Special Report: Kamphausen on U.S.-China Military-to-Military Cooperation

This post is by Roy Kamphausen of the National Bureau of Asian Research.

When President Obama meets with Hu Jintao in Beijing next week, one of the issues that may come up is the status of military-military engagement between the two countries.

Just last week, China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman General Xu Caihou finished his own visit to the U.S. His stop in Washington included substantive calls with Secretary of Defense (SecDef) Gates and a brief visit with President Obama.

SecDef Gates’ chief message to General Xu was “let’s get on with a regular dialog and exchange and set aside the on again/off again” way things have been done. The U.S. was pushing, and both sides have traditionally believed, that an appropriate level of military exchange is an important component of the overall bilateral relationship and can help reduce the chance of unintentional confrontation or conflict. The degree to which each side wants to expend energy to accomplish these goals has varied widely on both sides over the last decade.

In contrast to the early years of the George W. Bush Administration, the Obama Administration has committed to a greater level of energy and engagement, as witnessed by its willingness to: hold Defense Consultative Talks for the second time this year (DCT are the top level defense policy interactions between the two sides); have both SecDef Gates and Chairman Mullen visit China in 2010; and embark on an ambitious number of activities in the areas of humanitarian and disaster relief, military medicine, officer exchanges, and policy and operational dialogs.

While agreeing to the program, General Xu hedged about China’s willingness to fully restore ties. He noted that obstacles remain to normal defense relations, including Chinese objections to potential U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, U.S. operations in China’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and U.S. law that limits the type of exchanges that might be conducted between the two militaries and which the Chinese regard as humiliating.

Among these issues, arms sales to Taiwan loom large. The Obama Admin has essentially put a decision on hold until after the President’s visit, but eventually the Administration will address the topic. China has taken a very hard line on the issue of any new sales, and thus progress that might be made in restoring bilateral ties could well be ended if Beijing again puts a halt on mil-mil exchanges over the issue, much as it did in October 2008.

Thus, SecDef Gates’ message: the two sides have much at stake, not just in Asia but around the world—witness the cooperative operations in the Gulf of Aden against pirates—and cannot allow bilateral ties to be put in the deep freeze for any period of time. 

President Obama’s might even take the issue up with President Hu, despite there being a great many other issues to discuss.  After all, at an earlier juncture in bilateral relations it was PRC President Jiang Zemin who urged President Bush in 2001-02 to restart military-to-military talks after the April 2001 EP-3 incident. We will be watching closely.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on November 16, 2009. Respond »

Kerry-Lugar Bill: Views from Pakistan

I read couple of opinion pieces on the much talked about ‘Kerry –Lugar Enhanced Partnership Act of 2009’ (Full TEXT), published in the Pakistani media written by well-known writers, including one former legislator and one hugely popular analyst. I thought to flag them for ASI blog readers here and pleased to invite as much response from the avid observers of this development.

Malik Amin Aslam, writing in The News [ “Kerry-Lugar: A Bitter Pill,” October 12, 2009] makes clear a point that “the so-called partnership package now seems more like a carte blanche license for imperialistic interventions and intrusive meddling.” He tags the bill as a sort of “charge sheet’ that accused Pakistan of all the “wrongs” in the on-going war. He also added that the proposed democratic dividend has been stripped off the bill along with any mention of the Kashmir issue. Aslam also take a dig at the $1.5 billion non-security aid which is now, according to him “strapped and burdened with all sorts of provisos ranging from “dismantling and defeating” Al Qaeda, eliminating “safe havens” and facilitating and ensuring non-proliferation – all of which sound good to the ear but are conditions almost impossible to meet.” He is also vocal about the ‘thinly veiled references to preventing attacks in neighboring country India and giving interrogation access to A Q Khan.(Read more of his post mortem, Here.)

