The US Navy and the Australian Air Force have recently been at pains to proclaim certain activities in the South China Sea as pursuant to their right to international freedom of navigation. This new twist on familiar activities stems from China’s spectacular creation of seven new islands in this enclosed sea. The new islands undoubtedly symbolise China’s claim to exclusive privileges in this area, but they also invite a question: when was China’s Politburo persuaded that they needed a shock-and-awe event in the South China Sea to secure a positive outcome, that is, to finally suppress resistance to China’s ‘historical’ claim to the greater part of this sea?

The features in the South China Sea—predominantly located in two clusters called the Paracel Islands in the north and the Spratly Islands in the southeast—are too insignificant to have ever naturally attracted permanent inhabitants. Indeed, most of them are below water, permanently or at high tide. As such, they’ve been of keen interest to fishermen and other mariners, especially from littoral communities, as hazards to avoid or take advantage of as circumstances required. China contends that the first of its imperial dynasties—the Han dynasty, roughly 2BC–2AD—took note of those features and that a mindset of ownership toward the South China Sea emerged over the centuries. In other words, China progressively concluded (or confirmed) that its right to or need for ownership of those features (and/or the sea space they inhabited) surpassed that of the other littoral communities. That sounds like a rather precious posture, even from our present vantage point, although no evidence survives from those ancient times that China imposed its claim in a manner that made other communities aware that such a claim existed.

The years haven’t been kind: the claim looks no more natural or understandable now than it would have two millennia ago. Today, China’s claim is expressed as a dashed line that made its debut in the late 1930s, slipped into circulation by the then Nationalist government. China had at last stepped away from the imperial system in 1911 but its first ‘modern’ government soon found itself in a civil war with the newly-established Chinese Communist Party, to which the Japanese invasion, starting in 1937, was added. This dashed line envelopes some 90% of the South China Sea and now takes away most of the exclusive economic zones granted to the other littoral states under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The status of the features within the sea in contemporary legal terms is rather obscure, and the relevance of an imperial attitude toward this body of water by the most distant of the littoral states is, at the very least, contestable.

The People’s Republic of China has nonetheless progressively intensified its campaign to secure acceptance of its claim. It has alternated between phases of inducement and coercion as well as signalling, as it became wealthier, that its capacity to bring pressure to bear was, for all practical purposes, destined to become unlimited. Beijing has had ample opportunity—even since the end of the Cold War focussed more attention on those ‘regional’ issues—to assess the costs and risks of its policy settings on the South China Sea. We can infer that, for some considerable time, the occasional policy review concluded that the established instruments of policy implementation—both carrots and sticks, all of which were growing in weight and effectiveness—could be expected to suppress opposition to China’s objectives at an acceptable cost and in an acceptable timeframe.

It seems, however, that something happened that shattered political confidence in getting that timely and cost-effective outcome. Something persuaded the Politburo that the parameters of the issue needed a profound shake-up to accelerate progress toward the desired outcome. The Politburo was attracted to a spectacular blizzard of island building as the transformative development. Planning was conducted in complete secrecy. One can assume that the Politburo had to decide what island-building program was neither too small nor too big to achieve its psychological, political and security objectives, and how quickly it had to be put in place to preclude countervailing action. It would also have had to choose which features to transform into islands; decisions that would have been informed by the feasibility of transforming particular features, prospective economic rewards, military considerations stemming from the location of features occupied by other claimants and the full scope of the rights and privileges within its dashed line that China intends, eventually, to claim (but which it has steadfastly declined to elaborate on thus far).

Not long before this development, and possibly even coincident with it, the more strategically-minded within the Party leadership might have lamented that China was now so strongly associated with that claim, had committed so much political capital to it, that failure was no longer an option. It might now be clearer that China’s proximity and the sheer weight of its activities in and around the South China Sea would have delivered de facto ‘ownership’ but it was too late for this: China had at that point no choice but to press its expansive claim and make it stick.

The island-building program ramped up quickly from August 2014 and was declared complete in June 2015. The apparent objective of a political ambush was achieved. Secrecy about the Politburo decision, and preparations to implement that decision, was absolute. No one in the CCP, the legal profession, the media or the National People’s Congress breathed a word, not even to pose a question about the political wisdom, legality or cost of what the Politburo had in mind. That’s just as well, of course. If other states knew, or came to know, what the time-line for Beijing’s decisions on the program had been and then compared it with what China had been saying and doing diplomatically at the same time, the fallout could be rather damaging.

