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Over recent years, the Asia–Pacific maritime security environment has become increasingly complex. Transnational serious and organised crime in the maritime domain (including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; piracy; and trafficking of weapons, drugs and people), terrorism and an increasingly assertive Chinese maritime strategy are generating further complexity.

The evolving strategic challenge hasn’t gone unnoticed in Australia, or in its Asia–Pacific neighbours. While countries with the means have invested heavily in their navies, others have focused more on developing their coastguards. More recently, the dynamic operating context has been the catalyst for enhanced bi- and multilateral maritime cooperation.

Unsurprisingly, the region’s focus on civil–military maritime security is increasing the demand for more comprehensive and coordinated maritime domain awareness (MDA) (see here, here and here) across the Asia–Pacific.

However, while many commentators have highlighted the need for greater regional cooperation on MDA, it has proved difficult to reach agreement on how to turn that idea into a fully-fledged multilateral arrangement.

Some of our policy contacts around Canberra have suggested to us that the European Union’s Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre – Narcotics (MAOC–N) in Lisbon offers a viable model for improving regional cooperation.

The MAOC–N was established in 2006 under the auspices of the EU by seven countries (Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, the Netherlands and Italy) as a multilateral forum for combating and countering drug trafficking from the Cape of Good Hope to the Norwegian Sea.

The centre is an important part of EU law enforcement efforts in coordinating maritime and aviation intelligence. The investment has paid dividends in disrupting piracy and illicit drug flows.

The MAOC–N’s success has been underpinned by the depth and breadth of European cooperation and the EU’s well-developed organisational structure. Unfortunately, neither of those conditions exists in the Asia–Pacific in general or in ASEAN more specifically.

Because of its complex geopolitical context, ASEAN’s framework for inter- and intraregional and global sharing of law enforcement information and intelligence is convoluted and often difficult to navigate.

ASEAN operates a range of formal and informal networks that exchange tactical, operational and strategic information. In most cases, the frameworks that promote this work are supported by long-term interpersonal and interagency relationships of trust.

These frameworks collectively form a complex web of arrangements. The characteristics that make relationships of trust and sharing possible in ASEAN have also encouraged the development of multiple channels of communication. Although they don’t necessarily generate results efficiently, these multiple channels are effective at providing operational agencies with opportunities to exchange information.

The diverse and often compartmentalised system that is law enforcement intelligence-sharing in ASEAN brings with it more than a few risks and challenges. The lack of a central repository imperils distributed access to knowledge, and the lack of a clear information architecture increases the risk of duplicative reporting and feedback loops.

At the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum Inter-Sessional Meeting on Maritime Security, the US government sought to address these challenges by proposing the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum Transnational Threat Information-sharing Centre (ATTIC). Despite the potential benefits presented by ATTIC, a lack of ownership among ASEAN member states has seen the idea languish in a policy limbo.

Two existing mechanisms, the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP) and the Information Fusion Centre to the ASEAN regional forum, offer opportunities for increased MDA cooperation.

ReCAAP is a regional government-to-government agreement to promote cooperation against piracy and armed robbery. It has 20 members, including North, South and Southeast Asian countries; Australia; the UK; and the United States.

ReCAAP’s Information Sharing Centre in Singapore facilitates communication between regional authorities and the maritime community and enables timely and accurate classification and analysis of incidents. The centre’s reporting and analysis assist coastal states to take law enforcement actions, and shipowners as well as ship masters to adopt risk-mitigation measures.

The Information Fusion Centre is a regional maritime security centre hosted by the Singaporean navy. The centre facilitates information sharing and collaboration between its partners and provides actionable information to regional and international navies, coastguards and other maritime agencies. It covers the full range of maritime security threats and incidents, including piracy, armed robbery at sea, weapons proliferation, maritime terrorism, and contraband and drug smuggling. It also hosts various multilateral information-sharing portals and platforms in support of regional and international frameworks.

Many an Australian official might be tempted to promote the development of a new regional MDA mechanism or support ATTIC. However, the creation of an Asia–Pacific MAOC-type arrangement is a risky proposition. Putting aside the language, technical, trust and geopolitical hurdles, an Asia–Pacific MAOC may simply add further bureaucracy to the region’s already complicated information-sharing arrangements. Australia and its partners may find more utility in making further investments in ReCAAP’s Information Sharing Centre and the Information Fusion Centre given their successes to date.

