Amid South China Sea tensions, China’s defence minister reaches out to regional neighbours as Beijing hosts top security conference
Beijing has focused on neighbouring Southeast Asian nations at its annual security conference, pushing for cooperation as it tries to portray itself in a “contrasting light” amid tensions over the South China Sea, analysts say.
In his speech at the Xiangshan Forum on Friday, Defence Minister Dong Jun said every country had “the right” to safeguard its security as well as a responsibility for global security.
But he said when “other parties” get involved in regional affairs, they should cooperate with countries in the region to “provide positive energy” – a veiled reference to the United States and its Asian allies’ recent maritime confrontations with Beijing.
“At this new crossroads, we cherish the enlightenment of historical experience even more, and we have more confidence and wisdom to answer the theme of peaceful coexistence,” Dong said.
He said the security of countries in the region “remains in their own hands”.
Dong’s remarks come as managing tensions in the South China Sea has become a critical issue in the Asia-Pacific and among southeast Asian nations, as Beijing and Manila have clashed in frequent coastguard incidents over the past year.
Senior defence ministry officials from key members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are among those attending the three-day Xiangshan Forum.
On Thursday, Zhang Youxia, vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, the country’s top command body, held separate bilateral talks with Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen and Tea Seiha, the Cambodian defence chief.
Zhang said the meetings focused on ways to deepen military cooperation and the “need to promote dialogue to maintain peace and security in the region”.
Other Asean participants include defence ministers and representatives from Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
The Philippines – which has clashed numerous times with China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea – did not send a delegation. But a day before the forum, China’s foreign affairs vice-minister Chen Xiaodong hosted a meeting with Maria Theresa Lazaro, the Philippine undersecretary for foreign affairs, during which they agreed to continue conversations on maritime issues.
The Asean defence officials delivered speeches following Dong on Friday morning, in which they addressed the ongoing South China Sea disputes.
Singaporean Defence Minister Ng said China had “sought to play a constructive role” in contributing to global peace and stressed that the South China Sea tensions should be dealt with through dialogue.
Phan Van Giang, the defence chief for Vietnam, which has also found itself embroiled in South China Sea tensions with China, said the disputes should be resolved through peaceful means and that force should not be used in international relations. He also expressed his appreciation for China’s security initiatives in the hope of maintaining stability in the region.
Adly bin Zahari, the deputy defence minister for Malaysia, another South China Sea claimant, said stability would come when countries “cooperate and form credible partnership among states through bilateral or multilateral platforms”. He did not mention the disputed waterway in his address.
“I encourage more countries to settle any dispute through negotiation and dialogue,” he said. “It will increase trust and confidence between countries.”
China’s charm offensive at the Xiangshan Forum included an evening banquet on Thursday that was attended by senior Chinese military officials, including Dong and Zhang, as well as Liu Zhenli, chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army’s Joint Staff Department.
While Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, other countries including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have overlapping claims.
China recently conducted a series of joint exercises with Asean countries, including a joint naval exercise with Singapore last week and a joint military exercise involving special forces with Thailand last month.
In April, Indonesia’s defence minister and President-elect Prabowo Subianto visited Beijing and met with Dong and Chinese President Xi Jinping, with the two sides pledging to strengthen joint military exercises.
In November last year, China hosted a rare joint anti-terrorism military exercise with five Asean nations – Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam.
On the sidelines of the forum, Wu Shicun, founder of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, said relations between China and Asean were significant because the region is Beijing’s “close neighbour”.
“It is very important for China and Asean to discuss how to promote peace in the region, enhance mutual trust and avoid crises, especially in the South China Sea,” Wu said.
Thomas Daniel, a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies Malaysia, said it was “natural” for China, a country with strong economic ties in the region, to want to improve relations.
“China is a country that has a range of border disputes with a number of its neighbours, and having better defence ties is a way – a pretty mature way – to ensure the worst aspects of these disputes could be mitigated,” he said.
China faces challenges in building defence relations in the broader Asia-Pacific with countries like Japan and South Korea, in part because they are key US allies with a degree of distrust between the political leaderships of all three countries, Daniel said.
“Southeast Asia is a different story. Southeast Asian countries are deeply dependent on China for trade and I think the area of defence cooperation is one that has not really been explored with all Southeast Asian countries,” he said.
But China could face challenges in its quest to deepen defence ties with the region as countries – especially those with territorial disputes with Beijing – feel pressured by China’s military strength.
Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said the Xiangshan Forum tends to “avoid the more sensitive issues such as the South China Sea” and focuses instead on non-traditional security to use as a “platform to champion for cooperation”.
“[It’s an attempt] to contrast with what Beijing’s narrative would describe as hegemonic politics by certain external players, which would refer to the US and allies,” Koh said.
He said Beijing’s push for cooperation with Asean was meant to “portray Beijing in such a contrasting light, whereas the US and allies are pushing for confrontation”.
Benjamin Barton, an associate professor at the University of Nottingham’s Malaysia campus, said China had consistently used a “push and pull strategy” in its public diplomacy to appease the concerns of the claimant Asean member states in the South China Sea.
“It uses various hard and soft mechanisms to assuage the concerns of these claimant states at the same time that it makes moves that are to their strategic detriment – such as building military outposts,” Barton said.
“My sense is that Dong’s remarks fall into this continued strategy of assuaging claimant states, which basically provides the smokescreen needed to allow China to continue with its geostrategic pursuits in and over the South China Sea.”
