With the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit happening in Washington, DC, this week, Miles details why multilateral engagement in Asia through NATO expansion, or the establishment of a NATO-like alliance, would be an effective bulwark against the Chinese Communist Party. Second, he covers some of China’s latest acts of maritime aggression against Taiwan and the Philippines. Miles also talks about the second installment of 91ÆÞÓÑ’s conference on the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which he is hosting in Taipei.
China Insider is a weekly podcast project from 91ÆÞÓÑ Institute's China Center, hosted by Miles Yu, who provides weekly news that mainstream American outlets often miss, as well as in-depth commentary and analysis on the China challenge and the free world’s future.
Episode Transcript
This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.
Miles Yu:
Welcome to China Insider, a podcast from the 91ÆÞÓÑ Institute's China Center. I am Miles Yu, senior fellow and director of the China Center. Join me each week for our analysis of the major events concerning China, China threat and their implications to the US and beyond.
Phil Hegseth:
I am Phil Hegseth and it's Tuesday, July 9th, and we've got three topics for Miles. The first is actually about my personal commute, which has become a nightmare this week thanks to the NATO summit being held in Washington DC starting today. Miles tells us what he's got his eye on during the meeting and why an Indo-Pacific-focused NATO-type alliance should be at the forefront of people's minds. Our second topic actually illustrates why an alliance structure in the Indo-Pacific would be so valuable as China demonstrated its aggressive maritime practices by seizing a Taiwanese fishing vessel and initiating a direct physical confrontation with the Filipino armed forces that saw a Chinese boat ram a Filipino boat, which even resulted in an official US offer for assistance, which was denied by Manila. Finally, Miles’ sound quality is less than ideal this week as he's calling in from Taipei, where he's meeting with Taiwanese officials for the second installment of 91ÆÞÓÑ's Anti-Secession Law Conference. All right, miles, let's get started. How are you?
Miles Yu:
Good to see you, Phil.
Phil Hegseth:
We'll jump right in. So for our first topic, we're going to discuss traffic, actually, more specifically mine, and what's usually your commute into the city this week. It's going to be a nightmare because DC is hosting these NATO summit downtown this week. Now, NATO has been at the center of the Western World's Defense Strategy for 75 years now, countering communist and fascist threats alike. However, in today's world, the greatest threat to democratic and Western societies comes again from communism, but this time not on NATO's borders. Obviously, we're alluding to China here and Miles, you sent me a piece that you wrote in the summer of 2022 about NATO, but with a different acronym. It was NAIPTO, that's N-A-I-P-T-O, north Atlantic, Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization. Now, this alliance doesn't exist right now, but you argue that it should, and it could. So, a twofold question is here to start. What do you have your eye on this week during the summit in DC and how could an Asia-focused NATO actually come about?
Miles Yu:
Well, it will become a talk of the tongue after this show. Well, I like the confidence. That's right. Well, the United States is not only Atlantic country, it's also a Pacific country. We've been seeing that for a long, long time. That's why the summit is very important because it symbolizes actually the transition of the focus of the global strategic priorities away from Europe, away from the Middle East, and to [the] Indo-Pacific, more specifically focused on the China threat. Much like 75 years ago, Western Europe faced the central threat from the Soviet Union. NATO was created in April 1949 to face this threatening menace called the Soviet Union. Every major country in Western Europe had this problem. So, there was a common threat. So common threat was the foundation for common defense, and therefore NATO is a multilateral collective defense alliance for common defense, and this has been the most successful bilateral collective defense alliance in human history, in my view.
So, 75 years is a very short time in human history, but in terms of peace, it's a very, very long time. The 35 years of peace is a testimony to the absolute necessity to have such an alliance system. The United States obviously is a global power. It has a global alliance. Our European security is guaranteed through this North Atlantic trade organization. Asia Pacific is lacking. Yes, we have a very strong alliance in Asia. We have many allies too, but they're all exclusively bilateral in nature. That is, the United States has a very strong defense alliance with Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines. But Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea themselves were not treaty-bound. They were not part of the collective multilateral defense system. So that's where the meaning of NATO lies. That is, we're going to transform the NATO alliance into something of a global nature that is not only a European security alliance but also a global security alliance.
