Asia's Cauldron

by Robert D. Kaplan

  Sarawak had actually been governed by a series of British “white rajahs” from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The first was James Brooke, who, having grown up in British India and journeyed around Madras, Penang, Malacca, and Singapore—the whole region where the Indian Ocean meets the Pacific—bought a schooner with an inheritance and sailed up the Sarawak River, arriving in Kuching in 1839. Brooke proceeded to make himself the Tuan Besar (Great Lord) of the territory, engaging in local wars, suppressing piracy, playing one tribe against the other, even as he established a nascent administration and legal system, in a drama that Joseph Conrad might have written. Brooke was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Brooke, who in turn was succeeded by his own son, Charles Vyner Brooke, who ruled until World War II.1 Chief Minister Taib’s paternalistic style was similar enough to that of the Brookes that he was referred to as the “brown rajah.” The worry in Kuching in 2013 was not about China but about the chaos that might follow the demise of the chief minister, leading, perhaps, to a strengthening of the peninsula’s involvement in local affairs.

  Borneo—even the relatively developed Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak in the island’s north—was a window onto a poorer and more chaotic world signaled by the sprawling immensity of Indonesia just to the south.2 The navies and air forces that figure prominently in the contest over the South China Sea and in this book are themselves manifestations of successful modern development and the strong institutions that go along with it. But this part of the South China Sea—the archipelago stretching from the Philippines to Indonesia—echoes a different reality entirely.

  So here I am at the end of my journey with more questions. What if, as I intimated in the previous chapter, China eventually has a messy decentralization of sorts as a result of a truly profound economic and political crisis yet to come? How would that affect its ability to continually enlarge its air and naval forces and to make war, and thus to intimidate its neighbors? What if the future of the South China Sea is not just about newly strong states asserting their territorial claims, but also about a new medievalism born of weak central government and global Islam? Of course we could have a combination of both: of a comparatively weaker China that, coupled with a more decentralized Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia, might reignite such problems as piracy and refugee flows, even as the U.S. Navy and Air Force retain their relative regional dominance. Don’t think of the region as necessarily going in one direction, in other words.

  Because different futures are possible, all that I have written is a mere period piece: I have focused on the central drama of the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, that of China’s military rise in the area where the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean intersect. But as much as I heard about submarines throughout my journeys, the image of the slum encampment on stilts in the water lingers, too.

  TO STEPHEN S. KAPLAN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, and The National Interest each published works-in-progress of this book, for which I thank the editors and fact-checkers at those publications. A one-thousand-word section on Philippine history is reprinted from my 2005 book, Imperial Grunts, as noted on the copyright page.

  As in all my past books, I am in debt to Brandt and Hochman Literary Agents in Manhattan, especially the late Carl D. Brandt and Marianne Merola. Indeed, Carl Brandt, who tragically passed away as I completed this book, was my most necessary friend over the past quarter century. I must also thank Gail Hochman and Henry Thayer. At Random House, much thanks are due to my editor, Jonathan Jao, and his assistant, Molly Turpin.

  My colleagues at Stratfor, too numerous to name, assisted me greatly in the content of this book, as well as giving me the freedom to complete it. Nevertheless, I want to especially mention two of Stratfor’s Asia analysts, Matt Gertken and John Minnich, and Stratfor’s founder, George Friedman, for helping me with some of the details of the manuscript. My colleagues at the Center for a New American Security, again too numerous to name, provided me with the encouragement to start the project in the first place, and helped it in all its phases. Patrick Cronin, Richard Fontaine, and Robert Work stand out among those now at CNAS who over the years educated me about things Asian and things naval. The Smith Richardson Foundation once again proved generous in its willingness to support my work: for which I thank Nadia Schadlow, among others.

  In Beijing, Paul Haenle and his colleagues at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy hosted me splendidly in every detail. In Kuala Lumpur, Sean Foley and Tang Siew Mun initially introduced me to Malaysia, even as Shahriman Lockman provided me with contacts there, arranged logistics, and most of all provided the gift of his altogether delightful and brilliant friendship. In Singapore, Peter Beckman, Ian Storey, and the late Barry Wain were generous with their expertise. In the Philippines, Dante Francis Ang and his staff at The Manila Times very ably arranged my schedule. The Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam did likewise for me in Hanoi. The Taiwanese government funded a trip to Taipei and arranged the logistics of getting me to one of the disputed islands in the South China Sea. Elizabeth Lockyer, my assistant, arranged the maps (with Stratfor’s assistance) and many other details of this project. My wife, Maria Cabral, once again made it all possible by tolerating my long absences.