The Talking Heads’ 1985 hit ‘Road to nowhere’ provided a rather entertaining, if somewhat bleak, perspective on the futility of life: we are born, we live and we die. While we don’t necessarily agree with the song’s sentiments, it does appear to be an apt metaphor for the one-dimensional thinking of those responsible for delivering Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.

The BRI involves the construction of land routes (Silk Road Economic Belt) and sea routes (21st Century Maritime Silk Road) that will provide global economic opportunities, including access to markets, through faster, more secure and more affordable transportation.

While the BRI is rapidly taking shape, little is being done to understand the unintended consequences of the greater regional and global connectivity it will bring.

Those involved in illicit drug markets, for example, also look set to enjoy the BRI’s benefits. These actors will leverage BRI security vulnerabilities, creating new drug markets and supply chains, and perhaps even reducing the cost of shipments. For ASEAN, a region on the brink of a methamphetamine epidemic, more needs to be done to mitigate these risks.

Between 2006 and 2016, methamphetamine seizures in Southeast Asia rose from 29.65 tonnes to 113.28 tonnes. In 2015, the region overtook Central and North America as the world’s methamphetamine hotspot.

In the first five months of 2018, authorities in Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia all reported record-breaking methamphetamine seizures ranging from 700 kilograms (Thailand) to 1.6 tonnes (Indonesia). The combined total from the Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia busts is already more than the total amount seized in the region in 2017.

While those statistics alone can’t be taken as a measure of increased methamphetamine trafficking, the combination of relatively stable purity levels and price drops indicates that the increased seizures are not affecting the market.

As the BRI improves trade and infrastructure throughout the region, illicit drug trafficking in, and through, ASEAN countries looks set to increase.

The BRI consists of six planned economic corridors, including a China–Indochina corridor crossing Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Malaysia and ending in Thailand, and a Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar corridor. Some of them, such as the China–Indochina corridor, overlap with established economic routes in the Greater Mekong Subregion (which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand). They also overlap with established trafficking routes and transit hubs—demonstrated by the helpful maps in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s World drug report 2018.

In areas where the BRI corridors and the Greater Mekong Subregion routes don’t connect, new transportation infrastructure will link the Chinese markets with new trading partners. It may also link one of the world’s major sources of precursor chemicals with new markets.

The pharmaceutical industry in China, valued at US$122.6 billion, is the second largest in the world (behind the US—valued at US$380 billion in 2016). Unlike America’s, China’s pharmaceutical industry is characterised by mass production, limited regulation, poor compliance management and inexpensive generic drugs.

China is also the world’s largest chemical producer and exporter. Its non-pharmaceutical companies supply approximately one-third of the world’s chemicals. Most of these chemicals are legally produced and exported, but limited governance results in the diversion of precursor chemicals into the illicit market along the length of global supply chains. This large and under-regulated industry base has helped make China the largest supplier of precursor chemicals for the production of illicit synthetic drugs.

The BRI also extends west towards Europe, through the China–Central Asia–West Asia economic corridor, linking China to its western neighbours. While there have been limited methamphetamine seizures in central Asian countries to date, the BRI could in time provide the necessary infrastructure to access new markets in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. Or it could open new fast and secure trafficking routes to the highly profitable European markets.

Addressing the emerging law enforcement challenges created by the BRI requires regionally coordinated responses. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime seems to be the most appropriate mechanism to work with ASEAN member states, through their various regional forums, to develop a detailed assessment of the security vulnerabilities of the BRI. That assessment will be critical to identifying and prioritising regional mitigation strategies to reduce supply and demand and minimise harm.

More immediately, the region needs to deal with the possibility of a methamphetamine epidemic hastened by the increased availability of high-purity, low-cost illicit drugs. ASEAN needs a coordinated methamphetamine strategy—fast.

In both the short and medium terms, Australia has much to offer its regional partners. Three areas that come immediately to mind are sharing our experience with national illicit drug strategies, assisting in the development of border control policies, and improving criminal intelligence sharing.

