Asia (Page 173)

Analysis suggests that Russia may be in the early stages of a new offensive in Ukraine. On the ground, Moscow’s forces have intensified their attacks along major sections of the frontline. They have made small territorial gains over the past few weeks, taking new territory or reclaiming territory liberated by Kiev’s forces during last year’s Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian troops have switched to “active defense”, according to the commander of the country’s ground forces, Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Does this imply that Ukrainian efforts to resist and ultimately defeat Russia’s aggression are in serious peril should the offensive begin? This will depend on an assessment of both Russian and Ukrainian capabilities and political will. Regarding the latter, neither side shows any signs of backing down.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was unequivocal at a forum with local government leaders on January 16 that he was unwilling to enter into any negotiations with Ukraine. Instead, he predicted “a very serious blow” to Ukrainian statehood as a result of the war.

Putin’s Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, left little doubt about his determination to continue fighting for the complete liberation of all of Ukraine’s currently Russian-occupied territories.

Men and materiel

But do Russia and Ukraine have the military capabilities to match their leaders’ rhetoric?

This is an issue of both equipment and manpower. As is obvious from the repeated and increasingly successful Russian airstrikes against a wide range of targets across Ukraine, including Kiev and the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, Russia has the arms and ammunition to continue its air campaign while Ukraine still lacks adequate air defense capabilities.

Similarly, Ukrainian ground efforts are hampered by increasingly serious ammunition shortages. Summarising several press reports, the non-profit policy organization the Institute for the Study of War reported on January 8, 2024, that Ukrainian troops “are struggling to completely compensate for artillery ammunition shortages” while their use of small drones for combat purposes was hampered by “insufficient electronic warfare capabilities.”

When it comes to manpower, both sides are struggling. In his year-end press conference, Putin ruled out any further mobilization. And, according to Vadym Skibitskyi, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Moscow can rely on a steady stream of some 30,000 volunteers a month.

As a consequence, however, the question facing the Kremlin is how the Russian economy will deal with manpower shortages as workers are diverted to the frontlines.

The planned mobilization of around 500,000 additional troops in Ukraine is also likely to be difficult and divisive for very similar reasons.

Russia has benefited enormously from Iranian and North Korean military supplies. As is obvious from the recent visit of the North Korean foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, to Moscow, these links are likely to grow and further boost Russia’s war effort against Ukraine.

Ukraine is, in many ways, even more dependent on foreign aid to sustain its defense against Russia’s aggression – yet this aid has become much more precarious.

With no clear pathway to unlocking further US military aid and uncertainty over future EU financial commitments, Ukraine has become dependent on a small number of donors, including Germany and the UK.

Ukraine’s predicament is exacerbated by the fact that its own defense sector is not yet fully on a war footing, which is partly why it has struggled to manufacture sufficient ammunition for its troops in the field.

Even if this were to change soon, including with the help of Western investment, Ukraine’s lack of strategic depth would remain an impediment. Russian drones and missiles have the reach to target military production facilities anywhere in Ukraine. Ukraine, for now, lacks the air defense systems to effectively counter such attacks.

Security guarantees

This leaves the question of deterrence as potentially the last obstacle in the path of a Russian counteroffensive that could deliver Putin’s threatened serious blow to Ukraine’s statehood.

First raised in a G7 joint declaration of support for Ukraine in July 2023, bilateral agreements between Ukraine and several of its Western allies to strengthen defense and security cooperation are now beginning to take more concrete shape.

The UK-Ukraine agreement on security cooperation was signed on January 12, 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that a similar deal between France and Ukraine will be finalized in February.

The UK-Ukraine agreement provides for “comprehensive assistance to Ukraine for the protection and the restoration of its territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.” It pledges “prevention and active deterrence of, and counter-measures against, any military escalation and/or a new aggression by the Russian Federation.” It also promises “support for Ukraine’s future integration into Euro-Atlantic institutions.”

