 Welcome to Asia and Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. I show today as a naval view of the Asia Pacific. And our guest is U.S. Navy retired captain James Kimo Fanel, editor-in-chief of Red Star Rising, a new service, and government fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. Welcome to Asia and Review. Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it. Great. Well, let's see. You know, the Shangri-La Conference just concluded in Singapore, and that's a big annual event. And we want to talk a little bit about that. But for the benefit of our audience members who might not be familiar with the Shangri-La Conference, can you give them just a brief explanation? Yes. The Shangri-La Dialogue is hosted by a think tank, IISS, out of, I think, believe, London and England. But it's really hosted, co-hosted by the government of Singapore, and it brings in defense chiefs from around the Asia Pacific region to discuss items and concerns in the defense of the region. And so it's an annual event. And as you know, our Secretary of Defense was just there and gave a very interesting speech. It's got a lot of reaction from Beijing. Well, we want to talk a little bit about that, because his speech did get people's attention in Beijing. You made some pretty – what the Chinese would consider provocative comments about China. But what's your take on the speech? I think that it was a solid speech by a Secretary of Defense who doesn't have a lot of time in the region, but has shown initially right coming into the job that he was going to make Asia a top priority for himself and for the new administration. And he focused on two areas, key security challenges, and he mentioned North Korea, China, and then at the very end some comments about global terrorism. And then he talked about the U.S. strategy and approach to how we would, as a nation, address those challenges in the region. His comments about Taiwan really sort of stuck out to me, especially since I just came back after spending a year in Taiwan. And he made some pretty – took a pretty hard stand on defending Taiwan, didn't he? Yeah, he mentioned the Taiwan Relations Act and that we were kind of legally bound to follow that guidance that's placed on each administration by the Congress. And typically, at least in the last few years, our Secretary of Defense haven't articulated that in the forum, but I think his articulating that got China's ire. And so they've been sounding off today, the day after the conference closed, and many of their press publications and their foreign ministry spokesman making rather sharp comments. Beijing is not happy. No. Well, you know, now we're talking about U.S. policy in Asia, but it only seems the pull is between the Middle East and Asia. And as much as the U.S. has said, well, you know, the economies of the future and the wealth of the future is to be made in Asia, we still can't seem to extricate ourselves on the Middle East. So, maybe this is not a fair question to ask you, since you're an Asia-Pacific guy, but if one steps back and takes a look at both, what's the relative importance of the Middle East versus Asia-Pacific? Well, I think both are important. We are a two-ocean navy, a nation and navy. So we have interest, strategic interests in Europe. We have strategic interests in Asia. And Europe's strategic interests and ours in terms of access to resources, energy resources come from the Middle East. Additionally, now over the last two or three decades, we've had strategic interests as we fight global terrorism. And so there are certainly areas there that we just can't ignore and walk away from. And so the question becomes, what do you do with the resources that you have and how do you allocate them to the two different regions that are strategically important to the nation? And that's been a challenge. And predominantly over the last 30 years, you could say that we've given a lot more attention to the CENTCOM or Middle Eastern region than we have maybe to the Pacific in terms of allocation of resources. However, Secretary of Defense Mattis went through a litany of lists of resources that have been applied to the Pacific, suggesting that we are now putting more attention into the Pacific. I think this is the real question of what have we really put out here and is it really having the effect that the Secretary said that we want to have, which is to deter unilateral aggressive action and the non-peaceful resolution of disputes, which is what we see China not always doing. Interesting comment. You know, Kirk Campbell's book Pivot, I read it, I finished reading it a couple months ago. And he makes a point throughout his book that Asia is always kind of an afterthought to the U.S. It talks big on Asia, but in reality, it's sort of a secondary interest. Do you buy into that? I think as I went through the Secretary's speech and some of the things that he said, he talked about that the U.S. was in favor of a rules-based order, you know, the peaceful resolution of disputes. And he talked and said all the right things. But at the end of the speech, I was left wondering, so how do we implement these things? For instance, he referenced the July 2016 arbitration tribunal ruling on the case of the Philippines brought against China's excessive claims in the South China Sea. And he mentioned that ruling. That's a good thing. He said it was a binding ruling. Well, how is it binding under what pretext is that binding on China? How has China stopped anything that they've done in the South China Sea? And so I think we're at a critical point in time where we say the right things, but is it really having the deterrent effect that changed China's behavior? And frankly, the answer is no. I agree with you. I think it can be said that China's goal was pretty clear cut. It wants the U.S. out of Asia. It wants to rule the rules without any interference whatsoever. Would you buy into that? From a military standpoint, I think it's very clear that China wants to drive the U.S. military out of the Asia Pacific region. I don't believe they want to do it in all one-fail swoop. I think they have a plan, the salami slicing, if you will. They go after things