This has been adapted from a blog post that first appeared on Strat.Buzz and was pulled from our friends at ASPI’s The Strategist.
In the last two weeks, there have been a number of articles circulating (including here, here, here and here) that Indonesia has formally recognised a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea.
This discussion has originated from statements (see here, and here for example) attributed to Indonesian Navy Commodore Fahru Zaini, an assistant to the first deputy of the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (Menkopolhukam):
China has claimed Natuna waters as their territorial waters. This arbitrary claim is related to the dispute over Spratly and Paracel Islands between China and the Philippines. This dispute will have a large impact on the security of Natuna waters.
Commodore Zaini is also quoted as saying ‘…we have come to Natuna to see firsthand the strategic position of the TNI, especially in its ability, strength and its deployment of troops, just in case anything should happen in this region’.
This might give the overall impression that Indonesia’s defence modernisation and deployment plans are driven by China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea, and that now Jakarta has officially staked out its policy to challenge Beijing.
This impression is false for several reasons.
First, officially, there’s no maritime ‘dispute’ between Indonesia and China. Following the statement by Commodore Zaini, Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Michael Tene said that ‘Indonesia has no maritime border with China’ and that Indonesia isn’t a claimant state to the South China Sea dispute. Indeed, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa clarified further on March 19,
We have to be absolutely clear about this…There are three seemingly related but separate issues. Firstly, there is no territorial dispute between Indonesia and China, especially about the Natunas. In fact, we are cooperating with China in possibly bringing about foreign direct investment plans in the Natunas. Second, we are not a claimant state in the South China Sea. Third, on the nine-dash line, it is true that we do not accept that. This is why we have asked for a formal explanation from China regarding their claims’ legal basis and background.
This policy is of course not new. Jakarta lodged a complaint with the UN in 2010 regarding the nine-dash line. In fact, Indonesia has consistently argued for the importance of the Natunas and how it should handle the South China Sea since the mid-1990s. I’ve described Jakarta’s key interests in the Natunas elsewhere.
Daniel Novotny’s book also has a long list of quotations from various Indonesian policymakers since the 1990s that basically echoed Commodore Zaini’s sentiments: Indonesia is concerned that the Natunas and its EEZs could be endangered by China’s nine-dash line, but it will never officially admit a dispute with China because that would give credence to Beijing’s claims. Former Foreign Minister Ali Alatas perhaps said it best, ‘the repetition of an untruth will eventually make it appear as truth’.
We can debate the merits of this position, but ultimately, there’s no significant policy shift on the matter. I would add a caveat however that the status quo between China and Indonesia over the Natunas might remain until the day Beijing publicly challenges Indonesia’s rights to explore the natural resources within the Natunas and its EEZs.
Second, on the military build-up, the Natunas area has been a central feature in Indonesia’s external defence thinking since the 1990s. The largest ever tri-service military exercise under Suharto’s tenure in 1996 was based on a scenario in the Natuna islands. This has been the pattern for subsequent exercises since; though there’s an additional ‘Ambalat component’ to it recently.
The statements that the TNI leadership has been making lately about ‘flashpoint defense’ and how its latest military assets would be deployed in the Natunas should be taken with a grain of salt.
For one thing, the ‘flashpoint defense’ (and the role of the Natunas in it) and the military modernisation plans have been on the books since the mid-2000s and publicly described in 2010.
For another, the procurement of advanced platforms like the Sukhois and Leopard MBTs and others is part of the Minimum Essential Force (MEF) concept that has been around since mid-2000s. The MEF was designed less for a China threat and more for an organisational and technological revamp and to meet existing operational requirements. The urgency becomes salient when we consider that the TNI lost numerous men due to accidents and platform decay in the past decade.
Indonesia isn’tbuilding up its military power against a resurgent China, but the current political climate does provide the TNI leadership with the opportunity to further push for their pre-existing plans and to deflect criticisms from civil society activists arguing against expensive weaponry.