Considered side-by-side, enthusiasm in the West for supporting a Ukrainian victory on the battlefield and for NATO membership is, at best, lukewarm.

However, if this is a model for similar deals in the future, if the US and other key NATO members reach similar agreements with Ukraine, and if these – as yet untested – commitments are followed through and don’t suffer the fate of the Budapest Memorandum (a 1994 document that Ukraine agreed to remove all of its nuclear weapons in return for recognition from Russia and others of its statehood) whose security assurances proved useless, this would indicate a clear Western determination to prevent a major Russian counteroffensive resulting in yet another illegal Russian land grab.

These are many and significant “ifs” and NATO’s goal of preventing Ukraine’s defeat is far more modest than Zelensky’s war aims. Yet, precisely because they are more modest, and therefore more credible, they could prevent a much more dangerous broader escalation between Russia and West without condemning Ukraine to a permanent defeat.

Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham and Tetyana Malyarenko is Professor of International Relations, Jean Monnet Professor of European Security, National University Odesa Law Academy

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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In a striking display of advanced military capabilities, North Korea and Iran have made significant strides in their ballistic missile programs, posing new challenges to global security dynamics.

This month, Military Watch Magazine reported that North Korea had launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) to replace the Hwasong-12, which entered service in 2017 and has the potential to strike targets across the Pacific including US military facilities on Guam.

Military Watch Magazine cites the North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) saying that the test “was aimed at verifying the gliding and maneuvering characteristics of intermediate-range hypersonic maneuverable controlled warhead and the reliability of newly developed multi-stage high-thrust solid-fuel engines.”

The report says that the missile is estimated to have a range of over 4,000 kilometers and is developed as a direct successor to the Hwasong-12, an older liquid-fueled missile design expected to be replaced by the new type in 2025.

At the same time, The Warzone reported this month that Iran had used its new Kheiber Shekan medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) for the first time in Syria’s Idlib province, marking one of three attacks carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force (IRGC-AF) in three countries over the past two days.

The Warzone notes that the Kheiber Shekan MRBM strike was likely the longest ever by an Iranian ballistic missile. The report says the type is Iran’s most advanced solid-propellant missile, with a reported range of 1,450 kilometers and a separating warhead.

Solid-fuel missiles have several advantages over liquid-fuel designs. In particular, they do not need to be fueled before launch, are more accessible and safer to operate, and require less logistical support, which increases their survivability compared to liquid-fuel systems.

Liquid-fuel systems generate more thrust and power but require more complex technology and extra weight. Solid missile fuel burns quickly, produces a large amount of thrust over a short time and can be stored without degradation for long periods.

North Korea and Iran are known to have mutually supported each other’s missile programs, swapping critical technologies in a transactional partnership made stronger by US sanctions and pressure.

In a November 2023 article for 38 North, Samuel Ramani mentions that while North Korea and Iran’s materiel assistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has generated global headlines, North Korea-Iran cooperation has continued under the radar.

Ramani says that North Korean technology transfer to Iran dates back to the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and subsequently weakened as Iran sought commercial ties with South Korea after the 2015 signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). However, he says those ties resurged after the 2018 US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement.

Asia Times reported in February 2021 that North Korea and Iran resumed cooperation in developing long-range missiles in 2020, citing a confidential UN report. The report stated that the continued collaboration included transferring critical parts, with parts shipments occurring that year.

Ramani notes that Iran’s Khorramshahr missile, first launched in 2017, resembles North Korea’s Musudan or Hwasong-10, which the latter tested in 2016.

He notes that while North Korea’s sale of R-27 rocket engines to Iran has yet to be confirmed, reports of Iran’s purchase of Hwasong-10 missiles go back to 2005. US intelligence has tracked Iran’s search for a high-performance North Korean propulsion system since 2010.