  NOTES

  PROLOGUE: THE RUINS OF CHAMPA

  1. Jean-François Hubert, The Art of Champa, Parkstone Press, Ho Chi Minh City, 2005, pp. 7–8, 17–18, 20, 22–23, 28–29, 31–32.

  2. The full photographic archives of ancient Champa are housed at the Musée Guimet in Paris.

  CHAPTER I: THE HUMANIST DILEMMA

  1. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W. W. Norton, New York, 2001, p. 114.

  2. U.S. Energy Information Administration, “South China Sea: Oil and Natural Gas,” March 2008; Robert D. Kaplan, “China’s Caribbean,” Washington Post, September 26, 2010.

  3. Regional Program on Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia, “Current Activities in GEF-UNDP-IMO PEMSEA Programme Relating to Maritime Safety and Security”; Center for a New American Security, “The South China Sea: The First Testing Ground of a Multipolar Age,” Washington, D.C., September 2010.

  4. U.S. Energy Information Agency and Scott Snyder, “The South China Sea Dispute: Prospects for Preventive Diplomacy,” United States Institute for Peace, August 1996; Center for a New American Security, “The South China Sea: The First Testing Ground of a Multipolar Age.” Oil deposits in the Spratlys may be overhyped, with natural gas the more abundant hydrocarbon resource. See Sam Bateman and Ralf Emmers, eds., Security and International Politics in the South China Sea: Towards a Cooperative Management Regime, Routledge, New York, 2009, p. 17; John C. Baker and David G. Wiencek, Cooperative Monitoring in the South China Sea: Satellite Imagery, Confidence-Building Measures, and the Spratly Islands Disputes, Praeger, Westport, Connecticut, 2002, p. 6.

  5. Rear Admiral (ret.) Michael A. McDevitt in conversation at a conference at the Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C., September 29, 2011.

  6. BP Statistical Review of World Energy, London, 2011; Andrew Higgins, “In South China Sea, a Dispute over Energy,” Washington Post, September 17, 2011.

  7. Carl Ungerer, Ian Storey, and Sam Bateman, “Making Mischief: The Return of the South China Sea Dispute,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Barton, Australia, December 2010.

  8. Energy Information Administration, “South China Sea: Country Analysis Briefs.”

  9. Geoffrey Till and J. N. Mak, essays in Bateman and Emmers, eds., Security and International Politics in the South China Sea, pp. 38–39, 117–18; Robert D. Kaplan, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, Random House, New York, 2010, p. 7.

  10. Baker and Wiencek, Cooperative Monitoring in the South China Sea, p. 7.

  11. Rommel C. Banlaoi, “Renewed Tensions and the Continuing Maritime Security Dilemma in the South China Sea,” paper present
ed at the International Forum on Maritime Security, Keelung, Taiwan, April 2010.

  12. Kaplan, “China’s Caribbean.”

  13. Robert B. Strassler, ed., The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War, trans. Richard Crawley, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998, p. 352. Actually, there is a similar Chengyu saying, “The weak are prey to the strong.”

  14. Andrew Marshall, “Military Maneuvers,” Time, New York, September 27, 2010; “China’s New Naval Base Triggers U.S. Concerns,” SpaceWar.com, May 12, 2008.

  15. “Map of Nineteenth Century China and Conflicts,” www.​fordham.​edu/​halsall, reprinted in Reshaping Economic Geography, World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2009, p. 195.

  16. Jonathan D. Spence, In Search of Modern China, W. W. Norton, New York, 1990, pp. 300, 450–51.

  17. Piers Brendon, “China Also Rises,” The National Interest, Washington, November/December 2010.

  18. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 2, 168.

  19. Mark J. Valencia, “The South China Sea: Back to the Future?,” Global Asia, Seoul, December 2010.

  20. Andrew F. Krepinevich, “China’s ‘Finlandization’ Strategy in the Pacific,” Wall Street Journal, New York, September 11, 2010.

