SYDNEY — The one constant in the Indo-Pacific throughout 2023 was the aggressive and what the US called often dangerous bullying by Chinese aircraft and ships against the US and its allies and partners.
Almost every week brought a new incident, whether it was chaff being released in front of an Australian P-8, a fighter drawing to within a minuscule 10 feet of a mammoth American B-52, steaming full ahead at an American ship in the Taiwan Strait during the Shangri La Dialogue, or hundreds of Chinese “Coast Guard” ships firing water cannons, ramming, bumping and threatening Philippine ships in Philippine waters which China has unilaterally decided it owns.
In early December with up to 135 Chinese ships swarmed the Philippines around Scarborough Shoal. Then, in the latest clash, a Chinese Coast Guard ship fired its water cannon near Second Thomas Shoal and disabled the engines of one Philippine ship, the M/L Kalayaan, which had to be towed home, and damaged the mast of another on Dec. 10. Another Chinese ship rammed a Philippine vessel, which survived. These incidents were illustrative of both the increasing ferocity and danger of the Chinese actions through 2023.
The US has pointedly reminded China that the Philippines is a US treaty ally and condemned the Chinese actions. And Australia recently made good on its pledge to sail with the Philippine Navy to help enforce international law and remind all comers that the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) tribunal ruled in 2016 in favor of the Philippines and rejecting China’s claims to 90 percent of the South China Sea.
China says it doesn’t accept jurisdiction of the tribunal, but that decision is not China’s to make under the UNCLOS tribunal, according to a range of experts.
[This article is one of many in a series in which Breaking Defense reporters look back on the most significant (and entertaining) news stories of 2023 and look forward to what 2024 may hold.]
China usually defends its actions as simple defense of its territory — something the UNCLOS tribunal ruled is not true — and justifies its violence and dangerous behavior on that basis. But could the actions of its pilots go beyond government policy? Are some of them cowboys, putting Chinese relationships with the US, Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia at risk? In 2023 Breaking Defense asked the then-head of the Pacific Fleet, Adm. Karl Paparo, what the source was of the Chinese actions.
“I believe they’ve been directed to be more aggressive and they have followed those orders,” he said. In other words, China’s military leadership and President Xi Jinping have told pilots and sailors to press hard. Xi’s China wants “to create tense, uncomfortable situations in the hope that US and partner forces will vacate the space that every force has a right to be in,” Paparo said.
China’s actions caused enormous changes in the region. Japan has pledged to double its defense budget and has forged increasingly close relations with Australia, bringing weapons to the Lucky Country for their first firings here during Talisman Sabre, the island continent’s biggest military exercise. In 2023 Japan’s F-35s made their first foreign trip in late August. It marked the first practical expression of the Reciprocal Access Agreement signed by the two Pacific powers, which came in the wake of Camp David meetings between the leaders of Japan, South Korea and the United States, which the US hopes will result in what President Joe Biden called “a new era and partnership between Japan and the Republic of Korea and the United States.”
Korea and Japan had earlier, under pressure from the US but also in response to China and North Korea’s actions, decided to share missile defense targeting information and intelligence.
And, of course, in April the Philippines decided to open four bases to US personnel and to resume FONOPS (Freedom of Navigation Operations) with the US.
The Pacific Islands in many ways encapsulated the rivalry between China and almost all of its neighbors. The Solomon Islands shocked Australia, the United States and New Zealand when it signed a secret security pact with China. Australian troops and federal police had spent much of the last 20 years helping to stabilize the island state. Then, it seemed, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare turned and embraced China, after Australian and other governments ignored warnings from the islands. Alarmed by the pact, America rushed senior officials to the region, announced the opening of a US embassy in Honiara for the first time since 1993 and invited Pacific Island leaders to the White House for a summit at which increased aid and more embassies were announced.
Then came the first visit by a US defense secretary to Papua New Guinea, the island state less than four kilometers from the nearest Australian island. Lloyd Austin came to discuss a landmark security agreement with the US.
China keeps decrying such moves, accusing the US, its allies and partners of trying to form some sort of Pacific NATO, or it just targets former Chinese colonial power, Japan. For example, after Japan and Korea and the US made their agreement, China declared it would not accept fish imports from Japan, saying they were dangerous because of the release of water from the Fukushima nuclear plant. What China neglected to mention was that the International Atomic Energy Agency declared the nuclear-tainted water safe and Chinese nuclear plants release water with much higher levels of tritium.
The Role Of All Domain
With China’s actions causing allies and partners to work more closely together, one of the key enablers to helping them in this vast region is all domain technology. During this year’s Talisman Sabre, Sabre Australia’s chief of joint operations told Breaking Defense it was the first time in an exercise that Japanese, Australia and American weapons had all shared real-time targeting data on land, sea and air.
“We’ve just seen an awesome demonstration of firepower here, from different weapons platforms, from different nations. But importantly, all used the same battlefield command and Strategy Center to aim for those targets,” Gen. Greg Bilton said. “And that’s what Talisman Sabre, is all about — preparing for interoperability, preparing for cooperation between our defense forces.”
And the US left behind an all domain command and control system that one US three-star said had “huge” potential, the awfully-named Combined Joint Network Operations Security Center (CJ-NOSC).
“One of the chief things that’s plagued these exercises in the past is our ability to communicate. To that tend, we’ve developed a mission partner environment which will be standing long after this exercise,” US Lt. Gen. Xavier Brunson, commander of Army I Corps, told Breaking Defense.
“It allows us to stay in contact in the region that provides both chat and data, voice and video,” he said. The potential demonstrated by this is huge.”
Talisman Sabre also demonstrated just how many countries were doing more as China ramped up its aggressive activities in the region. Indonesia, Fiji, France, Germany, Papua New Guinea and Tonga all took part in Talisman Sabre for the first time, sending a clear message to China that allied and partner militaries are willing and capable of training together across vast distances and to effectively share information.