In ‘Road to nowhere’ the Talking Heads told us, ‘We’re on the road to paradise … Here is where time is on our side’. However, when it comes to the BRI and ASEAN, time is running out.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s visit to Australia marked a significant leap forward for a bilateral relationship characterised by its fluctuations. The reduction of restrictions on some exports between the countries and the full restoration of defence cooperation after January’s bump in the road are indicators of the ‘robust relationship’ between Australia and Indonesia that Jokowi described in Sydney.

For both Indonesia and Australia, maintaining neutrality and navigating that fine line between China and the United States remains a first-order priority. Although reports of potential joint TNI-ADF patrols in the South China Sea surfaced last week, they remained absent from the official joint statement—likely due to Indonesia’s concern over the message that partnering with a US treaty ally would send to China. But such reports, as well as the importance both leaders placed on maintaining peace, security and stability in Southeast Asia, indicate the extent to which strategic competition between the US and China is being felt across the region.

Southeast Asia finds itself at the heart of the US­–­China rivalry, which has placed greater strategic weight and heightened attendant stresses on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN member states now face a dilemma over collective action that challenges not only perceptions of ASEAN’s efficacy but also Southeast Asia’s overall security. How those states and other interested actors—including the People’s Republic of China, the US, Australia and Japan—choose to act will shape the region for decades to come.

The most significant factor in ASEAN’s failure to make concerted progress on security issues is its core principle of consensus-based decision-making. As a result of the association’s significant growth in membership over the 1990s, reaching unanimous agreement on sensitive political issues has proven increasingly elusive. While some of that difficulty stems from the simple problem of reaching consensus within a wider membership, in large part it’s also due to varying levels of Chinese economic support to individual ASEAN states.

Those difficulties have been glaringly evident in efforts to resolve competing territorial claims in the South China Sea—an issue that has clearly stretched ASEAN’s capacity to take a unified, concrete stance on a common security problem. Its failure to speak and act with one voice on those disputes has major importance, as they directly relate to the PRC’s rise and increased assertiveness in the Asia–Pacific.

The US, Australia and Japan have all been active in seeking to curb Beijing’s influence in Southeast Asia. While the three countries recognise the inevitability of China’s heightened status, they appear to share a common concern that, if left unchecked, China could achieve its goal of overturning the regional status quo.

If ASEAN can’t be relied upon to act as a forceful collective body to address threats and concerns associated with a more outwardly aggressive China—and in the absence of the emergence of a network of like-minded, activist states (of which there’s currently no sign)—it’s essential that the US, Australia and Japan further develop and consolidate strategies that go beyond ASEAN for achieving their security and economic interests in the region. In our Strategy report released today, Tiptoeing around the nine-dash line: Southeast Asia after ASEAN, Peter Chalk and I examine some possible tactics those three countries could employ to accomplish their goals.

Of course, the distinct lack of clarity surrounding the new US administration’s perception of the Asia–Pacific is a prominent theme throughout the report, and one of the main variables that both Australia and Japan must contend with. While the absence of a unified ASEAN means that the US will have little choice but to return to its traditional policy of interacting with Southeast Asian countries on a bilateral ‘hub and spokes’ basis, Australia and Japan must shoulder the additional burden of drawing the attention of America’s transactional leader back to Southeast Asia should it waver. Those include forging ties at senior levels with the Trump administration early into its tenure, staying firm on the defence spending target of 2% of GDP (for Australia) and committing to a small increase in host-nation support funds (for Japan). Realistically, the only country able to actually act as a credible and forceful counterweight to China is the US. As such, it’s essential that President Trump and his close advisers are convinced early on that they can play a leading role in Asia and develop a proper, effective working relationship with Beijing.

Due to ASEAN’s consensus-based decision-making, it’s likely that we will continue to see its inaction on regional security issues, particularly those that relate directly or indirectly to the geopolitical struggle taking place between Washington and Beijing. As Peter and I argue, it will become increasingly important, in this contested environment, that countries sharing the experience of striking a fine balance between the US and China use every opportunity at their disposal to bolster their bilateral relationships.