  21. Mark Helprin, “Farewell to America’s China Station,” Wall Street Journal, New York, May 17, 2010.

  22. Abraham M. Denmark and Brian M. Burton, “The Future of U.S. Alliances in Asia,” Global Asia, Seoul, December 2010.

  23. Hugh White, “Power Shift: Australia’s Future Between Washington and Beijing,” Quarterly Essay, Collingwood, Australia, 2010, pp. 1, 2, 48.

  24. Ibid., pp. 4–5.

  25. Ibid., p. 12.

  26. Ibid., p. 22–26.

  27. Ibid., p. 65.

  CHAPTER II: CHINA’S CARIBBEAN

  1. Bill Emmott, Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India, and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, Allen Lane, London, 2008, p. 16.

  2. Desmond Ball, “Asia’s Naval Arms Race: Myth or Reality?,” Asia-Pacific Roundtable, Kuala Lumpur, May 30, 2011.

  3. Leslie P. Norton, “Dragon Fire,” Barron’s, New York, June 27, 2011.

  4. Amol Sharma, Jeremy Page, James Hookway, and Rachel Pannett, “Asia’s New Arms Race,” Wall Street Journal, New York, February 12–13, 2011.

  5. Ball, “Asia’s Naval Arms Race.”

  6. Ibid.; W. S. G. Bateman, Strategic and Political Aspects of the Law of the Sea in East Asian Seas, Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, 2001, p. 85.

  7. James C. Bussert and Bruce A. Elleman, People’s Liberation Army Navy: Combat Systems Technology, 1949–2010, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2011, p. 183.

  8. Sharma, Page, Hookway, and Pannett, “Asia’s New Arms Race”; Carl Ungerer, Ian Storey, and Sam Bateman, “Making Mischief: The Return of the South China Sea Dispute,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Barton, Australia, December 2010.

  9. Jonathan Holslag, Trapped Giant: China’s Military Rise, Routledge Journals, Oxfordshire, 2011, p. 103; Jonathan Holslag, “Seas of Troubles: China and the New Contest for the Western Pacific,” Institute of Contemporary China Studies, Brussels, 2011.

  10. David Axe, “Relax: China’s First Aircraft Carrier Is a Piece of Junk,” Wired.com, June 1, 2011.

  11. Fumio Ota, “The Carrier of Asia-Pacific Troubles,” Wall Street Journal, Asia Edition, Hong Kong, August 11, 2011.

  12. “China Expanding Fleet of Warships at a Fast Clip: Stepped-Up Construction of Amphibious Vessels Part of Drive to Be Maritime Power,” Reuters, February 16, 2012; David Lague, “Firepower Bristles in the South China Sea,” Reuters, June 11, 2012.

  13. Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, “A Dangerous Escalation in the East China Sea,” Wall Street Journal, New York, January 5, 2013.

  14. Hugh White, The China Choice: Why America Should Share Power, Black, Inc., Collingwood, Australia, 2012, p. 69.

  15. Norton, “Dragon Fire.”

  16. Wayne A. Ulman, “China’s Military Aviation Forces,” in Andrew S. Erickson and Lyle J. Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power: Evolving Maritime Roles, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2011, p. 45.

  17. Office of the Secretary of Defense, August 16, 2010; Andrew S. Erickson, “Beijing’s Aerospace Revolution: Short-Range Opportunities, Long-Range Challenges,” in Erickson and Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power, p. 7.

  18. Paul Bracken, The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics, Times Books, New York, 2012, pp. 207–9, 211.

  19. Ball, “Asia’s Naval Arms Race”; Richard A. Bitzinger and Paul T. Mitchell, “China’s New Aircraft Carrier: Shape of Things to Come?,” RSIS Commentaries, Singapore, May 6, 2011.

  20. Aaron L. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia, W. W. Norton, New York, 2011, p. 201.

  21. Michael D. Swaine, America’s Challenge: Engaging a Rising China in the Twenty-First Century, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., 2011, p. 53.

  22. Erickson, “Beijing’s Aerospace Revolution,” in Erickson and Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power, p. 14.

