China is Dominating the US in the Pacific
While Washington Struggles with an Unfolding Coup
Damien Cave, NYT, News Analysis piece, Why China Is Miles Ahead in a Pacific Race for Influence.
Washington DC 31 May 2022
Comment: The article above is important ‘on the ground intelligence’ reporting on the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China in the Pacific.
China is winning.
It also opens a window on the foreign policy consequences of the current trend of self destruction in US politics.
The US Secretary of State openly admitted that America is no longer relevant in the way it used to be in the Pacific. “China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it.”
China is cutting a swath through the Pacific doubling down on its initial success in the Solomon Islands. The Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is currently touring the region, from Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Timor Leste to Fiji, offering trade and finance deals in exchange for security agreements.
Not all countries have been as receptive as the Solomon Islands. David Panuelo, President of the Federated States of Micronesia, is a lone hold out. He has written to fellow Pacific leaders urging them to reject the Chinese diplomatic “smokescreen” that he believes is concealing an attempt to “acquire access and control of our region.”
“They speak of democracy and equity and freedom and justice, and compare and contrast these ideas with concepts that we, as Pacific islands, would want to align ourselves with, such as sustainable development, tackling climate change, and economic growth,” he wrote. “Where the problems arise are in the details, and the details suggest that China is seeking … to acquire access and control of our region, with the result being the fracturing of regional peace, security, and stability.”
China’s rapid advances in the region have “been made possible because of something else that’s visible and much-discussed in the Pacific: a longstanding lack of American urgency, innovation and resources.” However, the issue goes deeper than simply decades of American neglect.
China is moving fast because a unique window of opportunity has presented itself. Washington is struggling to comprehend that it is in the middle of an unfolding coup. The putschists grow stronger with each passing day they remain at large - nearly 18 months and counting. The inaction of the Department of Justice is in contradistinction to the typically swift and total response they mount for far less grave events based on much less evidence.
The coup attempt did not happen out of the blue. American politics has been in a self destruct mode for a few years now. Serious politics has collapsed and been replaced with poli-tainment. What infotainment is to news, politainment is to politics - the substitution of performance and entertainment for rigorous hard work based on universally accepted standards and an agreed fact basis. Culture war, where the object is to ‘own’ the other side primarily through cartoons on social media (memes), has completely taken over governance. Damien Cave’s article clearly articulates the impact of the slide into politainment followed by coup attempts on US foreign policy.
“The United States is missing in action beyond signs for Coca-Cola. Even Republicans and Democrats in Congress who agree that something must be done to counter China have been squabbling for 15 months over a bill to make the United States more competitive — and it still would do little, if anything, for contested places like the Pacific”.
When the Congress is ineffective, or in this case imploding, the ability of an Administration to conduct diplomacy is severely hamstrung. "To many observers, the South Pacific today reveals what American decline looks like. Even as Washington officials have tried to step up their game, they are still far behind, mistaking speeches for impact and interest for influence.”
Twenty years ago when Washington was head-down in the Middle East, China created an anti-access and area denial (A2AD) blanket from their coast to the first island chain in the South China Sea. US forces are wary of passing through this missile saturated envelope in peacetime and know that it would be certain death in war.
This defensive barrier is so effective the United States Marine Corps is currently engaged in a massive row over what to do about it. They know that as currently structured and equipped, they are not fit for purpose to be effective within the long range A2AD envelope. Well guess what! The job of the Marines just got exponentially more complicated because this new strategic push by Beijing has jumped the second island chain and extended China’s reach out to the third island chain - which includes Hawaii.
Once the small island states are locked into infrastructure development programs that traditionally come with a significant Chinese footprint (as Cave’s article so usefully illustrates), they will be powerless to resist ‘mission creep’. Air transport improvement projects will see new investments into long runways - much longer than needed for civilian passenger flights. This has already been proposed in the Solomon Islands barely concealing China’s true aims. As times progress and with the US locked out of the region, the PLA will conduct exercises and security enhancement games, requiring prepositioning of equipment and stores. Gradually, then suddenly, the sovereign states of the pacific will become just an extension of the Chinese sea forts in the South China Sea - the ones they built on reefs while telling us they would be holiday destinations.
Soon China will have a string of advanced expeditionary operating bases that extend their A2AD network right up to Indo-Pacific Command’s doorstep on Oahu. The missile systems that form the basis of the PLAs A2AD ‘porcupine’ strategy are vehicle mounted - or TELs - Transport Erector Launchers. This gives them tremendous mobility and flexibility to move the systems around - if needed without host nation knowledge. Even if the hosts find out, what is Kiribati going to do if China decides to shift a bunch of TELs onto some of its islands? Write a nasty letter to the Politburo? Invite America back in?
The sands of the pacific are slipping through America’s fingers. Washington is too preoccupied with its own troubles to truly understand or care about what is going on. Let alone come up with a plan to counter China’s strategy - that would take thought and action by Congress. Without firing a shot, in fact for penny’s on the dollar, China is making extraordinary strategic gains that will vastly expand their military reach across the Pacific. The American Gulliver is staked to the ground by its own demons, unable to move even if it wanted to.
[Editors note - Based on the debate within the USMC, a past employer, I have been in the middle of writing a comprehensive strategy for the US to work with our partners and allies to impose a US A2AD in the second island chain. The project is taking time as it soars past 12000 words. However, it appears to be too late!]