Chinese officials have hailed 2016 as a great year for China’s Asia–Pacific policy. On top of all other successes, Beijing defeated a perceived regional attempt to pressure China into accepting the South China Sea arbitration ruling released in July. Then, much to its delight, the new President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, initiated a ‘pivot’ to China by pursuing a rapprochement with Beijing and by sidelining the arbitration ruling that was the singular achievement of his predecessor. Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, thus declared that the ‘splendid turnabout’ of China–Philippines relations not only expelled many years of clouds over the relationship, but also eliminated a key obstacle to deepening China’s relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Riding on that positive momentum, China hopes that 2017 will be an even greater year for its Asia–Pacific policy. Beijing will try to seek three main outcomes: further reduce tensions in the South China Sea, repair and improve relations with ASEAN, and prevent the Trump administration from destabilising regional politics to China’s detriment. Those aims are being pursued by Chinese policymakers with great determination. In a clearly coordinated series of steps, China released three key foreign policy statements in a rapid succession in the second week of January.

On the 10^th, vice foreign minister Liu Zhenmin published a signed article on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website on the topic of China’s Asia–Pacific regional diplomacy. The article claims that China’s regional relations achieved a new step in 2016. In 2017, China will conduct high-level diplomacy and strategic initiatives by focusing on relations with regional countries.

On the 11th, Beijing released its first ever white paper on Asia–Pacific security cooperation—a document of historic significance in Chinese foreign policy. The paper’s intention, according to vice foreign minister Liu during a press briefing on the same day, is to help countries fully understand China’s policies for the region and appreciate its desire to pursue security cooperation. In particular, Liu highlighted China’s attempt to achieve ‘positive interactions’ with regional countries. Beijing respects the traditional influence and the current interests of the United States in the Asia–Pacific, he avowed, and confirmed that China has no intention of replacing Washington as the dominant power in Asia.

On the 14th, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign policy official, published a signed article on Chinese foreign policy under the guidance of President Xi Jinping’s thinking. Significantly, the article represents the first authoritative articulation of Xi’s ‘foreign policy thought,’ suggesting that Beijing is systematising and integrating previously discrete elements of Chinese foreign policy since Xi came to power in 2012 into a more coherent whole.

Indeed, parts of the article read like a blueprint for China’s grand strategy in the Xi era. It describes China’s strategic goals of safeguarding its sovereignty, security and development interests, creating a more favourable international environment for peaceful development, and maintaining and extending China’s period of development.

While the article highlights peace, development, cooperation and “win-win” as the central themes of Chinese foreign policy, it also states that China isn’t afraid of protecting ‘bottom lines’ in matters concerning China’s core interests, such as Taiwan.

Not coincidentally, China’s Asia–Pacific white paper, while championing the cause of peace and cooperation, also warns that China will react to countries’ challenges to its sovereignty and maritime interests, such as those in the South China Sea.

Releasing such high-profile Chinese foreign policy statements over a number of days is unusual in recent times. Beijing may have realised that regional security politics over the past several years have too often focused on maritime disputes and tensions, to the detriment of China’s image and the momentum of regional cooperation. 2016 appeared to be a turning point because China managed to dial down tensions in the South China Sea while improving relations with key ASEAN countries including the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. 2017 is therefore logically seen as a year of consolidation for the gains made in 2016. In fact, China’s regional environment appears better now than any time since 2009.

But Chinese officials also recognise that 2017 is going to be a tough year of great uncertainty and volatility. With the Philippines as the 2017 ASEAN chair, no ASEAN country is likely to stoke up tensions in the South China Sea. But the Trump administration has already given many signs of a hard-line approach to China, in issues ranging from trade to Taiwan to the South China Sea. That’s the wild card in China’s planned strategy for the Asia–Pacific this year.

The warning that China won’t shy away from forcefully protecting its core interests is nothing less than a pointed message to Trump. At the same time, Beijing wants to project the image that China, not the United States, is now a more reliable source of stability and prosperity in the region. It hopes that regional countries will receive that message too.

