This is the third in a series of edited extracts from a new ASPI publication, The geopolitics of climate and security in the Indo-Pacific, released today. The first article presented a 2035 climate security scenario, which is the reference point for subsequent articles, including this one.

While the forces shaping the Indo-Pacific’s energy transition out to 2035 are complex, some macro trends are clear. Energy demand in the region is projected to grow drastically and remain concentrated in urban areas, and power infrastructure will remain highly vulnerable to climate impacts. The uneven availability of finance to countries attempting to make the transition from fossil fuels to renewable-based energy systems is perhaps the most significant risk. Without major policy shifts, these trends prefigure widespread energy insecurity in 2035, with far-reaching implications for regional security, as the following projection to 2035 illustrates.

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It is the year 2035. The global transformation of energy systems is well underway, yet only the most mature markets in Asia and the Pacific are able to use the ongoing shifts to their economic and (geo)political benefit. Continued reductions in the levelised cost of electricity generated from solar and wind power spur a rapid shift of finance flows into clean energy. Approximately US$1.2 trillion was invested annually in clean electricity supply between 2023 and 2026, yet it was disproportionately focused on OECD countries. In Asia and the Pacific, China and India are large centres of investment, boasting both rapid deployment of renewable-based generation and manufacturing capacity.

Already struggling players are losing out. A lack of finance means Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand have been unable to significantly ramp up clean power generation capacities. The logic that stymies the transition in vulnerable countries is also often perverse. For example, power-supply disruptions to major Asian markets, most notably China, simultaneously deliver short-term boosts to the fossil-fuel markets of several Southeast Asian producers, most notably gas exporters Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Brunei. Faced with a lack of private- and public-sector finance to pursue alternative—and more resilient paths—these countries opt for boosting domestic oil, coal and gas production.

By 2035, energy systems across the whole region are under extreme physical and economic strain due to the severe and intensifying impacts of global warming, which has now reached 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The largest energy demand centres (Bangkok, Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh, Yangon) and other coastal cities are in the middle of a massive relocation inland, as neither the centralised power-supply systems nor cooling and heating appliances can withstand the pressure of repeated floods. This trend dramatically accelerated after the sequential El Niño – La Niña events in 2022–23.

Southeast Asia is transforming from a ‘maritime periphery’ for the major regional powers to a place of great-power competition on energy standards, finance and political influence. China, which has been historically dominant in Southeast Asia’s energy system planning through close links to regional governments and energy companies, has managed to establish itself as the standard-bearer in the increasingly decarbonised energy sector. The successful energy transition and climate resilience of its southern region is one of China’s security priorities, as climate migration leads to tensions at its southern borders. Moreover, its major low-carbon technology production centres are increasingly exposed to climate impacts, threatening Chinese companies with supply disruptions and loss of capital.

India’s presence in the region has grown considerably over the past decade, particularly within the India–ASEAN Power Grid connectivity initiative and within various power-grid cooperative initiatives. The third-largest manufacturing centre for photovoltaic cells and producer of over one-quarter of solar panels globally, India has become the primary supplier of solar-power equipment to OECD countries that are looking to diversify away from Chinese products and is in a fierce competition for dominance with Chinese equipment providers in Southeast Asia’s renewable-power markets.

The region’s dependency on China’s supply of raw materials remains extremely high, however, as demand for lithium, silicon, nickel, copper and rare metals is on a rapid and steady rise. Other parts of the renewables supply chains have been redistributed, and Malaysia, India and Vietnam have joined the regional market as major solar-power equipment suppliers.

The region has thus seen several geopolitical shifts as China cements its energy dominance, India rises as a major regional energy player and a handful of smaller powers manage to carve out renewable production niches.

There remains a relative lack of major support from OECD countries and international finance institutions. This absence is being filled by China, using its historically established cooperation ties and its mature domestic renewables market. Japan, by contrast, remains a prominent regional provider of fossil-fuel finance, locking many countries in the region into several decades of growing gas and oil consumption. Much of this finance will eventually translate into stranded assets.

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The scenario just outlined is among the most probable outcomes unless decisive policy shifts take place in the countries of Southeast Asia and sufficient financial support from developed countries is granted. Sticking to a ‘business as usual’ scenario won’t be possible in years to come. The extreme weather events, unchecked loss and damage, and increased vulnerability of energy systems to the impacts of climate change no longer leave any room for status quo assumptions.

Measures that can help to rapidly boost the resilience of the region’s energy systems to climate impacts, and alleviate the impact of market shocks and energy supply crunches, already exist in 2022. Regional cooperation in risk-sharing and risk-management mechanisms and disaster preparedness, which is embedded in a broader international cooperation framework, is key.