Still, the issue is poisoning the region’s political and security outlook. Not so long ago, it seemed that the majority view among analysts was that the South China Sea was essentially a peripheral issue and that, as this sank in within the ranks of regional governments, the dispute would cool. Now the pendulum is swinging the other way, with analysts thinking they may have missed something, and finding ways of visualising the South China Sea as something closer to the fulcrum of the world in the 21st century. It’s doubtful whether either posture is helpful. But it’s becoming rather urgent that the region’s leaders determine the probable direction of a solution and begin to align the politics of the issue accordingly.

China hosted the second World Internet Conference (WIC) in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province this week with President Xi Jinping delivering a keynote address at the opening ceremony. He called for international respect of ‘cyber sovereignty’, which is the right of individual countries to determine the information available within their borders. Simultaneously, Xi warned against ‘cyber hegemony’, arguing that the governance of cyberspace shouldn’t lie in the hands of the powerful few, but rather all stakeholders. The conference also produced the Wuzhen Initiative, a series of five principles addressing development, diversity, security and governance in cyberspace. The speech has also been interpreted by some news outlets as a sign that Xi is ‘doubling down’ on cyber control. For a rundown of the main themes, check out Adam Segal’s interesting synopsis. Also, read Scott Malcomson’s piece on how the conference represents another step towards the fragmentation of cyber governance and the so-called ‘Splinternet’.

The encryption debate continues. To date, discussion has been divided between authorities who argue encryption backdoors are essential to the law enforcement effort and tech companies who maintain that encryption is important to security and customer privacy. But this week, arguments may be tilting in favour of the security-minded. Recent reports from investigators in Paris affirm that the recent terrorist attacks involved the use of encrypted communication apps. Investigators believe that the terrorists may have exploited the end-to-end encryption of Whatsapp and Telegram, to coordinate their efforts on 13 November. Blackberry called this week for a fair balance to be struck between privacy and security, criticising Apple for not helping authorities access encrypted information that was the subject of a criminal enquiry. The company’s CEO and Chairman asserted that Blackberry’s ‘privacy commitment does not extend to criminals’ and as such they ‘reject the notion that tech companies should refuse reasonable, lawful access requests’.

A new WIRED analysis by Mike Gault has a refreshing take on the encryption discussion, arguing that there’s much more to information security than confidentiality and perimeter protection. Gault reminds readers that cybersecurity is constituted by three principles: the ‘confidentiality, availability and integrity’ of data, known as the ‘CIA Triad’. He criticises the current disproportionate focus on confidentiality and argues that the compromise of a data’s integrity is in fact ‘the biggest threat’.

In less positive news, Turkey fell victim to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack this week. More than 400,000 websites were flooded with information, crippling systems and putting pages offline. Unsubstantiated rumours began to circulate that this was a Russian retaliation to the downing of a Russian fighter jet by Turkey last month. However, responsibility has recently been claimed by global hacktivist group, Anonymous, who state the attack is part of their ongoing #OpISIS. The group accuses Turkey of aiding ISIS by buying its oil and hospitalising its fighters, and argues this recent attack is Turkey’s punishment for its alleged support of the terrorist group. The assault involved a network of malicious computers simultaneously overwhelming websites with online traffic, targeting official domain names registered by NIC.tr—the administration office in the Turkish capital, Ankara. The incident affected universities, government institutions and the military, causing all incoming traffic, including emails, to be shut down by Turkey’s National Response Centre for Cyber Events.

And finally, as the year draws to a close, it’s time to consider the main cyber lessons from 2015 and a couple of big predictions for 2016. Main takeaways include the vulnerability of the Internet of Things and healthcare systems, as well as issues of third party security and insider threats. Looking ahead, check out some cybersecurity predictions for 2016 here, here and here. This Forbes article presents a variety of research on the future of cybersecurity, notably predicting that the industry will jump from its current worth of US$75 billion to US$170 billion by 2020. So, it looks like we’ll have plenty to talk about next year, happy holidays!

In his recent post on Australian policy towards acquisition of nuclear weapons, Rod Lyon responds to a thesis promoted by Christine Leah and Crispin Rovere that Australia should acquire its own independent nuclear deterrent capability. Their argument has generated strong counter-responses, here and here. Certainly a nuclear option for the ADF seems far-fetched given Australia strongly supports non-proliferation norms. However, Rod Lyon’s analysis suggests a ‘dark future’ scenario of the erosion of credibility of US Extended Nuclear Deterrence security guarantees, together with a decline in strategic weight for the US in Asia relative to rising revisionist powers that actively challenge its strategic primacy. The scenario implies a worsening strategic outlook where Australia can’t be certain the circumstances that allow its traditional non-nuclear posture would remain in place; it forces us to consider the unpalatable. What happens if things go wrong in our region? Setting nuclear weapons aside, what defence capability options beyond those currently planned for Force 2035 should Australian defence planners consider in this particular future?