Finally, we can speculate whether Commodore Zaini was speaking for the Indonesian government. The clarification from the Foreign Ministry, however, suggests he wasn’t. Does this mean Commodore Zaini was speaking for the TNI? One of my contacts close with the defence establishment in Jakarta suggests that wasn’t the case either. There haven’t been any significant changes or plans made regarding the Natunas and the South China Sea at TNI headquarters.
We should also consider the fact that the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs isn’t a decision making body like the Ministry of Defense. They coordinate policies, they don’t formally make them.
Why Commodore Zaini made the arguments isn’t clear. What is clear, I think, is: (1) he wasn’t authoritatively tasked with announcing a major policy shift (nor is there actually a policy shift), and (2) he was merely echoing long-held Indonesian policy sentiments.
For these reasons, I think the articles that have suggested an official policy change from Indonesia on the Natuna Islands and South China Sea may have taken things out of their proper context.
Evan A. Laksmana is currently a Fulbright Presidential PhD Scholar in political science with the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is also a researcher with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Indonesia Faces the Reality of Chinese Maritime Claims
With the possibility of a March snow day shutting down the U.S. government’s Washington, DC, offices on Monday, I had the pleasure of being able to do an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation News Radio-Sydney’s Tracey Lee Holmes on Indonesian and Chinese maritime strategies. Tracey brought up interesting points about the reported 700% rise in “piracy” in Indonesian waters from 2009-2014 creating the opportunity for counter-piracy partnerships with others, notably China’s navy, which could leverage its operational experience from years working in the Gulf of Aden. You can listen to my thoughts here.
The spur for the interview was an article I wrote for The Diplomat on several controversies ensnaring Indonesia’s navy in February. I ended that article with a nod to Indonesia’s efforts, under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, or “SBY,” to maintain good ties with China in the face of tension over territorial claims with other nations in the region. During this period Indonesia tried to play the role of conciliator within ASEAN, by attempting to bridge the “pro-China” and confrontation camps in Code of Conduct discussions among others. In an example of this conflict avoidance, a recently aired CCTV documentary highlighting a 2010 incident of Indonesian naval vessels’ reluctance to apprehend a Chinese trawler in Indonesian-claimed waters in the face of Chinese vessels demanding they stand down.
First line of defense
However, my late-night ramblings in the interview prevented me from effectively elucidating how in the past week this relationship has changed. On March 12th, Indonesia admitted for the first time that China’s 9-dash line South China Sea claims included bits of Indonesia’s Riau Province in the Natuna islands. Earlier, and perhaps in preparation for the acknowledgement of the disagreement, Indonesia’s military announced it would beef up its presence in the disputed islands – ostensibly to prevent “infiltration.”
While the move towards tension is disconcerting, as some say, the first step is to admit you have a problem. Additional variables are Indonesia’s upcoming parliamentary (April) and presidential elections (July), in which Jakarta’s mayor, Joko Widodo, is likely to win but has yet to state explicit foreign policy positions.
By interesting coincidence the end of this month will bring an assemblage of competing interests to the waters of the same Natuna Islands, as Indonesia plays host to the 2014 Komodo Joint Exercise, practicing Humanitarian Assistance / Disaster Response (HA/DR). Following on the heels of a similarly inclusive HA/DR+Military Medicine Exercise, Komodo is slated to bring together China, Indonesia, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, and others. Whether it can increase interoperability or defuse tension is an open question, but it’s worth a try.
LT Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founder and vice president of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.
The United States has thus far avoided getting publicly involved in the Indonesia–Australia spying row; however, it can’t afford to do so any longer. Australia has demonstrated a naiveté in thinking that public diplomacy rows such as this can be settled using traditional ‘cocktail diplomacy’. Likewise, its apathy to public diplomacy on social media may be indicative of an inability to plan and conduct strategic communications campaigns. Indonesia is home to 50 million Facebook users, 35 million Twitter users and a projected 42% social media penetration of the population by 2017. As broadband internet access penetrates further into rural Indonesia, US–Allied strategic communications and public diplomacy are only going to grow in complexity and importance.
