Commentaries

2018/72, 13 June 2018

The commitment to forward defense by successive US administrations is the basis for the US network of alliances and security partnerships in East Asia. Forward defense posits that it is better to address potential overseas threats to the US homeland and deter potential overseas conflicts that could entrap the United States as close to the source of the threat as possible.

The grand strategies of US allies and security partners are premised on this commitment’s continued credibility. North Korea and China have long criticized US forward defense and its consequences as provocative, destabilizing, and a Cold War relic. Libertarian critics of forward defense in the US have criticized its fiscal burden and potential for free-riding by allies and security partners.

2018/71, 12 June 2018

President Duterte’s accommodationist approach to China and Chinese aggressive actions in the Philippine exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea is starting to run into domestic political problems.

Chinese actions in the West Philippine Sea appear to contradict agreements President Duterte claims he has reached with Beijing. The Duterte administration’s rationalizations for these breaches are becoming less credible and coherent.

2018/70, 8 June 2018

Chinese mega-projects in Malaysia have come under intense scrutiny under the Pakatan Harapan government. Within weeks of taking over the government, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad pledged to review all mega-project deals signed by the Najib administration to ascertain their financial viability and the government’s ability to carry out those projects. These reviews can turn three major diplomatic and strategic victories – the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail (HSR), the East Coast Railway Link (ECRL) and the Malacca Gateway projects – into not just lost economic opportunities but also political liabilities that can potentially impact negatively on how Malaysia views its largest trade partner.

2018/69, 6 June 2018

Although the much-anticipated meeting in Singapore between the leaders of the United States and North Korea was less than two weeks away, the Trump-Kim Summit did not overshadow the Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) last weekend. Instead, the South China Sea dispute was front and centre in many of the ministers’ speeches and discussion sessions.

This is unsurprising. Although tensions between China and the Southeast Asian claimants have subsided somewhat since mid-2016, tensions between China and the US over the disputed waters have experienced a sharp uptick, especially since President Trump entered the White House in January 2017.

2018/68, 28 May 2018

Events over the past few days suggest that the Trump administration is following through on the pledge it made in its 2017 National Security Strategy to take a firmer line against China’s military activities in the South China Sea.

On Sunday 27 May, two US warships conducted a “freedom of navigation operation” (FONOP) in the Paracel Islands which China has controlled since 1974. The USS Higgins, a guided-missile destroyer, and the USS Antietam, a guided-missile cruiser, passed within 12 nautical miles of Tree, Lincoln, Triton and Woody islands in the Paracels. On 18 May, for the first time ever, the Chinese air force had landed a long-range strategic bomber on Woody Island.

2018/67, 25 May 2018

Ever since Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte took office in 2016, and implemented a series of policies designed to reduce friction with Beijing in the Spratly Islands in return for Chinese investment, Vietnam has become the frontline state among the Southeast Asian claimants in the South China Sea. It is a lonely position to be in, and over the past several months Beijing has ramped up the pressure on Hanoi, apparently in an attempt to coerce Vietnam into compromising its maritime claims in favour of China’s interests.

2018/66, 17 May 2018

On Sunday morning, 13 March 2018, between 6.30-7.53am, suicide bombers carried out deadly attacks on three churches, namely the Santa Maria Tak Bercela Catholic Church, the Indonesian Christian Church at Diponegoro Street and the Pantekosta Church at Arjuno Street. At least 14 persons were killed and 41 injured. The national police chief Tito Karnavian said that these attacks were perpetrated by one family, consisting of a father, a mother and four children -two of them under twelve years old, who had returned to Indonesia from Syria. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks. On Sunday evening the police’s anti-terror unit found four home-made bombs in a residential home allegedly belonging to the perpetrators.

2018/65, 17 May 2018

Pakatan Harapan’s (PH) colossal victory in GE14 sprang from a nationwide surge in its popularity and collapse of confidence in the 61-year ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) regime, but PH’s spectacular success in Selangor is exceptional.

BN manipulated electoral boundaries to engineer favourable conditions, were most aggressive in Selangor, and disregarded the constitutional and democratic underpinnings of the electoral system.

2018/64, 15 May 2018

Malaysia’s 2018 general elections saw unprecedented numbers of FELDA-occupied parliamentary constituencies rejecting politicians from Barisan Nasional (BN). In doing so, they have obliterated any lingering presumptions that most Peninsular rural voters – particularly in agricultural areas established by Malaysia’s Federal Land Development Authority – would invariably vote in BN’s favour.

Of the estimated 53 FELDA-occupied Peninsular wards that marched to 9th May’s polls, 27 seats rejected the ruling establishment, 16 doing so for the first time since at least 2004.