The reason for that is now we're facing a global threat posed by both Russia and China, the scale of which is global, not regional at all. NATO has been saying this in the last several years when American strategic focus has shifted from Europe, from the Middle East to China, and General Secretary James Stoltenberg, the outgoing chief of NATO, has been saying all along that peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, particularly places like Taiwan Strait and South China Sea should also be NATO's business. So, it is very important and significant for the 75th anniversary of Alliance [to be] celebrated in Washington DC because it is truly a global alliance, is a kumbaya for world democracies.
Phil Hegseth:
So you're not actually arguing for a separate NATO style alliance in Asia, but actually adding countries in Asia to the alliance as a buffer against China. Is there a real traction for something like this to be discussed this week?
Miles Yu:
It will be easier for native membership expansion to include Asia countries. Many countries in Asia facing the China threat are thinking about this, particularly Japan. Japan in the last couple of years has been actively, according to NATO, request a NATO, at least office first in Tokyo and NATO countries have some kind of a mechanism intelligence in sharing and in some other specific areas in terms of military connection with Japan, South Korea, and as well and the United States. Obviously. On the other hand, I don't think expansion with a membership of the NATO to include agents, countries like Japan, like Australia, like South Korea, like Philippines, even India. If inaudible] is the only way to make this happen, that is in addition to the expansion of membership to include nation, NATOS, therefore transferring the name of NATO to NAIPTO, that is a North Atlantic Indo-Pacific Treaty Organization. As we need the beginning of the show, we can also basically create entirely new different kind of system in Asia Pacific that is modeled after the NATO multilateral collective defense system.
That could be the same thing. Now, we did try the same kind of experiment in the 1950s and 60s in the form of SEATO that is Southeast Asia treat organization. It didn't work out precisely because it lacked two basically ingredients for a multilateral collective defense like NATO. Number one, you should have a common thread. Number two, you should have some kind of shared common values among the member states. Now, on both accounts, it was pretty absent because number one, not every country in Southeast Asia after World War II felt the threat of communism, which should be considered as imminent. Many countries in Southeast Asia had just emerged from European colonialism. So, there are anti-communist as well as anti-Western in a way. Number two, many of the countries in southeast Asia, there were American allies against spirit communism were active dictatorships like the Philippines, like Taiwan, like South Korea, and that's why it didn't work out very well. But now…
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah, the timing is much better.
Miles Yu:
Situation has changed dramatically because you do have a common thread. Every country in the region from South Korea to Japan, to Taiwan, to Philippines, to India, to Vietnam, to Malaysia. Virtually every neighbor of China in Southeast and Eastern and Northwest Asia feel the common threat from China. So common threat calls for common defense. Secondly, most of the countries are dictatorships in the Cold War era have become vibrant democracies, particularly Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines. So we have some kind of common values to defend for, and that's why I think the time is ripe now to form a NATO like multilateral collective defense system where attack on one member is attack on all.
Phil Hegseth:
Yeah. So you mentioned a couple specific countries there, but drilling down who would be the most likely to join, but who would be the most important to join for it to actually be effective?
Miles Yu:
Well, first of all, I think Japan and Australia are very likely to join first Japan. As a matter of fact, after Prime Minister of Kishida announced this amazing almost about face of Japanese defense posture a couple of years ago…
Phil Hegseth:
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Miles Yu:
…that abandoned Japanese defense-oriented strategy to an offense and preemptive strike capability focused on defense posture increasing Japan's defense spending up to 2% of Japan's GDP. And the first trip that the Prime Minister Kishida of Japan visited was not Washington DC [but] was Brussels, and he directly appeals to the NATO leadership for a closer tie of these two entities. NATO responded very positively. For the last several years, NATO has a traditionally invited leaders of South Korea, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand to its annual summit either in Spain and now in Washington DC. So it is a really good mutual agreement, I would say, asking the countries, I would say Australia, Japan are most likely followed by New Zealand and South Korea.
Phil Hegseth:
Okay. Are there any current countries in NATO that are pushing back on this type of expansion that are saying, Hey, we don't have any business. Having a defense pact, defense treaty in the South China Sea and expanding this to another region?