We also know that a massive shift of finance flows will need to take place to unlock access to low-carbon growth for the developing economies of Southeast Asia, with public finance playing a key role in support of regulatory and policy action. And, globally, it’s critical for policymakers to ensure that the geopolitical shifts result in a race to the top rather than a clash of standards on a range of critical topics, including the diversification and resilience of low-carbon supply chains and the parallel critical-materials markets.

The policy challenges involved in managing the regional energy transition are complex and defy traditional policy silos, but governments must start acting now to avoid the worst outcomes that are possible as soon as 2035.

The return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan has triggered worldwide concerns that its close relationship with al-Qaeda could bring a new wave of terrorism, including in Southeast Asia. The fears for Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines in particular are understandable, given recent history, but they need a reality check.

The concerns include whether al-Qaeda’s close relationship with the Taliban will allow it to grow, encouraging the development of new territorially based franchises and possibly opening up training camps for local and foreign fighters. Could Southeast Asia be a new target for expansion, and if new camps were established, would Southeast Asians stream into them?

Might al-Qaeda make a push for allies in areas beyond its bases in Afghanistan–Pakistan, Central Asia, the Islamic Maghreb, Yemen and Syria–Iraq? Southeast Asia was on its agenda in 2010, when a senior al-Qaeda official went to Bangkok to meet the head of intelligence for Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the group that carried out the 2002 Bali bombings. The official tried to persuade JI to join forces, but it wasn’t interested. A decade later, with JI temporarily out of commission, are any other organisations potentially interested in a partnership?

The chances of al-Qaeda building a Southeast Asian franchise aren’t high. It has no well-structured allies in Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore on which it can draw. JI, an ally through about 2004, is drastically weakened as a result of arrests over the past two years. Most of its key strategists are in prison and those on the outside are lying low, waiting for an opportunity to rebuild. The older generation of JI members, who trained on the Afghan–Pakistan border between 1985 and 1994, aren’t interested in violence, however chuffed they may be that their old friends have returned to power. Many are actively cooperating with the government in various deradicalisation programs.

The wild card is the Philippines, where al-Qaeda has a history going back to the early 1990s, most famously for providing a safe haven for Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993. He ended up in Manila, trying to plan a coordinated bombing attack against 11 US-bound airliners, but an accidental explosion in a Manila apartment led to the foiling of the plot and Yousef’s eventual arrest. Would other al-Qaeda notables, under Taliban protection, seek to use the Philippines again as a launchpad for a major terrorist attack? Nothing is impossible, but al-Qaeda has many more accessible options, including in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Southeast Asia would be far down the list of options.

It’s also worth remembering that the Philippine police, army, intelligence and immigration are far better trained and more vigilant on the counterterrorism front than they were 25 years ago. A few operatives might slip through, and the personal rivalries among local extremists, particularly within the Abu Sayyaf Group, might lead to some trying to cut a deal with al-Qaeda as a way of challenging local Islamic State–linked clans. The likelihood of setting up a new Mindanao-based franchise, however, is low.

Another concern is what happens if the Taliban struggle to maintain control. Could the possible eruption of micro-conflicts be exploited by Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K), which sees the Taliban as idolatrous rivals promoting nationalism instead of a universal caliphate? Is there potential for IS to expand, and if so, would its supporters, including from Southeast Asia, flock to the cause, especially since a small number of them are already there?

Many Islamist and mainstream Muslim organisations in Southeast Asia greeted the Taliban victory with euphoria, as a victory of Islam over the West, or over neoliberalism, or over secular democracy—the enemy had many different guises. The main takeaway was that all that was needed was patience, so the organisations that played the long game in their advocacy of an Islamic state should feel vindicated.

Another concern is what happens if IS-K grows stronger or expands its territorial control. As the Kabul airport attack of 26 August demonstrated, this is indeed a danger. Attacks by IS-K could inspire a new wave of attempts by IS supporters in Indonesia and the Philippines, although in the former, terrorist capacity remains low and police capacity to interdict plots relatively high.

IS-K could be a draw for fighters who want to emigrate—make the hijrah—to a land where Islamic law is fully applied. It has all the end-of-time associations that made Syria such a draw for Indonesian families; a famous hadith, or tradition of the Prophet, notes that the Islamic redeemer’s forces will assemble under the ‘black banners of Khorasan’ and march to Jerusalem as the end of the time approaches.