In Lyon’s dark future scenario, Australian defence planners could confront a major rising power like China, who would seek to use coercion at a level below the nuclear threshold as part of a broader strategic competition with the US. However, it seems too farfetched to suggest, as Leah and Rovere do, that China would break nuclear taboos on non-use needlessly when more credible non-nuclear options were available. While China normally would coerce using its strategic weight and ‘grey zone’ activities, if China were emboldened in the face of a decline in US strategic influence, one option would be to exploit its strike warfare capability based around long-range conventionally-armed ballistic and land-attack cruise missiles to threaten Australian interests. Certainly Australia couldn’t depend on a US nuclear response to a Chinese non-nuclear attack that was limited in scope but which had strategic effect, and neither would Leah and Rovere’s proposed Australian nuclear option be a credible response to Chinese non-nuclear coercion. A logical and more usable riposte to Chinese long-range conventional ballistic and cruise missile forces would be to consider acquiring a BMD capability that could initially be deployed on the RAN’s Hobart-class Air Warfare Destroyers, and then extended ashore if needed.

There are however some clear challenges. Chinese development of hypersonic glide vehicles and deployment of longer range (and thus higher speed) DF-26 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, suggests that a classic offense versus defence race is underway.  Andrew Davies and Rod Lyon have analysed the risks and opportunities of BMD and note that opportunities to counter short, medium and possibly intermediate-range systems are improving They are cautious of investing too soon in a sea-based BMD capability, but suggest continued investment in BMD research and development such that Australia is well placed to adopt them in the future, if needed.

The political cost of launching conventional ballistic missile attacks is low in comparison to stepping over the nuclear threshold, and missile threat developments argue for greater investment into BMD to counter the strategic coercion potential of Chinese strike warfare. Developing an Australian BMD capability that can ‘plug and play’ with similar US systems, as well as Japanese and potentially South Korean BMD systems, strengthens the self-reliance foundation of Australian defence strategy, and contributes towards strengthening vital alliance and strategic partner relationships. It sends a strong message of resolve to a rising China, reinforces deterrence by denial, and offers a degree of insurance against what Davies and Lyon refer to as the ‘cheap shot’ threat of a single missile that could be launched by a regional rogue such as North Korea. In spite of the challenges, a BMD capability for the ADF is worth pursuing sooner rather than later.

In addition to coercive use of ballistic missiles, the challenge posed by Chinese land-attack cruise missile (LACM) capabilities based on submarines, naval surface combatants and long-strike strike aircraft must also be considered. China’s DH-10 LACM has a range greater than 1,500km, and the CJ-20 has a range of 2,200km. Those could easily be directed against Australia’s vital oil and gas infrastructure along the north-west coast. In meeting this potential threat, the ADF will be depending on the F-35 JSF, supported by KC-30A tankers and E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft. Given the range of LACMs, the F-35’s which has an unrefuelled combat radius of 590 nautical miles (1,092 km)must be refuelled from KC-30A tankers to enable the aircraft to counter a LACM threat as soon as possible. The role of RAAF E-7 Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft would be to fly forward to detect cruise missiles in flight at the earliest possible opportunity, a task for which the Wedgetail is well suited, but which would leave both the Wedgetail and the KC-30A tanker more exposed to long-range air-to-air missile threats. They must therefore be escorted, and the logistical complexity of a counter-LACM operation rises considerably. Alternatively, Carlo Kopp argues for a multi-layered approach that seeks to prevent the launching of cruise missiles in the first place—shooting the archer before he releases his arrow. Such an approach would see joint expeditionary operations to prevent an opponent projecting power against Australia. However terminal defences could also be considered as part of such a solution that would be effective against both ballistic and cruise missile as well as air threats. Recent analysis of ADF land capability notes a significant capability shortfall in modern ground-based air defences. Although the analysis suggests a long-range wide area defence system such as Patriot is beyond realistic budget aspirations, in countering LACMs that assessment may need revision.