incrementally. But their reaction, for instance, to the THAAD terminal high altitude aerial defense network or battery that was put into South Korea, their reaction and response to a defensive weapons system has been clearly over the top, not just in their rhetoric, but in the way they've treated the South Koreans. Right. I mean, not just diplomatic pushback, but there's also been economic penalties that have been placed on the South Koreans, our ally. And so China is not happy about having U.S. military presence in the region. And so they're trying to do everything they can to drive us away. That's really interesting when you're talking about South Korea, because South Korea has really put a lot of energy into developing its relationship with China, becoming very friendly and to some degree maybe upsetting a few people in Washington, too. You know, this thing can only go so far. And China has really pushed back and overreacted, perhaps. I don't know. It's going to be curious to me to see what happens. Is that going to stay, or is it going to go, or what? And then on the other hand, the Koreans always say, well, you know, you guys might pack it up and go home and leave us hanging, as I think every Asian country does at one time or another. But we have the fad there. We have all kinds of exercises with the South Koreans throughout the year. And so this is sort of, well, are you guys going to really stay or not? And so at the same time, they try to develop their relationship with China very closely. So I don't know. It's going to be really interesting to see how it evolves, I think. Well, again, I think the Secretary of Defense is a very smart person and a very studied person on world history and strategic issues. And he talks frequently about that nations that have alliances and partners usually thrive and those that don't usually wither. And so he's right. That's what history teaches us. And that's why you need to look at the long term the last 15 years and watch China try to disassemble the structure of American alliances in the post-World War II environment. Look at the relationship with Philippines. Look at what's going on in Thailand. Look at some of the issues and the stresses that are in South Korea right now. Right. Capital after capital after capital across Asia is questioning and India as well whether or not the United States is really committed and is going to back up their words with real actions. And unfortunately, they can look at, see seven new artificial islands in the South China Sea that we didn't do anything about. Right. You can see in 2012 that China gobbled up and took Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines without a, without a firing a shot in the United States set back and did nothing. Well, you know, I was going to go there a little bit later, but since you put your finger on it earlier, right now, actually, what do you think you should have done with Scarborough Shoal? When this went down in April of 2012, when the Philippine Navy ship Gregorio del Pilar, which was an ex-U.S. Coast Guard cutter, a Hamilton class, was sold to the Philippine government and refurbished by the Philippines and brought into the Philippine Navy on its first deployment in April of 2012, it was returning from the South China Sea and it was heading back to Manila and it got word that the Chinese fishing fleet was or not fishing fleet, but Chinese fishing fleet and other vessels were in and around Scarborough, which is 140 miles west of Manila. It's 400 miles from mainland China. It's clearly in the exclusive economic zone of the Republic of the Philippines. Philippines is a part or treaty partner with the United States. And when the Chinese moved in there, we, we didn't really say anything. And for five months after that happened in the middle of April, the U.S. government, neither our State Department, a Secretary of State, neither our Secretary of Defense or our President made any kind of statement publicly that said Article 5 of our Mutual Defense Treaty should be invoked because China is now usurping and taking territory from our treaty ally. And instead, the man you just mentioned, Kurt Campbell, conducted, you know, behind the door negotiations with Fu Ying, their, their foreign ministry person, and from the Philippines and came up with some kind of a tacit agreement that everybody would leave in the middle of June, June 16th, I believe, of 2012. And when that happened, the Filipinos dutifully left the shoal in a Chinese state and they have maintained sovereign control over Scarborough Shoal for over five years now. And we did not do or say anything. What could have we done? Well, from the day that they started threatening the Philippines in April, we should have deployed combatants down there and came within 12 nautical miles of that shoal. We had the coordination with the Philippine government. It could have, they could have supported it easily. And we should have put a military shoal force in there, but we didn't. And worse is we didn't say anything internationally for five months and it really destroyed America's credibility or didn't destroy it. It severely damaged our credibility amongst Asian leaders. Well, we really didn't do much either about the fortification of those islands in the South China Sea. There was a lot of talk, but no action. And is that to be blamed on the Obama administration's caution? I don't think it's the way we deal with China isn't specifically, I don't think, with a specific administration, especially given now what we've seen with the invitation to China for RIMPAC 2018. This is a 40-year issue, but since we opened up relations with China and the Carter administration, we have had successive presidents from each party basically say to China, the relationship is something that we care deeply about and we don't want it disrupted. And so we will figure out ways to rationalize, accommodate, and even appease China to ensure that we don't upset them. And we have walked slowly back on other alliances and friendships and partnerships. You can talk about Taiwan. You can talk about the Philippines. You can talk about Thailand. And you see the erosion of our alliance structure. And we put a good