elite politics and we’ll all place our bets but here’s mine: No big surprises, no outsiders, no real choice in the matter for the Kazakh people.
To discuss all of this and more, Putz joined me on a recent episode of the Asia Geopolitics podcast. We talk about Nazarbayev’s decision, Tokayev’s plans for Kazakhstan, and what will follow Tokayev’s interim presidency.
Bottom Line: Nazarbayev has stepped down from the presidency in Kazakhstan, but he’s not out. The transition won’t be toward reform, but toward continued stability under a new president.
Elsewhere: Uzbek reform continues to yield good news stories. The International Labor Organization (ILO) released its report on the 2018 Uzbek cotton harvest determining, among other conclusions, that “child labour can no longer be considered a serious concern.” The graphic below sums up the trends since Karimov’s 2016 death.
Read the full ILO report here.
Asia Defense.
The United States and China appear to be heading toward a major confrontation over the possible sale of American fighters to Taiwan. Last week, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen confirmed that the country’s Ministry of Defense had submitted a formal request to Washington, D.C., to purchase F-16V Viper fighters. Tsai said the decision to make the request was supported by a review of Taiwan’s defense needs. Days later, Bloomberg News reported that the White House was poised to approve the Taiwanese request.
If that report is true, the United States would be turning course on what has been a longstanding reluctance to sell fighters to Taiwan, even as it has authorized other arms sales in line with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which requires the U.S. government to support Taiwan “with arms of a defensive character.” Even as the Obama administration and the Trump administration have approved weapons and spare parts for sale to Taiwan, fighters have long been seen as a bridge too far given Beijing serious reservations. The United States authorized the sale of 150 F-16 fighters to Taiwan in 1992. The Obama administration, after receiving a request from Taipei, turned it down, initiating a set of upgrades instead to Taipei’s existing fleet.
Regardless of the state of the pending fighter sale, tensions across the Taiwan Strait have shot up. Taipei slammed a rare transgression across the Taiwan Strait median line by two People’s Liberation Army Air Force J-11 fighters this week.
Asked about the prospective arms sale, both the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense were unequivocal in clarifying China’s opposition. “China’s position to firmly oppose arms sales to Taiwan is consistent and clear,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said during a press briefing in March. “We have made stern representations to the U.S. We have urged the U.S. to fully recognize the sensitivity of this issue and the harm it will cause,” Geng added at the time.
Senior Colonel Wu Qian, director general of the Information Office of China’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) and spokesperson for the MND, addressed the issue during a monthly press conference last week.“We are opposed to US’ arms sales to Taiwan and US military contacts with Taiwan,” he noted. “The Taiwan question is China’s internal affair and it concerns China’s core interests and the national bond of the Chinese people and allows no interference from the outside,” Wu added.
Keep your eyes on this issue, which could quickly spiral into a major crisis in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has staked its credibility for years on opposition to arms sales—specifically sales of new fighters—to Taiwan. How it moves will be closely watched across the region; meanwhile, if the F-16V sale does not happen, we’d be seeing a notable decision by the Trump administration toward Taiwan too.
Don’t Miss It: Read my interview with former Obama administration Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Abraham Denmark on the implications of the end of the INF Treaty for U.S. strategy and options in the Asia-Pacific.
Bottom Line: A prospective arms sale between the U.S. and Taiwan has heated up cross-strait relations.
Extras.
If you’re interested in diving deeper into the Indian anti-satellite issue, do listen to this technical podcast discussion I participated in along with Aaron Stein and Jeffrey Lewis over at ArmsControlWonk.
Also, it looks like India’s March 27 test was actually its second attempt. I reported exclusively for The Diplomat on that first test.
Astronomer Marco Langbroek in the Netherlands helpfully correlated the two NOTAMs discussed in the article to Microsat-R’s low-earth orbit trajectory during both incidents. You can view those images here.
Please do feel free to reach out with comments, tips, and feedback at ankit@thediplomat.com and follow me on Twitter at @nktpnd and The Diplomat at @Diplomat_APAC.