The twin challenge of ballistic and land-attack cruise missile threats highlights the importance of Australia ensuring its networked C4ISR systems are resilient in the face of adversary threat, and preferably able to deny a knowledge edge to an adversary. Therefore countering the ballistic and cruise missile threat may demand complementary investment in counter-information warfare capabilities, as well as a counterforce potential against China’s ability to project naval or air power against Australia’s maritime and air approaches. These will be considered in the second part to follow.

Prospective Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson made the claim during the GOP primary on 13 November that with respect to the Syrian crisis Americans ‘must recognise that it’s a very complex place. You know, the Chinese are there, as well as the Russians, and you have all kinds of factions there’.

The Obama administration has ridiculed the claim with the President dismissively attributing it to the fact that Carson ‘doesn’t know much about it [Syria],’ while a White House spokesperson suggested that ‘China has a history of staying out of conflicts in the Middle East’.

The administration was right to dismiss Carson’s claim as erroneous. However it nonetheless underlines increasingly evident frustration in the West that China, while claiming the rights and status of a great power, hasn’t assumed the responsibilities of one.

According to some, no state has benefitted more from the US’ misadventures in the Middle East and Central Asia than China. Those military commitments, and the ‘war on terrorism’ associated with them, have distracted two successive US presidents from constructing consistent and coherent responses to China’s accrual of increasing military and diplomatic capabilities in Asia. To rub salt into US wounds Beijing has been the consummate ‘free rider’ in both Iraq and Afghanistan, utilising the American (and NATO in the case of the latter) provision of security to invest heavily in those countries oil and resources sector while steadfastly refusing entreaties for Chinese engagement in the stabilisation of them. This sentiment has also been expressed by President Obama, much to the displeasure of Beijing.

China’s approach to both of the US’ wars in Syria and Afghanistan however reflects Beijing’s anxieties about both its own position in international affairs and the security situation in Xinjiang.

David Shambaugh has eloquently argued that China remains a ‘partial power’ whose international diplomacy ‘often makes it known what it is against, but rarely what it is for’. This makes China’s foreign policy in many regions of the world ‘hesitant, risk averse and narrowly self-interested’.

This characterisation accurately describes China’s approach to the Syrian crisis and Afghanistan to date.

In Syria, China’s insistence on the principle of ‘non-intervention’ and its exhortations that only a ‘political settlement’ can resolve it don’t stem from any deep relations with the Assad regime. Unlike Russia, Beijing has limited economic and military ties to Damascus. Rather, Beijing’s opposition to the US-led efforts regarding Syria is linked to its desire to protect its reputation both at home and abroad. Key here is Beijing’s experience during the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in Libya where its abstention from UN Security Council Resolution 1973 paved the way for NATO military intervention. Internationally, that raised questions about the sanctity of Beijing’s principle of ‘non-interference’ upon which it had built much of its diplomatic successes since the end of the Cold War. Domestically, it suggested that the rulers in Zhongnanhai had compromised core principles and acquiesced too quickly to Western pressure.

China’s approach to Afghanistan has also be similarly cautious. To date it has been focused on achieving political reconciliation between Kabul and the Taliban—what it terms an ‘Afghan-led and Afghan-owned’ peace process—and fostering economic development. A key element of Beijing’s strategy to encourage the former has been based on the assumption that it can leverage its ‘all weather’ friendship with Pakistan to compel the Taliban to the negotiating table and assist it in clamping down on a small number of Uyghur militants operating along the Af–Pak frontier.

With respect to the latter, Afghanistan has emerged as a key link in the ‘Silk Road Economic Belt’ (SREB) facet of President Xi Xinping’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) strategy. The SREB’s focus on the development of trans-regional infrastructure links and investment across Central Eurasia including the planned $46 billion ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’ (CEPC)—linking Kashgar in Xinjiang’s south-west with the largely Chinese built deep-water port of Gwadar on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast—and the Anyak copper mine in Afghanistan’s Logar province, the OBOR looks set to give China a greater stake in the future security and prosperity of Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Those approaches would now appear to be of diminishing utility due to a number of developments that are bringing the threat of ISIS, and radical Islamism more broadly, home to Beijing.

First, on 10 September ISIS published an ‘advertisement’ in its online magazine Dabiq featuring Norwegian and Chinese hostages, Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad and Fan Jinghui, which it claimed were being ransomed in a ‘limited time offer’. ISIS subsequently claimed on 18 November that both men had been ‘executed after being abandoned by kafir nations and organisations’, a claim verified by both men’s respective governments. President Xi, condemning the murders as ‘ruthless’ attacks on the ‘baseline of human civilization’, has vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice.