  23. Ding Ying, “FTA Driving ASEAN Growth,” Beijing Review, January 22, 2011; cited in Swaine, America’s Challenge, p. 4.

  24. Mingjiang Li, “Reconciling Assertiveness and Cooperation? China’s Changing Approach to the South China Sea Dispute,” Security Challenges, Kingston, Australia, Winter 2010, pp. 51–52.

  25. Friedberg, A Contest for Supremacy, p. 7.

  26. James R. Holmes, “Maritime Outreach in the South China Sea,” Center for a New American Security, Washington, D.C., 2011; John Pomfret, “U.S. Takes a Tougher Tone with China,” Washington Post, June 30, 2010; June Teufel Dreyer, “The Growing Chinese Naval Capacity,” Topics, American Chamber of Commerce, Taipei, August 1, 2011; George Will, “The ‘Blue National Soil’ of China’s Navy,” Washington Post, March 18, 2011.

  27. Mingjiang Li, “Reconciling Assertiveness and Cooperation? China’s Changing Approach to the South China Sea Dispute,” p. 53.

  28. Ibid., pp. 63–65.

  29. Bussert and Elleman, People’s Liberation Army Navy, p. 186; Bruce A. Elleman, “Maritime Territorial Disputes and Their Impact on Maritime Strategy: A Historical Perspective,” in Sam Bateman and Ralf Emmers, eds., Security and International Politics in the South China Sea: Towards a Cooperative Management Regime, Routledge, New York, 2009, p. 51.

  30. Elleman, “Maritime Territorial Disputes and Their Impact on Maritime Strategy,” in Bateman and Emmers, eds., Security and International Politics in the South China Sea, p. 42.

  31. Bussert and Elleman, People’s Liberation Army Navy, pp. 141, 180.

  32. Andrew S. Erickson and David D. Yang, “Chinese Analysts Assess the Potential for Antiship Ballistic Missiles,” in Erickson and Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power, p. 340.

  33. Gabriel Collins, Michael McGauvran, and Timothy White, “Trends in Chinese Aerial Refueling Capacity for Maritime Purposes,” in Erickson and Goldstein, eds., Chinese Aerospace Power, pp. 193, 196–97.

  34. Felix K. Chang, “China’s Naval Rise and the South China Sea: An Operational Assessment,” Orbis, Philadelphia, Winter 2012.

  35. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, W. W. Norton, New York, 2001, p. 401, and in conversation.

  36. B. W. Higman, A Concise History of the Caribbean, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011, pp. 98, 109, 189–90, 197–98.

  37. James R. Holmes, “Monroe Doctrine in Asia?,” The Diplomat, Tokyo, June 15, 2011.

  38. David Healy, Drive to Hegemony: The United States in the Caribbean, 1898–1917, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, 1988, pp. 3–4, 9.

  39. Richard H. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1990, p. x.

  40. Ibid., pp. 56–57.

  41. Ibid., p. 308.
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br />   42. Ibid., pp. 410, xiii.

  43. Healy, Drive to Hegemony, p. 261.

  44. Higman, A Concise History of the Caribbean, p. 230.

  45. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, p. 561.

  CHAPTER III: THE FATE OF VIETNAM

  1. Henry Kissinger, On China, Penguin, New York, 2011, pp. 342–43.

  2. Clive Schofield and Ian Storey, “The South China Sea Dispute: Increasing Stakes and Rising Tensions,” Jamestown Foundation, Washington, D.C., November 2009.

  3. Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: Singapore and the Asian Economic Boom, HarperCollins, New York, 2000, pp. 309–10, 314.

  4. Carlyle A. Thayer, “Vietnam’s Defensive Diplomacy,” Wall Street Journal, Asia Edition, Hong Kong, August 19, 2010.

  5. David Lamb, Vietnam, Now: A Reporter Returns, PublicAffairs, New York, 2002, p. 43.

  6. M. C. Ricklefs, Bruce Lockhart, Albert Lau, Portia Reyes, and Maitrii Aung-Thwin, A New History of Southeast Asia, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2010, pp. 33–34.

  7. Robert Templer, Shadows and Wind: A View of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, New York, 1998, p. 294.

  8. David C. Kang, East Asia Before the West: Five Centuries of Trade and Tribute, Columbia University Press, New York, 2010, p. 166.