‘Cocktail diplomacy is dead,’reads the simple Facebook post from retired Admiral James Stavridis after attending the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. Indeed, as information technology continues to mature and proliferate across the globe, public diplomacy via social media will be increasingly important as citizens become more aware of international politics and attempt to shape policy by exerting influence over their respective leaders. Nowhere does this statement resonate more profoundly than in the current Australia–Indonesia row.
Following the Snowden revelations, Indonesia’s highly socially networked population took to Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere to denounce the Australian spying. While Indonesia’s government tried to get ahead of the popular outrage and launched its own statements on social media, Australia maintained silence on its official Twitter/Facebook accounts, promising only to send a formal démarche within a week. This thumb in the eye of public diplomacy in favor of more traditional ‘cocktail diplomacy’ did nothing to assuage the growing outrage and resulted in Indonesia’s suspension of elements of the Lombok Treaty such as coordination of counter human-trafficking operations, leading to confusion, misunderstanding, accusations of violations of sovereignty/territorial waters, increased military patrols/redeployments and an escalating war of words both at the civilian and military levels.
The Lombok Treaty has been the modern foot in the door for US–Australia–Indonesian Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) missions. Recent changes to Australian security policy in the past years have generated apprehension in Indonesia. For example, the establishment of a permanent US Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force (SP MAGTF) in Darwin led Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa to rebuke it as ‘…a reaction to the rise of China’ and ‘capable of generating a vicious cycle of tension and mistrust.’ Tensions due to the ongoing spying row will only make it harder to sell both the SP MAGTF deployment to the Indonesians as a force for regional stability / security and the perception that US-Australian-Indonesian tri-lateral relationship is mutually beneficial (not conspiratorial against the Indonesians).
China has proven to be adept at generating and exploiting regional tensions—especially when western powers are involved—by presenting itself as a sympathetic Asian neighbor. The curious simultaneity of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force announcing the creation of the Air Defense Interrogation Zone (ADIZ) and Edward Snowden’s releasing of his files detailing the Australian SIGINT operations against Indonesia point towards a potential Chinese plot to undermine the Lombok Treaty.
If China chose to ingratiate itself with Indonesia, it would have a good basis to start from. Annual Chinese trade with Indonesia (US$66bn) triples US trade (US$22bn). The minority Chinese diaspora population controls over 73% of publicly traded companies within Indonesia and are critical to brokering the PRC financing of infrastructure projects such as roads and broadband internet. By comparison, US Agency for International Development (USAID) assistance only accounts for a trifle $166m. According to a 2013 Pew Research survey, Indonesians view China as more of a partner than the United States (53%-46%). That’s surprising, given Indonesia’s history of anti-Chinese sentiment.
Nonetheless, American regional engagement has to work in this environment, and to influence the views of Indonesians in the streets it will first have to reach them. ‘Strategic Communications’ is the answer to how the United States coordinates its messaging and actions across various government agencies in the age of 21st century social media, and is defined as:
…synchronization of our words and deeds as well as deliberate efforts to communicate and engage with intended audiences via public affairs, public diplomacy, and information operations (condensed 2010 USG definition).
Given the demonstrated influence of the socially networked and internet savvy Indonesian public, as well as their economic reliance on China and Chinese industry, it’s essential that the US and Australian governments engage in a joint strategic communications social media campaign targeting the Indonesian people to change their attitudes on both the spying row as well as the basing of the SP MAGTF in Darwin. The failure to effectively communicate with the Indonesian people could result in stronger, mutually-exclusive, bilateral relationship between China and Indonesia, at the expense of western nations.