This follows Chinese claims of ISIS’ active recruitment of Uyghurs from its restive province of Xinjiang to fight in Syria and Iraq and reports of the deaths of 28 Uyghur ‘terrorists’ in southern Xinjiang after a 56 day ‘manhunt’.

Second, reports of ISIS inroads among some sections of the Taliban looks set to make China’s preferred option of a negotiated political settlement to conflict there anytime soon unlikely. Additionally, the fact that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), one of Central Asia’s most resilient jihadist groups, has also reportedly switched its allegiance from the Taliban to ISIS will also be of major concern for Beijing given that the IMU has in the past hosted Uyghur militants in camps along the Af–Pak frontier.

The question now remains as to how Beijing will choose to respond now that the threat of ISIS has begun to impinge on its direct national interests in Xinjiang, Central Asia and the Middle East. Will it modify its ‘non-intervention’ principle in the interests of combatting ISIS? Or will it simply seek, as it has in the past, to leverage international concern with radical Islamism to enhance the legitimacy of its hard-line in Xinjiang?

My Strategist post on Monday has stimulated considerable interest from readers in respect of the claimed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) connections with Landbridge. To provide further information and allow people to make their own assessments of the connections, I present below an English translation of a page from the Landbridge Group’s Chinese-language website:

The Formal Establishment of the Landbridge Group’s Armed Militia

On the morning of 8 August 2014, a meeting to formally establish the Armed Militia of the Landbridge Group was solemnly convened in the Landbridge Group’s Meeting Room 101.

Gao Yong, the political commissar of the Rizhao Military Sub-District; and Wang Hao, the chief of staff of the same military sub-district; Gai Weixing, the CPC party secretary of the Lanshan District; Wang Jijun the deputy head of the Lanshan district; Liu Yusong, the political commissar of the Lanshan District People’s Armed Militia; Zhang Fengrun, the commander of the militia; Ye Cheng, the chairman of the Landbridge Group; and He Zhaoqing, the party secretary of the Landbridge Group’s CPC Committee all attended this meeting.

In addition, related service personnel from the Rizhao Military Sub-District and the Lanshan District People’s Armed Militia, personnel from the Landbridge Group Armed Militia, personnel from the people’s militia emergency response squad and some staff members from the Landbridge Group also participated in the meeting.

The meeting was chaired by Colonel Liu Yusong, political commissar of the Lanshan District People’s Armed Militia. During the meeting Colonel Zhang Fengrun, commander of the Lanshan District’s People’s Armed Militia publicly read the “Official Reply on the Establishment of an Armed Militia in the Landbridge Corporation” and “Orders on the Appointment of He Zhaoqing and Others”. Gao Yong, the political commissar of the Rizhao Military Sub-District; and Gai Weixing, the CPC party secretary of the Lanshan District unveiled the signboard for the Landbridge Group’s Armed Militia.

After the meeting, the Landbridge Group’s chairman Ye Cheng and the Group’s party secretary He Zhaoqing accompanied Gao Yong, the political commissar of the Rizhao Military Sub-District; Wang Hao, the chief of staff of the same military sub-district, Gai Weixing, the CPC party secretary of the Lanshan District, Wang Jijun the deputy head of the Lanshan district and other leaders on a tour of the Group’s facilities.

The Landbridge Group, as a large-scale civilian enterprise has, through 20 years of unstinting effort, established its four major commercial planks of petrochemicals, port logistics, real estate and tourism and international trade. Its assets total close to 17 billion yuan renminbi. Throughout, the Landbridge Group has firmly upheld the ideal of “A strong enterprise does not forget to repay the country, while a prosperous enterprise does not forget national defence.” It has actively supported the army through culture and supported the army through science and technology. It has resolved difficulties and served as a logistic backup for military units engaged in maritime training, and for the military units based in Rizhao. The Landbridge Group has been assigned the appellation of a double model for “Loving Lanshan and Putting Efforts into Strengthening the Military”. In 2013, the Landbridge Group chairman Comrade Ye Cheng was cited by the Provincial CPC Committee and the Provincial Government as one of the 10 outstanding individuals of Shandong province who have concerned themselves with national defence construction.

The establishment of the Landbridge Group’s Armed Militia manifests the true melding of a strong enterprise and an active armed militia under the Landbridge Group. It also injects new blood into the national defence project of Rizhao City and Lanshan District.