Miles Yu:
Yes, there's probably one and a half countries, but the one country that really vigorously opposed this idea is France. France can be difficult all the time. The French have had a very difficult relationship with the NATO. Remember French withdrew from NATO for a long time and the NATO headquarters used to be in Paris. Now after the French withdrew it moved to Brussels. So, the French president, Macron did not really like this idea of NATO expansion at all. He thought it was provocative unnecessarily, and he also opposed NATO's potential connection with Japan, even though it was very preliminary and very decent. But then that's the expected because they're French. The other half country is Hungary. Hungary obviously is in the pockets of China, to put it very bluntly. And NATO unfortunately requires unanimous consent for membership expansion and many other things. Again, we don't have to really expand that membership to the Asia Pacific. We just need to create some NATO-like alliance to enhance the multilateral nature of the NATO alliance in Asia. The reason we should have that is because we might provide the best deterrence against China. Chinese tactics has always been against [inaudible], the formation of any joint of free nations against China's expansion. So that's one of the things that if all also bind together to form a multilateral defense alliance, that would be a great deterrence to China.
Phil Hegseth:
One last question. I feel like there's a couple of countries on the fence there that you didn't mention is most likely India, Vietnam, the Philippines, how would they react to the establishment of something like this? Would they be likely to join, which would completely change the alliance and create a real buffer against China?
Miles Yu:
Well, obviously each country has its own unique history and has a very sort of storied interactions with the Western led alliances, India and Vietnam in particular. Again, this is not a required membership for cooperation with the US led alliance. It's a membership based on a voluntary basis. You can join or you cannot join, but definitely membership has its privileges. Many countries in Europe are not very sure about the efficacy and usefulness of NATO, but then when they feel their national security was threatened, they would abandon their pretense and they’d join NATO. The best example of late is the new membership of Sweden and Finland, these two definingly, moderate and neutral country, and they joined NATO. So that's because they felt the same kind of common thread from Russia. So I would assume the countries like Vietnam and India, they do have their independent path to the modern world, but they also face the same kind of threat as Japan and South Korea and any other countries that might become a new NATO membership in Asia.
Phil Hegseth:
Moving on to our next topic, it's in strong correlation to this one. We were actually tracking China's increased aggression last week around the South China Sea. In one incident, they seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel. They claimed was operating too close to their territory, and in another, PLA, sailors clash with Filipino armed forces causing multiple injuries. You can actually see in the video of the altercation; I mean at one point a Chinese navy speedboat speeds up and intentionally rams a boat filled with Filipino soldiers. So we've got a passive provocation with Taiwan over here and a direct physical confrontation with the Philippines in the same week. So give me some perspective here for those of us who don't track the South China Sea happenings regularly. Is this just a typical week for Chinese actions in the sea or is this an uptick? What's the significance or even strategy behind these moves?
Miles Yu:
Of course, all these provocations came from one source that China is a massive and illegal claim of maritime territories. Even there is a claim of land territories with many other land neighbors, but this is a constant problem. China has had this problem with the South Korean law enforcement, Japanese, and American law enforcement, Taiwan, and the Philippines. So in Vietnam as well, it is a pattern all based upon China's claim of this territories that are disputed by other countries. In Chinese perspective, this is actually a matter of law enforcement, but the entire claim is unlawful, and they have no jurisdiction in this area to conduct such a move. So in these two specific cases, you mentioned Taiwan. So last week a Taiwanese fishing boat accidentally entered the 12 nautical mile line by about half a mile. So the Chinese maritime police seized that vessel and then brought it back to China where the crew is still being detained, and this caused a big stir in Taiwan, and that's because this is a very rare case where Chinese actually detained Taiwan is a fishermen and escalating the tension between the already tense cross-street relationship and the confrontation with the Filipino fishing vessels were even worse. And a little while earlier, I mean a fisherman's Filipino personnel's finger was caught out by the Chinese ax, so it's a very…
Phil Hegseth:
Tight, you could see in the video they were swinging axes and….
Miles Yu:
No, it's like Malay. It's a very serious problem. Oh, yeah. Now what's interesting here is this, in a Taiwanese fisherman case, China claimed this fisherman violated the Chinese 12 nautical mile territorial water. That's actually impressive, it says China really treat Taiwan as a separate country because it has its own sovereign water demarcation with Taiwan, and nobody is exporting in this kind of a contradiction. And I think we should think about this.