Nicolas di Leonardo is a member of the Expeditionary Warfare Division on the staff of the US Chief of Naval Operations, as well as a graduate student of the US Naval War College. The views presented here are his own and do not necessarily represent the official positions of the United States Navy or the US Naval War College. Image courtesy of Flickr user US Department of State.
When discussing China’s strategy in the South China Sea it is first necessary to begin by asserting that there is in fact a strategy, which is readily discernible from public documents and pronouncements. There has been some disagreement over the degree of coordination between operational units and the central government,[1] with some analysts questioning if Beijing actually has a strategy in these areas,[2] while others have contended that China does in fact have a strategy that it regards as increasingly successful in achieving its desired objectives. According to Peter Dutton, the Director of the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI) at the U.S. Naval War College, this strategy is centered on the use of “non-militarized coercion” that has provided a means for controlled escalation.[3]
While the execution of this strategy may have at times in the past been poorly implemented due to the vague and developing nature of China’s strategic goals, there has been a concerted effort since and even before Xi Jinping came into power to at least increase coordination and oversight, if not clarify the strategic objectives themselves. This increased coordination and oversight is however primarily intended to better control the potential for escalation, and is part of a wider-evolving Chinese strategy to better protect what it views as its “maritime rights and interests” in the South China Sea. These new objectives do little more than consolidate previous strategic guidance, suggesting that existing patterns of expanded Chinese maritime presence and corresponding incidents at sea are more likely to persist than diminish in the years ahead, though they may be managed more closely by Beijing.
Since 2007 Chinese maritime law enforcement (MLE) agencies have been conducting what were termed “rights protection” (weiquan) missions in the South China Sea,[4] which slowly expanded in number and intensity over time, leading to an increase in operational confrontations and incidents at sea between not only China and its neighbors, but also the United States. This shift in tactics was readily evident in the composition of Chinese forces involved in these confrontations: where previously PLA-Navy forces had been primarily involved, according to a report by the U.S. Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), by 2009 the majority involved Chinese MLE agencies.[5]
While it is not known if the “rights protection” missions were at the time approved by key decision making bodies such as the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) or the Central Military Commission (CMC), a number of recent developments suggest that they were at some point subsequently approved at the highest levels of the Chinese government and are likely to form a central focus of Chinese strategy going forward. The work report of the 18th Party Congress at which the Chinese leadership transition occurred, defined China for the first time as a “maritime power,” one that will “firmly uphold its maritime rights and interests.”[6] Work reports from the Party Congress play a central role in determining the character and content of Chinese strategy going forward,[7] and the work report from the most recent would suggest that not only does China increasingly see itself as a maritime power, but that maritime “rights protection” missions will increasingly become a central component of China’s approach in the South China Sea (SCS).
Important institutional changes in line with these objectives had already begun to be implemented even before the Party Congress occurred, with the central leadership creating several leading small groups to oversee and improve coordination of maritime rights protection in the SCS. The Maritime Rights Office, a leading small group now headed by Xi Jinping, was created in 2012 reportedly to “coordinate agencies within China.”[8] The Maritime Rights Office falls under the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group (FALSG), which is ‘widely believed to be the central policy making group’ in the Chinese Party apparatus. According to Bonnie Glaser, an analyst at the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), the Maritime Rights Office includes “over 10 representatives from various units, including several from the PLA,” and is in charge of implementing guidelines handed down by the PBSC.[9] During the same talk, Ms. Glaser also noted the existence of a second leading small group, created specifically to handle issues in the South China Sea, which is also now headed by Xi Jinping.
That there had already been a discernible push by the central leadership in Beijing to improve coordination and oversight before the incident off the Natunas in March of 2013 calls into question analysis suggesting that a lack of coordination or oversight from Beijing is the central factor explaining Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. But this has never been as sufficient an explanation as some have implied, and it seems increasingly plausible that Beijing’s behavior can better be explained as part of a broader strategy. This strategy is evident in the decision of the central leadership to expand and utilize Chinese MLE agencies to more assertively protect what China considers to be its maritime rights and interests in disputed areas, often through the use of non-militarized coercion.