Moreover, by mid-2019, some two dozen Indonesians were already in Afghanistan, having joined or tried to join IS-K. Eight were arrested, of whom one, a woman named Wardini, died of illness in June 2021. The others were released by the Taliban in the final days of the capture of Kabul; the whereabouts of six out of the remaining seven, mostly women and children, are known. One adult male disappeared after release and his whereabouts remain unclear.

In addition to this group, other Indonesian nationals had succeeded in reaching Afghanistan over the border from Iran after the fall of Raqqa, the IS capital in Syria, in October 2017. It’s possible that a few pro-IS Indonesians are in a position to try to recruit more fighters, but would-be mujahideen will have a difficult time trying to get there. Not only are immigration authorities in Jakarta, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere alert to the possibility that attempts will be made, but the Taliban also have no interest in seeing IS reinforcements arrive.

Logistical support will also be more difficult. In the past, when there were significant flows of jihadists abroad, it was with a system of services set up to facilitate their travel. Al-Qaeda provided a services centre on the Pakistani border for mujahideen fighting the Soviet Union. The group that in 1993 became JI had a channel for funding and travel assistance that made going to and from its military academy relatively easy. Indonesian IS supporters arranged funding and safehouses in Turkey for those wishing to cross over. Without such a system, it will be hard for any but a few determined individuals to get to IS-K.

It’s also worth noting that those who emigrate to IS territories generally have no plans to return. It’s not like JI’s training program, which was always designed to be short term, so the skills could be deployed in Indonesia. Thus, even if a dozen more Indonesians were to reach Khorasan, that wouldn’t necessarily indicate that the risk of violence would rise concomitantly at home.

Those worried that JI and al-Qaeda could realign, even in JI’s current state, should take a close look at that training program. If JI had been interested in an al-Qaeda affiliation, it would have sent its cadres to train exclusively with Jabhat al-Nusra.

From 2012 onwards, however, JI sent 87 men to train with a variety of militias as a way of expanding international contacts and learning as much as it could from different militias, including IS, whose teachings it rejected. That so many men were trained and returned to Indonesia is of course cause for concern, as is JI’s long-term plan of waiting for an opportunity to exploit political chaos in the interest of forming an Islamic state. At that point, JI would be prepared to use violence against designated enemies to achieve its aim. Such chaos is what al-Qaeda thrives on, but as of mid-2021, Indonesia seemed an unlikely site.

That leaves the glee expressed by many sources over the Taliban victory. Euphoria over a conservative Islamic group taking power is not the same as support for terrorism. The people relishing an Islamist victory include those who would like to see a more Islamist agenda in Indonesia but also those who welcome the political and military humiliation of the United States.

None of this is to downplay the very real threat of terrorism that Southeast Asia still faces. Autonomous pro-IS cells are still numerous, and one might manage to pull off a lethal attack. JI may be dormant for the next few years, but it always comes back, and no one should count it out. Indonesian extremists also have a history of producing militant splinter groups of disgruntled and frustrated would-be fighters who chafe at restrictions imposed on them by their leaders.

The problem is not going away, but there’s no need to use the Taliban victory to overdramatise the danger.

A military conflict in the South China Sea would force most shipping from Europe, the Middle East and Africa destined for Asia and the US west coast to be diverted around the south of Australia.

The additional shipping cost would bring reductions in economic activity around the world, but with dire effects on countries at the epicentre, according to a study published by the US National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study shows that the countries most exposed to economic loss from a regional maritime conflict are already spending more on their militaries.

The authors, Kerem Cosar and Benjamin Thomas from the University of Virginia, comment that the findings are ‘consistent with the idea that these perceived threats could set in motion a rapid arms race for the countries involved’.

About 80% of global trade is carried by sea, and estimates of the volume carried through the South China Sea range from 20% to 33%.

The area is subject of numerous overlapping territorial disputes involving China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei, while China’s construction of artificial islands with military installations has made it a focus of tension with the United States.

The study assumes that a conflict would close the Malacca Strait between Malaysia and Indonesia and would stop all east–west passage between the Pacific and Indian Oceans through the South China Sea.

It would not be practicable to reroute shipping through the Torres Strait to the north of Australia because coral reefs and shallow depths make it too hazardous for large vessels.

Facing a total freeze on international shipping, Taiwan’s economy would contract by a third, while Singapore’s economy would fall by 22%, according to the baseline estimate. Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia would suffer falls of between 10% and 15%.

The modelling shows the economic impact would be lowest for countries with shorter trade routes and those best able to offset the loss of international trade with domestic spending.

China’s economy would only face a loss of 0.7% because it has huge domestic markets and ports outside the potential conflict zone.