Jonathan Corrado mentions in a September 2023 article for War on the Rocks that Iran’s Shahab-3 missile could be based on North Korea’s Nodong missile and that Iran’s space launch vehicles bear similarity with North Korea’s Hwasong-14 missiles.

Given those examples, it is plausible that Iran may have developed its Kheibar Sheikan with North Korean assistance, despite Tehran’s insistence that the missile is an entirely indigenous weapon.

North Korea and Iran each have cause to advertise their progress in missile technology, ranging from weapons tests to threat signaling and showcasing their wares to potential buyers.

In a December 2023 study for the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Daniel Salisbury and Darya Dolzikova note that North Korea has long exported ballistic missile technology, making up 40% of all ballistic missile sales to developing countries from 1987 and 2009 for a total of 500 systems.

Salisbury and Dolzikova note that newly developed North Korean systems are more attractive to potential customers while phasing out older systems creates a surplus of goods and expertise for export.

They say that North Korean surplus missile technology could be tempting to clients with a limited capability to absorb new technology, constrained budgets, or systems that are inoperable or need spare parts.

However, they also point out that North Korea may choose not to export its latest missile technology including hypersonic weapons. Still, they note that North Korea’s missile collaboration with Iran has involved higher-end systems as Iran has an extensive missile manufacturing capacity and export capability.

As for Iran, Lara Jakes and David Sanger note in The New York Times this month that the use of an advanced missile such as the Kheiber Shekan in Syria when a less-advanced missile could do the same damage shows that Iran is interested in testing its missile technology in combat while also sending a warning to the US and Israel.

North Korea and Iran’s advances in missile technology may become increasingly attractive to Russia, which is known to have used North Korean missiles and Iranian drones in the ongoing Ukraine war.

This month, Asia Times reported on Russia’s use of North Korean short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) to strike Ukraine and its efforts to source Iranian missiles to replenish its depleted stockpiles.

Russia most likely used North Korean KN-23 and KN-24 SRBMs, analogous to the Russian Iskander-M and US MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS). The KN-23 notably resembles the Iskander-M and may have been designed with Russian assistance.

Iran could sell ballistic missiles to Russia but it may be holding back for multiple reasons. These include a desire to keep critical technologies confidential, maintain a missile stockpile in case of a wider Middle East conflict as well as the doubtful military value of ballistic missiles to break the stalemate in Ukraine.

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Last year was unprecedented in independent Singapore’s history. Difficulties have arisen in past years for the government, the economy, specific sections of the Singaporean populace or in terms of escalating repression, but 2023 encompassed all the above. Recovering Singapore’s reputation for clean governance will not be an easy task.

In January 2023, six executives of Keppel Corp, a government-linked company, were found by the US Department of Justice to have paid US$55 million in bribes to win contracts with Brazilian oil giant Petrobras.

When the case reached Singapore, however, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) declined prosecuting or even identifying the culprits due to “lack of evidence”, issuing “stern warnings” to the ex-Keppel executives instead.

In May 2023, two cabinet ministers fended off opposition suggestions that they had received special treatment when securing leases for luxury state-owned bungalows. It was especially awkward for Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam as the properties, which were part of his ministerial portfolio, had been leased to the ministers without undergoing a competitive tender process.

In the course of his defense, Shanmugam disclosed that he was paying a monthly rent of S$26,500 (US$19,754)— an explanation unlikely to win him much sympathy from ordinary Singaporeans living in public housing and facing a cost of living crisis.

Come July, investigations by the CPIB and former deputy prime minister Teo Chee Hean cleared both ministers of any impropriety. But by then, Singaporeans were already reading about the next scandal — the CPIB’s arrest of Minister for Transport S Iswaran, on corruption charges related to Singapore’s successful bid to host the Formula One Grand Prix.

A week after the Iswaran story broke, the Speaker of Parliament and former prime ministerial aspirant Tan Chuan-Jin resigned over an extra-marital affair with another government MP, Cheng Li Hui, who also resigned.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong admitted that he had known about the affair for years, but he did not seem overly concerned until early 2023, by which time Tan had become a liability for different reasons. Prime Minister Lee then allowed Tan to remain in parliament as Speaker for months after he had accepted his resignation.