In announcing a separation from the US, the Philippine’s President Duterte recently flagged a closer relationship with China, stating, ‘America has lost…I’ve realigned myself in your [China’s] ideological flow’. Although Duterte subsequently walked back from his position, the perception is emerging that the Philippines under Duterte is at best charting a more independent path, and at worst, decisively aligning with China.

On the South China Sea, Duterte indicated that he’ll put aside the outcome of the Arbitral Tribunal and engage with Beijing bilaterally. In an apparent quid pro quo, Chinese Coast Guard vessels have left the Scarborough Shoal. This implies reward for Manila for aligning itself with Beijing. The risk is other ASEAN states will seek similar benefit, further undermining the already fragile ASEAN unity. Beijing already has enough influence over Laos and Cambodia to make consensus over ASEAN joint communiqués on the South China Sea impossible. Having the Philippines in its pocket would allow Beijing’s to divide and weaken ASEAN, and the Philippines’ leadership of ASEAN in 2017 could further enhance Beijing’s influence.

Duterte also suggested reviewing the 2014 Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which allows the US regular access to five Philippines bases under the 2011 Manila Declaration. Even if EDCA survives, an unpredictable and hostile Duterte, motivated by a lifetime of personal resentment towards America, could cause severe problems for Washington. His threats to end joint US–Filipino naval patrols and US Special Forces operations against Islamist groups in Mindanao would sour relations even further. Purchasing Russian and Chinese military hardware would probably end the US–Philippines defence relationship. It would certainly tear a hole in the Obama’s rebalance to Asia.

Clearly the next US administration can’t simply continue with the same policy as before. A Philippines realignment would be a huge blow to US interests in Asia, and if TPP ratification also fails, the confluence of two such important events would introduce greater uncertainty to what would follow a failed US Rebalance. The US needs a new strategy for Asia, but any policy change will take time to emerge after the new president’s inauguration, and may be outpaced by events—as was dramatically demonstrated by Duterte’s time in Beijing last week.

Kurt Campbell has already been thinking about that challenge, and argues in The Pivot (2016) that the American strategy for Asia must evolve if it’s to be successful. Campbell lays out a ten-point plan which focuses on bolstering alliances through joining together the ‘spokes’ of the ‘hub and spokes’ arrangements and strengthening the various bilateral spoke arrangements. Although The Pivot was written before Duterte’s bombshell, Campbell’s suggestion of a federated approach through building greater integration in defence and security, economics, political and cultural ties between the spokes makes a great deal of sense. The goal of the Campbell strategy is to open up new opportunities for US forward presence by strengthening and integrating the other spokes, such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and key ASEAN allies. Hubs and spokes survive—but not as we know it.

As part of that approach, Campbell makes clear that the US has an interest in additional basing for its forces in Australia, including naval vessels and more regular joint exercises. He also specifically notes the potential for cooperation on missile defence as a counter to Chinese A2AD capabilities.

Campbell’s suggestions are echoed in a recent report (PDF) by the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, which makes twelve recommendations for strengthening the US–Australia alliance. Those include deploying long-range airpower into northern bases, and homeporting a US carrier battlegroup in Australia. Certainly, in line with Campbell’s interest in joint missile defence, Australia could consider an option to fast-track acquisition of integrated air and missile defence against ballistic and land-attack cruise missile threats. Hooks for those already appear in Australia’s 2016 Defence White Paper. Those capabilities would be particularly important for countering submarine-based land-attack cruise missile (LACM) threats to Australian defence facilities used by US forces.

Missile defence would be more effective if the ADF knew where potential submarines capable of launching LACMs were, and that suggests greater efforts towards monitoring our underwater maritime approaches. We could work with the US to develop a Theatre ASW capability as part of an enhanced US–Australia partnership. That could eventually be expanded to include other key partners such as Japan in a manner that is consistent with Campbell’s suggested approach of building webs between spokes.

The strategy suggested by Campbell in The Pivot, and echoed by the US Studies Centre report, is more relevant than ever given the direction Duterte is leading the Philippines, and of the broader trends and events that are challenging US interests across Asia. Duterte’s approach will present a serious challenge to the next US administration, and by extension, to Australia’s regional security interests. His approach to foreign policy is akin to a bull in a China shop. The US, Australia and others will have to pick up the pieces.