While the authors comment that conflict would carry real costs for China, they note that the much larger burden on others in the region demonstrates ‘the possibility of a large country maintaining control over the region by imposing substantial costs on smaller countries’.

The modelling exercise shows Australia would suffer a drop of between 1.9% and 3.1%. The economies of Japan and South Korea would fall by between 2% and 3%.

The economists emphasise that their exercise looks only at the impact of raised shipping costs for the total trade of each country and is a simplified model. The real consequences of interruptions to trade in some essential goods and services could be much greater.

‘Trade in certain goods and commodities is harder to substitute for some importing countries, especially when it involves energy imports.’

A conflict would have a significant impact on some countries outside the region. For example, the United Arab Emirates would face a 5% fall and Saudi Arabia a 3% fall in response to the loss of trade.

The study looked at the bilateral trade between 51 economies accounting for 92% of world GDP, of which 19 economies were in the East Asia, Southeast Asia and Pacific regions. It calculated the reduction in trade between 61 ports as a result of the increased cost of shipping.

Although, in theory, some countries could gain from the diversion of shipping away from the Asian region, the only country in the study not affected by the trade downturn was Ireland.

The study took account of land-based trade with immediate neighbours but did not make allowance for switching sea freight to land or air freight alternatives. It did not take account of the broader impact of a military conflict and the probability that embargoes and blockades would be imposed by adversary nations. Australia would not ship iron ore and other resources to China even if the longer trade route to its northern ports were possible.

Despite these limitations, the study highlights the dependence of many economies in the region on the free flow of goods through the South China Sea and the Malacca Strait.

It shows there is a relationship between exposure to economic loss through a conflict in the region and military spending.

A one standard deviation (roughly 32%) increase in the size of the likely economic loss translates to an increase in military spending of 0.3% of GDP above the 2% regional average.

‘Higher predicted GDP reductions are associated with higher military expenditures, and more so for countries that are closer to the Malacca Strait, the epicenter of a potential conflict’, the study says.

‘Despite the limitations, our results show that there are large and economically important gains from maritime trade through the Southeast Asian waterways. Geopolitical events that increase insecurity in critical maritime regions could have substantial welfare effects.’

This post was adapted by the author from his chapter in ASPI’s Counterterrorism yearbook 2020. The full text of the yearbook, which includes notes and sources for each chapter, is available on ASPI’s website.

The threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia remains high, but, as in Australia, it’s neither an existential threat nor even one of the more significant dangers most people face.

It is, however, resilient.

While the long-running, largely low-level, insurgencies of the southern Philippines and the deep south of Thailand fuel a steady stream of violence, jihadi networks and small groups inspired, directly or indirectly, by Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda are the greatest immediate threat, particularly in Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia.

The drivers remain local grievances, but individuals and groups tend to become more brazen and less inhibited in using extreme violence when they see themselves as part of a cosmic struggle and their actions are praised by a global insurgent movement.

Many attacks have been inspired by the rise of IS in Syria and Iraq. Some have involved returnees from the fighting in the Middle East, but most have involved people who were inspired to act at home. This IS-inspired terrorism is built on a foundation of earlier extremist networks, the most important of which is the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network. Militant splinter elements of this network were responsible for the bomb attacks in Bali on 12 October 2002, and the series of terrorist attacks that followed over the course of the decade.

The JI network as a whole became involved in outbreaks of communal violence in eastern Indonesian in Ambon, Maluku, and in Poso, Central Sulawesi. Since the defeat of its insurgency in Poso in 2007, JI has been quietly and carefully rebuilding while largely avoiding provocative violence. This network was the product of Indonesian, Malaysian and Filipino fighters travelling to join the conflict in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Those ‘Afghani alumni’ formed the leadership and core of JI.

The territorial defeat of IS and the interrupted flow of foreign fighters and supporters have brought some respite but by no means a cessation of the threat. The lessons from Afghanistan and the rise of al-Qaeda in the 1980s are that a relatively small number of foreign fighters travelling to a conflict zone can have a disproportionate influence and that the impact at home might be felt only many years later.

The experience of Indonesia, and to some extent the Philippines and Malaysia, is that violent extremism is highly social and prone to being intergenerational. JI has its origins in Indonesia’s Darul Islam movement that began in the 1950s and was injected with fresh life in the 1970s and 1980s, partly because of political oppression and a crackdown on militants. The leaders of JI were inspired by the experience of fighting in Afghanistan in association with al-Qaeda and, while they formally broke with Darul Islam in 1993, the family and social connections woven through the fabric of the JI network draw upon decades of conflict, local grievance, increasing radicalisation and the rise of transnational terrorist networks.