smiley face on it at places like Shangri-La. But we need to be honest to ourselves and have straight talk inside the U.S. government, which is to say, what are we really going to do when our allies don't trust us? Good point. I think we're going to stop here and take a break. You're watching Asia in Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. I guess today is U.S. Navy retired captain Jim Kimo Fanel. And we're talking about U.S. naval power in Asia. And we'll be right back. For Every Game Day, a sign-it designated driver. Welcome back to Asia in Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our guest today is U.S. Navy retired captain James Kimo Fanel. We've been talking about naval power in the Asia Pacific. Our guest is extremely conversant with a variety of issues, so we're really glad to have him here with us. And he came all the way from Switzerland just to join us for this show. Well, not really, but we like to say that anyway. Okay, well, just before the break, we were talking about impact. And it's always controversial, I suppose we could say, will China participate or not? And this year again, it looks like China's going to participate. What's your thoughts on that? Well, I've been a vocal proponent or a vocally opposed to China participating in a RIMPAC given their bad behavior in the region. And so it was a little bit shocking to me to see the administration invite them again without a serious dialogue when we were kind of expecting that this new administration would take a kind of a zero base review approach of some of the things that have been sacrosanct over the years. And the president started in 2012 with an invitation, although the Chinese didn't attend, they were invited in 2012, they were invited in 14 and participated and sent an intelligence collection ship to the region. I remember that, right? They also sent one in 2012 that people don't talk too much about, but there was a Chinese intelligence ship that collected on RIMPAC in 2012. And then they were invited and participated in 16. And so I kind of used the analogy of if you had a neighborhood where someone was robbing people and you knew who they were, and they were coming into people's houses and robbing in your house and robbing you on a routine basis, would you invite that same robber to your annual Easter dinner at your own home? And it appears that that's what we seem to be doing is we keep inviting China to our big Easter spread or Christmas, whatever date you want to use on it. But we keep inviting them to a party expecting that they'll stop their behavior of thievery and robbery in the region. We don't do that for real robbers. We don't do that with other countries like North Korea or Iran or other bad actors. So I'm not sure why we take this approach with China, which gets back to this 40-year-old view that's come from essentially the establishment of relations that said, keep the relationship. Don't let the relationship be abused. And so because of that belief system, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, that has overwritten, I think, some of our normal common sense and how we approach people that act poorly. Interesting. Interesting. Well, some people say that really Taiwan should be involved in RIMPAC. And of course, I think it's, I should say, totally unrealistic to expect that China would expect that, would participate if Taiwan were participating. But we do have a number of exercises sort of away from the cameras with Taiwan, don't we? We have people that visit and participate in certain exercises like the Hong Kong series in Taiwan. I've participated in those and been an observer of several Hong Kong exercises. So there is some of that. And it is not unprecedented. And we have the Taiwan Relations Act. And I think one could easily make the logical argument that if we want to have better coordination with the Taiwan military, they now have P3s. And so we all have mutual interest in understanding the maritime domain, what's going on, where our ships and submarines and aircraft in the Asia-Pacific region, and that Taiwan has maritime patrol assets now. Sharing that information seem to be a kind of a logical interoperability that we'd want to pursue and RIMPAC would seem to be a nice place to do that. That's a key word, isn't it? Interoperability. You know, the Hong Kong, I've always been quite interested in the Hong Kong. And I read a comment the other day, and I guess it was not defense news, but shepherd news, I guess it was. Right. And the person that wrote that was suggesting that Hong Kong was fairly staged. This was all show for President Tsai. It looks like you read that as well. So when you observe Hong Kong, did you get the feeling it was staged? No. I mean, there's exercises by definition are scripted. You know, there's scenario events that you want to, training events and evolutions that you want to achieve. So if you want to be able to do air defense, then you have to have air defense batteries practice certain procedures. If you want to have fighters be able to provide combat air patrol, the fighters have to do that. There's certain things that have to be scheduled in certain times of the exercise that they have to be accomplished. So that's not foreign to Taiwan. All militaries do that, including the U.S. So my view of this was a little bit different. I don't think it's, it's not on par with the U.S. in some sense. It's not maybe as freewheeling as that we are, but we're a different kind of a military, different experience and much more innovative in our approach to things and freewheeling. I think that Taiwan's, though, over the time that I've been watching them, have more and more adopted those kind of approaches. I'm sure there are certain elements in Taiwan that you could characterize as being scripted and stilted and not really war-fighting and benefiting war-fighting training and readiness. But I think the trend line of where Taiwan's going is in a positive direction. But they need assistance and help from the United States, I believe. What's troubled me a little bit about the Hanguang is a few years, they had no live fire at all. And they depended very heavily on computer simulations. And I