“THE Aukus agreement very vividly shows that East Asia has become the focus of United States global security strategy,” Prof Zhu Feng of Nanjing University was recently quoted in The New York Times in an article on the trilateral security pact signed on Sept 15, 2021, between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“For most Chinese scholars like me, we’re really very scared that in the competition between Beijing and Washington, they are only looking at domestic economic development....
“The security environment in the region has never been increasingly unsettled,” said Prof Zhu, who revisited the topic at the recent New Inclusive Asia Dialogue (NIAD) 2021 titled “Geopolitical and security implications of Aukus on Asean”, organised by local think tank Centre for New Inclusive Asia (CNIA).
Prof Zhu, who is the executive dean at the School of International Relations and executive director of the Collaborative Innovation Center of South China Sea Studies at Nanjing University, was one of nine prominent scholars and academics from China, Britain, the United States and Asean countries to share their perspectives and insights of how Aukus will impact the strategic landscape of the region at NIAD2021.
Speaking at the second session of the dialogue that covered “Security implications of Aukus on Asean”, Prof Zhu gave some insight on why China opposes the pact and how it would endanger the regional security order.
Like others, Prof Zhu raised concerns about one of the first initiatives under Aukus – for Australia to procure technology for eight nuclear-powered submarines from the United States and Britain.
“If Australia gets into nuclear submarine rearmament, then the question is who in the region will be next?” he said.
“From the Chinese perspective, we consider Aukus as a very big and ominous escalation of the conflict and tension between the big powers, beyond the US-Australia submarine deal, as it will raise China’s alert on how to counterbalance a China-targeting arms race among the US and its allies across the region.
“I truly hope for a reasonable response from China, and that it will not overreact because our national interest is definitely economic development. I really don’t want to see China’s economic development getting derailed,” he said.
Ultimately, he said, the United States and China should start negotiating on how regional peace can be guaranteed while meeting the interests of both powers.
“We don’t want to see the development of a new Cold War.”
Prof Zhu’s arguments echo those of CNIA co-founder, former Malaysian Transport minister Tan Sri Ong Tee Keat, in his opening speech.
“Against the backdrop of current dynamics, Aukus could serve as another tool in the US toolbox to make the world safe for the United States, in the perspective of safeguarding its geopolitical primacy,” he said.
Dr Mahmud Ali, associate fellow at the Institute of China Studies at Universiti Malaya, who summed up the dialogue, however, said that the prospect of another Cold War has been a long time coming.
“What we see, I think, is a slice of two contending trajectories that started in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, and since then the United States has made a deter-mination to never give up its systemic supremacy.
“And everything it has done since then, in terms of geopolitical and strategic policymaking, has been aimed at making sure that no single competitor like the Soviet Union ever arises anywhere on the planet, whether politically, economically or militarily, and all instruments of its state power shall be brought to bear against such a potential, adversary or competitor,” he said.
He said this was further solidified when then US president George HW Bush signed off on defence planning guidance for 1994-1999 in which he specifically said the United States will never allow any competitor to challenge it the way the Soviet Union did globally, which meant, essentially, no competitor would be allowed to rise.
“And if they did, US forces and all state assets – not just military but also economic, diplomatic, scientific, technological – would be deployed to ensure that such a threat was removed promptly.
“Everything we see now, whether in all the recent regional pacts, whether in Nato [the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] shifting focus from the Atlantic to the Pacific, is an attempt to make sure that the United States never loses its supremacy. To my mind, it’s an impossible mission. But nonetheless, the Americans are not going to give up, and how the Chinese respond, how Asean countries respond, will all shape our future,” Mahmud said.
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