On the same day that Tan’s affair was made public, years-old vision filmed with a hidden camera in a restaurant was anonymously posted on social media, showing an adulterous couple from the opposition Workers’ Party (though only one an MP) holding hands. This prompted some commentators to claim a degree of comparability with the Tan Chuan-Jin story without questioning the source or timeliness of the revelations.

A multi-billion-dollar money laundering case broke in mid-August, resulting in the arrest of ten young China-born millionaires who had built their fortunes on gambling and online fraud.

They had blended quietly into the background by living like other millionaires, including holding membership of the prestigious Sentosa Golf Club and Singapore Island Country Club — both of which have been favored by members of the political establishment for many decades.

It could be difficult for Singapore’s international reputation to recover from these scandals, but the government is doing its best to block domestic access to critical analysis of these scandals through legislation such as the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act.

Yet another plank of the legislative framework of domestic censorship was enacted in December 2023 – FICA, the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act. The government’s reflexive response to crises has thus increasingly been to silence and intimidate critics, whether it be opposition leaders who investigate government ministers, critical commentators or those engaged in more personal attacks.

This marked the first year since 1996 that an investigation into corruption, or even impropriety, has impacted a cabinet minister. 

In 1996, then-prime minister Goh Chok Tong and then-finance minister Richard Hu personally investigated and cleared senior minister Lee Kuan Yew and deputy prime minister Lee Hsien Loong of any wrongdoing when they each accepted million-dollar discounts on a condominium development from a property developer. The same property developer was recently questioned by CPIB as part of the 2023 Iswaran investigation.

The Singaporean government would undoubtedly prefer to forget 2023. Still, it ended the year with news of generational leadership change, smoothing the way to the next general election which is scheduled for late 2025.

Former deputy prime minister Shanmugaratnam was elected president with 70% of the national vote after a popular alternative candidate was ruled ineligible. Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong subsequently indicated he will hand over to his designated successor, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, sometime in 2024 “if all goes well.”

The government also announced a series of ultra-cautious welfare and housing measures aimed at helping the working poor, older Singaporeans and those who own flats of diminishing value in old housing estates.

It remains to be seen if these micro-reforms will be sufficient for the People’s Action Party to retain its current votes and seats in the upcoming general election. It is certainly an inauspicious time for a new leader to take over.

Not that Wong will be alone — he will undoubtedly be aided by Lee Hsien Loong as senior minister, and perhaps Shanmugam as deputy prime minister.

Michael Barr is Associate Professor of International Relations at Flinders University. He is author of ‘The ruling elite of Singapore: networks of power and influence’ and ‘Constructing Singapore: Elitism, Ethnicity and the Nation-Building Project.’

This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license. It is part of an EAF special feature series on 2023 in review and the year ahead.

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Chinese officials tout “Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy” as “epoch-making” and praise the “great insight” of Xi’s “Global Security Initiative.” When it comes to Taiwan, however, Xi appears stuck with a misguided and failing policy as underscored by the results of the island’s January 13 elections. 

China’s policy holds that Taiwan must subordinate itself to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government in Beijing, handing over control of its foreign relations. Until this happens, the PRC will inflict pain through military pressure, economic coercion and restriction of Taiwan’s international privileges.

In the latest example, Nauru announced on January 15 that it would sever diplomatic relations with Taipei and recognize Beijing. The PRC presumably engineered the switch as a reaction to Taiwan’s voters selecting the presidential candidate least preferred by Beijing.

If it determines that voluntary unification has become impossible, China will go to war to forcibly annex Taiwan. PRC officials continue to say they will implement in Taiwan the same “one country, two systems” principle under which Hong Kong authorities are now imprisoning peaceful protestors, including some who merely stood outside holding blank pieces of paper.

