The big risks of 2024: Taiwan elections, Philippine shoals, AUKUS dough

SYDNEY — The first big national security story of 2024 in the Indo-Pacific may well come just 13 days into the new year: Taiwan’s presidential elections.

China predicts dangerous times ahead for the island democracy, should its people vote for a so-called independence candidate.

[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.]

This is standard practice for China, which considers Taiwan a rogue province that must not take actions to become independent of the mainland. According to Reuters reporting from the island citing Taiwanese intelligence, the top Chinese official on Taiwan held a meeting in early December to “coordinate” efforts to influence the Taiwanese elections. Chinese officials are, as they often have, trying to encourage voters to support candidates who want closer ties with Beijing.

The election, as is often the case in the feisty democracy, is up for grabs. The opposition parties are split and had a very public fracas complete with shouting when they met to try and present a united front. The polls are not clearly showing any one of the four contestants as likely winners yet, but the party of current president Tsai Ing-wen — the Democratic Progressive Party — is in the lead, though that lead has faded considerably over the last few months. The DPP supports the idea of Taiwanese independence but tends to shy away from an open commitment to making it happen.

China may step up overflights, naval maneuvers and rhetoric around the island after the election, it’s unlikely they will take full-scale military action or do anything else to destabilize the region. China’s economy is in the doldrums — at least — and Xi Jinping appears focused largely on internal issues.

For now, Boeing appears to be playing an older game, proffering the carrot and waving the stick, says a top Taiwan expert at the Asia Society.

“This carrot-and-stick approach — threatening Taiwan with military invasion while enticing it with future opportunities if it chooses unification — is nothing new; this strategy has often been used by Beijing to entice the ‘Taiwanese compatriots,'” wrote Simona Grona.

“As the election draws nearer, we are likely to see China working to exacerbate Taiwan’s internal political divisions by portraying the DPP as incompetent. We can also expect China to increase its rhetoric on the risk of war if the DPP wins a third consecutive term, to push the Taiwanese people to vote for the China-friendlier party,” Grona said.

There is little talk by experts about the kind of vibrant military and rhetorical reaction former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sparked with her Taiwan visit. But the election is still weeks away.

While the Taiwan election campaigns continue, keep your eyes on the Second Scarborough Shoal and other atolls in the South China Sea. China has pressed an aggressive and dangerous campaign, swarming hundreds of ships around a relatively small Philippine presence trying to resupply a grounded ship of theirs. So far, no one has been hurt, but one ship’s engines were knocked out by Chinese Coast Guard water cannons, and it had to be towed back to port on Dec. 10. Another had its mast damaged by those cannons, and yet another Philippine ship was rammed by the Chinese on the same day.

These actions, combined with previous ones, sparked the Philippines to summon the Chinese ambassador. There were persistent reports in local and international media that the Philippines might expel the ambassador in reaction to the Chinese actions. That, of course, is an extreme measure usually taken as a sign of a serious break in relations, if not a prelude to war. So far, it has not happened.

The Australian ambassador to the Philippines, HK Yu, tweeted that her government had conveyed its “grave concerns” at China’s actions. In diplomatic language, that is, well, grave.

On Dec. 13, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, Jose Manuel Romualdez, told Nikkei Asia that the Chinese actions could “spark a major conflict at ‘any time.'” There has been concern for some time that the US could be drawn into war because of what is otherwise its greatest strategic advantage — its allies. The Philippines, of course, is a major treaty ally of the United States. Australia, another treaty ally of the US, recently sailed with the Philippine navy to send a message to China.

The Philippines is likely to keep pressing its friends and neighbors to perform Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) with them to deter the Chinese.

The question arises, will the Chinese be deterred? Chinese planes and ships have acted more and more brazenly in the last year, according to US military officers. When the head of the US Pacific Fleet was asked if the pilots and ship drivers were acting on their own, Adm. Samuel Paparo, told Breaking Defense that they were operating under orders and were increasingly dangerous. “I believe they’ve been directed to be more aggressive and they have followed those orders,” he said in early November. Paparo’s assessment is especially intriguing as he has been nominated to become the next head of Indo-Pacific Command.

The other major trend to watch is how Japan and Australia, which have both talked boldly about increasing their defense budgets and tightening their cooperation with each other and with the United States, actually spend on defense. Australia, of course, made the very public announcement that it would buy three to five US Virginia-class attack submarines and build its own small fleet of nuclear-powered boats.

The program between the United States, Australia and Britain to design and build the boats will be the Lucky Country’s biggest industrial and technologic venture in its history. It will require vast sums for a country of 25 million people — an estimated $365 billion dollars to buy, build, maintain and operate the boats and cope with their radioactive waste.

Australia needs to expand its Western Australian sub base to cope with the nuclear security requirements and the much larger crews required by nuclear-powered boats. It needs to train sailors, expand ship yards and otherwise prepare for the AUKUS commitment. But Australia, instead of increasing its defense spending, is actually cutting $1.5 billion AUD ($1 billion USD) from its defense budget over the next two years, not increasing it.

Now that the US Congress has passed the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which includes language to ease the sharing of highly classified technology with Australia, 2024 will be the first year when Australia could decide to spend substantially more money for AUKUS. But there are persistent rumors that Foreign Minister Penny Wong has opposed substantially more defense spending. And, while Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Defense Minister Richard Marles have repeatedly addressed the Chinese threat and voiced strong support for the AUKUS commitment, money — the thing that makes strategy real — has not been in evidence.

The other perennial threat locus in the Indo-Pacific is North Korea. The US and South Korea have been so concerned that in July they publicly displayed an Ohio-class boomer — USS Kentucky, capable of launching nuclear-tipped missiles — on the first such visit in 40 years. Nuclear missile submarines rarely surface and even more rarely publicly call in foreign ports. The north’s leader, Kim Jong Un, recently claimed to have successfully launched and deployed a spy satellite and continues to violate UN resolutions by launching ballistic and other missiles. Who knows what he’ll do in 2024?