Dr Hasan-Askari Rizvi wrote a piece in the Daily Times (Oct 11) titled “Kerry-Lugar and the domestic debate”, focusing on the domestic political debates on the contentious clauses of the bill. (I always make it a point to read Rizvi in Daily Times)

He pointed four major features that have implications for Pakistan’s foreign policy and domestic politics:
1.Never in the past, Pakistan-US relations caused such controversies and emotionalism.
2. The US has never before offered assistance for socio-economic development to any Pakistani civilian government at such scale. The balance of US assistance was always heavily tilted towards the military.
3. The Pakistan Army never publicly rebuked some provisions governing US assistance to Pakistan, although the army top brass have not rejected US military assistance and cooperation.
4.Unconfirmed reports with the media and shared by the military circles and some opposition leaders suggest that the detailed stipulations about the military, the intelligence agencies, terrorism and nuclear proliferation were inserted in the bill on the initiative of or with the consent of the Pakistan government.

Rizvi marked couple of problematic areas with the bill which, according to him could have been avoided. He mentioned the ‘undiplomatic and rude language’ used without taking into account the sensitivities of Pakistan’s domestic politics. And the section 203 of the bill which provides details of certification conditions for military assistance. As per him ‘these should have been legislated separately because these do not seem to apply to the assistance under the bill.’

Both are interesting and with different perspective altogether. What do you think? ASI blog welcomes your take on the issue.

Posted by Animesh Roul on October 12, 2009. Respond »

Remembering Pokharan 1974

P.R. Chari, one of India’s most senior security analysts, has written an interesting paper titled “Pokharan-I: Personal Recollections” published as IPCS Special Report 80, August 2009.

The title suggests that it is a rare memoir of security decision-making, but because it follows a very neutral, third person style except in a couple of places, it is not easy to discern exactly what Mr. Chari’s location was in the decision-making process and thereafter. That stylistic choice however does not detract from the paper’s intrinsic utility in providing both analysis and perspective on an almost-forgotten historical moment. For present and future scholars of South Asian security, in particular, this could be very useful.

While there are other reconstructions and analyses of security decision-making available (two of which Mr. Chari has co-authored, plus those by Itty Abraham and George Perkovich, for instance), the habit of memoir-writing is still rare among South Asian policy-makers. It would be really interesting to have someone with Mr. Chari’s credentials and experience reflect on his many years of engagement with the field, noting the many, many changes along the way.

Posted by Swarna Rajagopalan on September 13, 2009. Respond »

No One Is an Island: India and the Maldives

On August 20, 2009, India’s Defence Minister, AK Antony visited the Maldives. The visit was preceded by press reports that India would sign an agreement to draw Maldives into India’s “security grid.” This report was carried in sources across India, Pakistan, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Commentaries appeared across the media and the Internet:

Maryam Omidi, Military pact provokes stir, Minivan News, August 16, 2009.
Ibrahim Mohamed, DRP advises caution on Indian media claims, Minivan News, August 17, 2009.
Simon Shareef, On joining India’s security grid, Open Salon, August 25, 2009.

It’s another matter that India’s ‘security grid’ might have been a journalistic fiction to begin with. By the time the Indian minister reached the atoll-nation, denials and clarifications were spilling forth.

What was set up during Antony’s visit was a programme of naval and coastal security cooperation which includes both technology and equipment transfers to the Maldives. The transfers extend the Indian navy’s reach beyond its territorial waters.

President Nasheed meets with Indian defence minister, Dhivehi Observer, August 20, 2009.
Times News Network, Antony to give Maldives shield against terror? Times of India, August 20, 2009.
India gives Maldives defence help, BBC News, August 21, 2009.
Maldives can always count on India as a well-meaning friend, says Antony, Dhivehi Observer, August 23, 2009.

Reflections on a changing India-Maldives relationship inevitably accompanied these reports and the visit.

Ahmed Shaheed, Building a Framework for India-Maldives Security Co-operation: An Oceanic Agenda for the Future, Open Society Association, August 22, 2009.
Gamini Weerakoon, Is India eyeing base in the Maldives? The Sunday Leader, August 30, 2009.
Siddharth Srivastava, India drops anchor in the Maldives, Asia Times, September 2, 2009.

***
India looms large in South Asia and it is not difficult to think of reasons why its neighbours feel bound to pay it attention.