Apparently thinking it would sweeten the deal, China’s ambassador to France said in 2022 that, after unification, China would carry out “re-education” in Taiwan. This “choose me or I’ll kill you” approach had a predictable counterproductive influence on Taiwan’s elections.

There was considerable unhappiness in Taiwan with the relatively anti-China Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The opposition accused the DPP leadership of corruption and suppression of dissent. Young adults are disillusioned with the government’s failure to make housing more affordable. The supply of electricity has become unreliable because of the DPP’s controversial aversion to nuclear power.

Many Taiwan citizens strongly support the principle that no one political party should monopolize governance, and the DPP has held the presidency for the last eight years.

Despite these headwinds, current Vice President Lai Ching-te, the DPP candidate, won the presidential election, largely on the strength of the DPP’s anti-China stance.

Both the PRC government and Taiwan’s other large political party, the Kuomintang (KMT), argued that voting for Lai and the DPP was tantamount to voting for war. But Lai’s victory indicates this argument did not sufficiently persuade Taiwan’s voters that drawing closer to China would increase their security.

Surveys of public opinion on Taiwan show overwhelming, and increasing, support for two ideas:

• First, most of Taiwan’s people identify as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese.” They see themselves as a distinct nationality with a different political culture from that of mainland Chinese.
• Second, they want the status quo of a de facto but not de jure independent Taiwan to continue indefinitely. Beijing exercises no authority over Taiwan, but Taiwan continues to honor the Republic of China constitution, which stipulates links to mainland China.

The KMT proposed seeking peace with China through dialogue, economic integration and affirming that Taiwan is a part of China.

Lai and the DPP maintained that closer economic links with China would endanger Taiwan’s autonomy and put at risk its civil liberties. Instead, they called for economic diversification away from China, more robust military defenses, and closer relationships with the United States and other democracies to protect Taiwan from takeover by the PRC.

The presidential election result suggests Taiwan’s people believe that the political costs of further economic entanglement with China are outweighing the financial benefits. They also appear willing to endure continued cross-Strait tensions as the price of maintaining their identity and freedoms.

These outcomes are the exact opposite of what Beijing wishes its policy would achieve.

Framing the issue

The foundation of policy-making is rhetorical construction – how political elites frame an issue. Inevitably, any framing includes certain assumptions.

Erroneous assumptions lead to bad policy. There are many historical examples.

Japan wrongly assumed in 1941 that America was such a decadent and flaccid society that a sudden and successful strike against US military power in the Pacific would cause Washington to accede to a Japanese sphere of influence in the Asia-Pacific region.

Instead, the US immediately committed itself to fighting a war to roll back the Japanese empire and uproot Japan’s government and political system.

During the Cold War, the US military attempted to prevent the Vietminh from taking over South Vietnam based on fears that a shared communist ideology would make Vietnam a puppet of China and that the communization of Vietnam would lead to the same result in Thailand and Japan.

Today, however, Thailand and Japan remain US allies, and the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam government seeks US assistance to resist Chinese domination.

China’s current policy toward Taiwan is based on three questionable assumptions.

First, Xi has specifically said the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” defined as Chinese achieving a high material standard of living and acquiring sufficient military power to protect the country from molestation by foreigners (the old idea of “rich country, strong army”), cannot be complete without China’s “reunification” with Taiwan.

This is untrue. Taiwan’s being de facto independent has not prevented the standard of living of mainland Chinese from rising dramatically in recent decades.  Nor has an autonomous Taiwan interfered with the PRC bulking up militarily to the point where no country wants to fight China.  The argument works only as a syllogism: not controlling Taiwan is a threat to China’s security if Taiwan is defined as Chinese territory.

In a second flawed assumption, Xi and other PRC officials say the problem is not “Taiwan compatriots,” but rather “outside forces and the few separatists.” Blaming foreign agitation for political unrest is a common theme in official PRC commentaries about Xinjiang and Hong Kong, and Beijing applies it to Taiwan, also.