I Like the Islands Natuna.
This non-militarized coercion includes not only deterrent but also compellent dimensions, as was clearly demonstrated in the recent incidents involving Indonesia. Attempts by China to compel its neighbors into accepting its ‘historic rights’ in the SCS pose a potential threat to the international rules and norms embodied in UNCLOS, and to the extent that China’s “maritime rights and interests” are defined based on historical rather than legal grounds, an implicit challenge to the status quo.
While a more militarized approach by China in the East China Sea has become increasingly evident with the recent creation of the Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) there,[10] the non-military and military instruments of power have always been closely intertwined in Beijing’s evolving strategy. Military power has long been more visible in the ECS disputes, with serious incidents occurring involving naval vessels there.[11] At the same time however, China has been systematically and proactively asserting maritime jurisdiction through an enlarged and more aggressive MLE presence around the Senkakus, in an effort to ‘establish a new reality on the sea,’ as Scott Cheney-Peters of CIMSEC put it.[12]
In addition to the Maritime Rights Office, Xi also became head of the “Office to respond to the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Crisis” when it was created in September 2012, as part of the wider effort to increase coordination and institutional oversight.[13] According to reports there is solid evidence, including ‘from electronic intercepts’, indicating that “the movements of Chinese boats and ships were micromanaged by the new taskforce chaired by Xi.”[14] If accurate, these reports would provide conclusive evidence that Chinese actions in disputed areas of the East and South China Seas are in fact being directed and closely managed from Beijing as part of a wider strategy.
What might be viewed as two separate programs, military and civilian, are actually designed to be complementary parts of the same effort to protect China’s claims in areas like the South China Sea, with the MLE agencies playing the lead while reinforced in the background by the presence of much more capable naval warfighting platforms. Ties between the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and the PLAN are close and longstanding,[15] and can be expected to strengthen in the future with the creation of the new China Coast Guard under SOA. The fact that military assets have taken a more prominent role in the disputes over the Senkakus suggests that the military and non-military means of coercion are part of a continuum of Chinese strategic options to exert leverage over other claimants to the disputes, to be used in accordance with the various operational responses of those claimant countries.
This could provide important lessons for claimants in Southeast Asia, where non-military forms of coercion are likely deemed sufficient by China to achieve its desired goals at present. Should this later prove to no longer be the case, perhaps after countries like Vietnam build up their own MLE forces (which they are in process of doing), Southeast Asia might also come to expect more militarized forms of coercion to begin stretching further south into the SCS. It is not lost on ASEAN that when declaring its ADIZ over the ECS China reserved the right to create additional ADIZ’s in the future, possibly in the South China Sea.[16] The fact that this announcement occurred almost simultaneously with the first deployment of China’s new aircraft carrier to the SCS was viewed with concern in the Philippines, where Foreign Secretary Del Rosario stated that there was a “threat that China will control the airspace (in the South China Sea).”[17]
While China may truly see its actions in a reactive or defensive light, others are unlikely to share this perception and may very well interpret more offensive intentions based on China’s own definition of the status quo, as well as its attempt to enforce it through coercive means. So long as China refuses to take into account the credible concerns of its neighbours and persists in carrying out its current strategy in the South China Sea, the disputes are likely to remain China’s “Achilles heel” in Southeast Asia,[18] and could constrain its larger diplomatic initiatives in the region. Along with the disputes will also remain the danger that misperception or miscalculation could render escalation less controllable in future incidents, a distinct possibility that seems destined to become more pronounced if the various means of coercion continue to evolve in an increasingly militarized direction.
Scott Bentley is an American PhD candidate at the Australian Defence Force Academy.
This post appeared in its original form at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist.
This might give the overall impression that Indonesia’s defence modernisation and deployment plans are driven by China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Sea, and that now Jakarta has officially staked out its policy to challenge Beijing.