Maldives-India defence cooperation have an important history and its closest moment was probably India’s intervention during the attempted coup in 1988. This naval intervention was critical to the survival of the Maldives’ regime then. In subsequent years, India continued to provide defence support to the Maldives but it had the effect of reinforcing the increasingly unpopular and repressive Gayoom regime. Indian support became a sore point with the growing movement for democracy even as the Indian establishment and intelligentsia chose not to notice the ferment across the waters. The regime change and the establishment of a democratic government seem to have effaced some of the bitterness of that moment.

Why do the Maldives matter to India, apart from good neighbourly concern?

The answer lies in the geography of the Maldives. The Indian Ocean is vital to India’s security, given its long coastline and its central location in this area. The Indian state is wary of all and any “outside” influence here, its long opposition to the Diego Garcia base so sustained as to become ritual. Reports of growing Chinese influence and a friendship with Pakistan are bound to interest India.

More important, I would argue, is the structure of the Maldives. Distance from Male to the outlying atolls is great and covers large stretches of open sea, making it hard to monitor movement in these areas. The Sri Lankan Tamil militant group, People’s Liberation Organization for Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), attempted to settle in this area to build themselves a safe haven. This is the group that volunteered their services to stage the 1988 coup. This need not be the last such instance. Following 26/11, coastal defence has become an even greater priority for India and this extends to assuring that its maritime neighbourhood is a friendly and secure one.

There is potential for cooperation between India and the Maldives in other spheres, and indeed these spheres are salient across the region: climate change, democracy and development.

For the Maldives, the most important survival (ergo, security) issue is climate change. Rising sea levels threaten to engulf and consume the low-lying coral reef islands that make up this nation-state. To ex-President Gayoom’s credit, the Maldives took on a pro-active role on the world stage to raise awareness about this issue. It has been an active participant and advocate in several global fora, including the Small Island Developing States Network. In November 2008, one of the first announcements made by the newly elected President Mohammed Nasheed was that his country would create a fund to buy land for an alternative home for the time when his people would become environmental refugees.

Nicholas Schmidle, Wanted: A New Home for My Country, New York Times, May 8 2009.
Jeremy Hance, Maldives president tells world: ‘please, don’t be stupid’ on climate change, mongabay.com, September 1, 2009

India, with its long coastline which is home to several major cities and large densely populated deltaic regions, should pay attention. Acting decisively on climate change and not getting sidetracked by a politics of blame may be one of the most important signs of genuine friendship that India can show to its Indian Ocean neighbours. India should also take a cue from President Nasheed’s concern about housing Maldivians in the wake of environmental disaster and consider rescue plans for its own island territories in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

Unlike the high politics/national security concerns of the Foreign Policy debate blogged earlier, global warming is really a survival issue for communities that are already very vulnerable and for the states whose jurisdiction includes them.

Can India also help the Maldives with its resettlement plans? That is also something for Indian civil society and policy-makers to think about.

To briefly refer to the other two spheres mentioned above: India should lend support to democratic consolidation in the Maldives. Indian civil society organizations focused on democracy and governance issues do not really think beyond their borders for the most part, however, and ignorance about the Maldives is quite common, unfortunately. A change in both of these orientations could cement the India-Maldives relationship further. While the government of India does provide development assistance, civil society should pay attention to initiatives like that of the Maldives High Commission in the UK to set up an International Volunteers Programme to recruit teachers and health workers. India does not have a Peace Corps-like organization but it is time for civil society and possibly academic institutions to think about encouraging voluntary work across the region. Indians do work in the Maldives as employees in these and in the tourism sector, but in this particular Indian moment, it should be possible to find people to take time off to volunteer their time and services.

Defence and traditional security are only one dimension of an inter-state relationship, after all. It’s time to invest in the others as well.

Posted by Swarna Rajagopalan on September 9, 2009. Respond »

In the News: Blogging and Defense

The New York Times today reports on concerns over soldier-bloggers.

Posted by Matthew Shannon Stumpf on September 9, 2009. Respond »