But this narrative seems willfully ignorant of the public opinion surveys in Taiwan indicating that strong and rising majorities do not self-identify as “Chinese” and never want Taiwan to politically unify with China.

Finally, the official PRC position, summarized in a 2022 Chinese government white paper, asserts as an “indisputable fact” that “Taiwan has belonged to China since ancient times.”  This “fact,” however, is quite disputable.

Taiwan’s indigenous inhabitants are not ethnically Chinese. In pre-modern times, Chinese governments saw Taiwan as barbarian territory and as a haven for pirates and political dissidents. The rulers in Beijing wished Taiwan didn’t exist. Spain and Holland controlled parts of the island in the 1600s. China’s Qing Dynasty government annexed Taiwan in 1684 mainly to prevent its use as a rebel base.

Taiwan was a Japanese colony for the 50 years prior to the end of World War II.  Mao Zedong himself supported independence for Taiwan while it was under Japanese occupation, changing his position only after the rival KMT government claimed sovereignty over Taiwan during the 1943 Cairo Conference.

With the KMT’s defeat in the Chinese Civil War and expulsion from the mainland, Taiwan became the seat of the Republic of China government. The CCP regime has never ruled Taiwan.

The most objectionable part of Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan is that it disregards the principle of self-determination. The vast majority of Taiwan’s people don’t want to be PRC subjects. Asserting a right to seize a country against the will of its inhabitants seems an anachronism in the 21^st century.

Xi inherited what has become a disastrous rhetorical framework – not only misconceived but continuously and widely reiterated through the Chinese education system and media. Today it entraps the CCP leaders. 

They have, in effect, proclaimed that they are not worthy to rule if they “lose” Taiwan. According to a Taiwan media report, when Xi met with KMT leader Hung Hsiu-chu in 2016, he expressed the fear that “the Communist Party would be overthrown by the people” if his government failed to stop Taiwan from becoming formally independent.

The PRC’s current approach to Taiwan not only deepens the conviction of Taiwan’s people that they never wish to be ruled from Beijing; it also potentially obligates Chinese leaders to start a war even if they do not believe they can win.

As formidable as the Chinese armed forces have become in recent years, it is far from certain the PRC would win a cross-Strait war against probable US and very likely Japanese intervention.

Credible simulations run by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in 2022 found that both US and Chinese forces would suffer heavy losses; China would devastate – but fail to conquer – Taiwan; and the CCP would be in danger of ouster at home.

How to escape the trap

Both inside China and externally, the PRC leadership could and should begin to dismantle its rhetorical construct of the China-Taiwan relationship.

If it should wish to do so, the Chinese government could aim for something akin to the relationships between other pairs of states with large communities that share culture and ethnicity, such as the United States and Canada, Australia and New Zealand or China and Singapore.

Substantively, a new narrative could discontinue China’s claim to owning Taiwan. Instead, it could emphasize points such as these:

• China recognizes that current political and legal arrangements are the result of historical events and will take a long time to settle.
• Regardless of these circumstances, much of the population of Taiwan is unalterably “Chinese” by way of ancestry and culture.
• China therefore supports and celebrates Taiwan’s successes as Chinese civilizational success.
• China welcomes additional cooperation with Taiwan, and confidently looks forward to demonstrating to Taiwan the benefits of closer integration. 

This would flip the game to China’s advantage, with positive spillover effects in China’s relationships with the US and other countries.

Alas, Xi seems either unwilling or unable to escape from the trap his party manufactured.

Reports in early 2023 said Xi had assigned CCP ideologue Wang Huning to formulate a new principle for China’s Taiwan policy to replace “one country, two systems.” A year later, Beijing has not announced even a superficial change in a Taiwan policy that serves the PRC so badly.

Denny Roy is a senior fellow at the East-West Center, Honolulu.

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