Phil Hegseth:
I like that. Yeah. If they were one country, they just would've been there in their own waters, right?
Miles Yu:
That's right. Another thing is China has not really considered this kind of reciprocal consequences to the Chinese fishermen because Chinese fishermen have been known illegally fishing in other people's territories, at least in their EEZ zones for many, many years. And on a massive scale, if other countries take reciprocal actions, I think it is going to be very harmful to China's own personnel at High Sea conducting illegal moves, fishing at least. I think the best way is right now is that there should be some kind of clearly defined international maritime law enforcement mechanisms and establish some kind of rules of engagement. Much of this is because there's no such clearly defined international rules of engagement. So I think hopefully through incidents like this, the international community, particularly American authorities should really work out the issue of jurisdiction and methods of law enforcement.
Phil Hegseth:
The Asia focused NATO alliance would certainly have something to say about that if that were in effect alluding to our past topic and the US did actually offer to help the Filipino forces in the incident, but Manila turned it down. What's the context for that offer and for their refusal?
Miles Yu:
Well, the US offer is pretty serious because the US and the Philippines have a mutual defense agreement. In other words, any vessels, any Filipino assets, airplane or vehicles or personnel comes under attack by a third country US is treaty bond to defend the Filipinos against that third country US offer. But of course, the Filipino did not take it for fear of further escalation, and I think it is probably is right than to do for the Filipinos, but the Chinese should know that us were there to help. And precisely because American's posture to offer Filipino help. I think China right now actually scaled back this week to send a sort of olive branch to Manila seeking for some kind of effort to deescalate the tension in the marathon domain. That's how powerful American's interference could be for the better. Yeah,
Phil Hegseth:
The power of an American phone call.
Miles Yu:
Absolutely.
Phil Hegseth:
And to wrap us up Miles, you are actually in Taipei right now, which is the reason behind your sound quality, but you're in Taipei for the second installment for Taiwanese Antis Secession law Conference. You had the first one last month in DC. So tell us a little bit about your trip, who you're meeting and what you're looking to accomplish while you're there.
Miles Yu:
Yeah, so China adopted the law in 2005. It's called Anti-Succession law that basically presumably provides the legal framework to China to launch a military invasion of Taiwan, the free and vibrant democracy. And we had a very successful conference in 91ÆÞÓÑ in Washington DC. So this is the second installment of that conference here in Taipei, and we are coordinating with the Institute of National Defense and Security Research here in Taipei. And we had the wonderful meeting last Friday, all day meeting, and with the legal scholars from top universities in the United States, as well as the experts from Taiwan and from the I-N-D-S-R Institute. We have gained a lot of media attention and virtually the main event of that day for Taiwan is about this conference. And we also benefited from the fact that because China has ticked many of the international journalism, so you have a large press corps here in Taipei, including New York Times, Newsweek Financial Times, CNN, they all came to the conference. And we have a very robust debate about the pernicious impact of China's 2005 Anti-Succession law that again provides legal justification for China's invasion of Taiwan.
Phil Hegseth:
So what is a successful trip look like?
Miles Yu:
It looks like we discussed some of the very important questions, and we actually came to a conclusion and the conclusion is that the Chinese 2005 Anti-Succession, it was not even illegal, and it was also very badly written document. It provided no legal efficacy or justification for even its own existence. It could not pass the bar of international treaty and national law, and therefore it is not really enforceable in a way.
Phil Hegseth:
Best of luck during the rest of your trip travel. Save hope the jet lag isn't too bad, but hopefully we'll see you back here for next week. Thanks again, Miles.
Miles Yu:
Thank you very much, Phil, and looking forward to seeing you in a couple of days.
Thank you for listening to this episode of China Insider. I'd like to thank my colleague Shane Leary, for taking part in this undertaking every week. I'd also like to thank our executive producer, Philip Hegseth, who works tirelessly and professionally behind the scenes for every episode. To make sure we deliver the best quality podcast to you, the listeners, if you enjoy the show, please spread the word. For Chinese listeners. Please check our monthly review and analysis episode in Chinese. We'll see you next time.