don't know maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I sort of think the real thing is not useful. So let's talk about that. I mean, it's not just Taiwan that does computer simulation. The United States military today does more computer simulation and training than we did when I joined the Navy 30 years ago. Is that right? Oh, definitely. And I can't go into details, but I can just tell you this, that Chinese fire more live fire weapons than any other nation in the Asia-Pacific region. And probably in the world when it comes to things like ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. So they appreciate your sentiments and our experience that there's nothing like doing the real thing to be really trained and ready. Hmm, interesting. Really interesting. Well, to be talking, the town is the one-belt-one road. And some people say, well, this is China's attempt at globalization. This is China's approach to globalization. And some people will suggest it's going to have a dynamic effect on the complexion of world power. But wonder what your take is? Well, I think the initiative clearly is China said that they want to change from the Washington consensus to a Beijing consensus. They want to change the post-World War II order of international norms. In fact, the responses to the Secretary of Defense's speech mentioned the fact that the U.S. imposed this kind of order and we're going to rethink how that is done. And we are going to do it through one-belt-one road. President Xi Jinping gave a speech in Davos, Switzerland this winter in January and talked about China's commitment to globalized economy. And so, yes, what you said is they're expanding to an area of the world that hasn't previously been touched by the global community, which is South Asia and Indian subcontinent and the Middle East, and connecting those through the old Silk Roads, if you will. There are many skeptics of whether or not this will be successful, because of the money, where the money is going to come from, will the investments that China makes, the loans that they give, will they be repaid, or will they all come up short? Well, we're getting down to our last three minutes. I often wonder about one-belt-one road. This is going to go through lots of parts of Central Asia, which was part of the so-called Russian Empire. I can't imagine the Russians are too happy about this. So, on the other hand, they want to pretend as though they're buddy-buddy with China. What's your take on that? China-Russian relations right now are, you know, for the last probably decade have been on a very good, good terms, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, these annual exercises that Chinese and that the Russians have in Asia and in the Mediterranean. And so, I think, in one sense, the Chinese are using Russia to help combat against America. But at the end of the day, the Russians will be skeptics if China gets too big. And so, you know, Westphalian politics, balances of power, some would suggest that we need to just keep moving along to see if there's going to be a balancing out between China and Russia. I'm not so, I'm not so sure right now. I remember, I think it was two years ago, I had a pretty interesting discussion in Beijing with a Beijing University professor of international relations. And he was calling the Russian-Chinese relationship Biao Mian. In other words, it just exists kind of on the surface. There's no deep substance to it. And I think in the last couple of years, it's taken on some substance, but I still think it's a very shaky show. I'm just waiting for the day when China says, you know, the Russian Far East, that's really our turf. We want it back. I'm just waiting for that day. I'm just waiting to see how the Russians handle that and how that wonderful relationship is going to adjust to that. Right. That would upset the apple cart for sure. That certainly would. Well, South China Sea, this is so unfair, but the clock is not our friend, usually. And again, today, it's not. We need to talk just a bit about the South China Sea, all kinds of talk about a code of contact evolving. But unless I miss something in the U.S., it still hasn't signed the Law of the Sea Convention. And isn't it about time? I think every chief of naval operations that I can remember in my lifetime has recommended to the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman that, you know, it should be signed. So from the U.S. Navy's position, it's something that should be signed so that we don't have to take pushback from China when we're having these kinds of discussions and negotiations about international law. And the first thing that Chinese say is you haven't signed that. I'm not an attorney. I'm not a, you know, a Law of the Sea expert. So there may be issues still that some people are concerned about U.S. sovereignty. But what I would say is that the United States is a cut, you know, we practice and follow the Law of the Sea Convention and its customary law. And so we shouldn't feel embarrassed or take a back seat to China when they say we haven't signed it. We actually did sign it as a country, but it just wasn't ratified. It wasn't ratified, right? And we helped write a lot of it. So I don't think that it's something that we should, you know, obsess on. Recall, China worked a declaration of a code of conduct with ASEAN nations in 2002 and then proceeded over the next 14 years to violate every element of that convention. That's what some people say. The U.S. didn't sign the Law of the Sea, but it follows it. China signed it, but it doesn't follow it. That's it. Wow. Well, I think that about brings us down to the end of our time. Unfortunately, we could go on and on and on. We're going to have to stop here. So thank you for joining us. And thank you to our guests for sharing his views with us today. My guests next week will be Mr. Unik Wu joining us via Skype from Taiwan. He is a really strong advocate of reinstituting the draft in Taiwan. And having served in the Taiwan military and advocating the return of conscription, I'm sure you will enjoy his views. So follow me on Facebook and LinkedIn just by typing my name, Bill Sharp, and we'll see you next week.