Neither the end of the IS caliphate nor the arrest and sentencing of thousands of militants and supporters will end the threat or dissipate the social movements involved.

Without relentless intelligence work and regular arrests, the threat of terrorism would quickly worsen. But policing, prosecution and detention by themselves won’t eliminate or even greatly diminish the resilient threat posed by violent extremist networks. Real advances will begin only when the cycle of recruitment and radicalisation is interrupted by disengagement from malign networks, followed by individual and collective rehabilitation and re-engagement of former militants with mainstream society.

The specialist counterterrorism unit of the Indonesian National Police, Detachment 88, has become enormously effective at detecting and disrupting terrorist plots. Its work has led to the arrest of more than 1,400 suspected terrorists since its formation 15 years ago. Around 808 were arrested between 2015 and 2018, and 376 arrests were made in 2018 alone. Most of those arrested were prosecuted and sentenced.

This success has generated its own problems. Indonesia has more than 250,000 detainees in almost 500 jails, housing more than twice the number of inmates they were designed for. It has resulted in a prisoner-to-guard ratio of around 55 to 1.

Indonesian counterterrorism is better resourced and led than ever, and the important work of rehabilitation has finally commenced in earnest, but the threat remains resilient and shows no signs of abating.

Malaysia, one-tenth the size of Indonesia, has so far suffered no significant international terrorist attacks but nevertheless faces a terrorist threat that’s proportionally every bit as great as that facing Indonesia. Since 2013, Malaysian authorities, led by the very experienced Special Branch intelligence agency/counterterrorism division of the Royal Malaysian Police, have foiled at least 26 attacks and arrested more than 520 suspects. A surprisingly large number, more than 130, were foreigners from 21 countries, mostly Indonesia and the Philippines. Arrests continue.

Authorities worry about not just those who have returned from Syria, but also those who aspired to join the caliphate and are frustrated that they were left behind. Malaysia, even more than Indonesia, struggles with a febrile environment of sectarian sentiment, much of it openly propagated through religious lectures and training activities. In this context, the IS takfiri judgemental narrative of anti-Shia, anti-Christian and anti-mainstream-Muslim sentiment remains an ever-present facilitator of radicalisation, even though, so far, Special Branch has prevented successful attacks.

Of major concern in Malaysia are militants travelling between its eastern state of Sabah, on the island of Borneo, and the adjacent Sulu archipelago in the Philippines, home territory of the IS-aligned Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).

The activities of foreign fighters in the Philippines remain an ongoing concern amid fears that the collapse of the IS caliphate could put even more focus on less well-governed parts of western Mindanao as safe havens for IS supporters. Terrorism in the Philippines is largely homegrown, with long-running violence in western Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago. The presence of a relatively small number of foreign fighters, however, has been an important element in helping connect local grievances with global struggles, first with al-Qaeda and now with IS. Groups such as the ASG were formed by Filipinos returning from fighting with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 1990s.

When four major jihadi groups, including the notoriously ill-disciplined piracy–cum–kidnapping-for-ransom gang, ASG, declared their allegiance to IS in mid-2014, it was seen to be more a branding exercise than a significant strategic realignment. The five-month siege of Marawi that erupted in May 2017 and resulted in the deaths of at least 980 militants (including at least 44 foreigners), 165 security personnel and 87 civilians, made it clear that the IS connection had, in fact, substantially changed the nature of the insurgent conflict.

When the siege began, the Armed Forces of the Philippines confidently declared that the conflict would be over within days. But it was concluded only after the nearly total destruction of the Philippines’ largest Muslim-majority city. Months of artillery barrages and aerial bombardment left the city centre looking like post-IS Mosul. More than 350,000 inhabitants were forced out and most still live in squalid camps. The army declared IS comprehensively beaten, but the structural damage, physical and social, inflicted on Marawi seems certain to sow a bitter harvest of intergenerational radicalisation.

The threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia lies in resilient social networks that have adapted to survive and regenerate in the face of counterterrorism efforts that focus on the tactical and neglect the strategic.

Vietnam has just released its new defence white paper, 10 years after the last one was issued in 2009. The 2019 document isn’t fundamentally different from the earlier one—there are limits on the extent of declaratory policy from Hanoi—but it does acknowledge that the global situation is evolving rapidly in a multipolar direction and countries need to ‘adjust [their] strategies to prioritise their national interests above all values’.

The Asia–Pacific region, including Southeast Asia, ‘continues to be a centre for dynamic development and occupies an increasingly important geo-economic, geo-political, and geo-strategic location’. But it’s also the major ground for great-power competition. Some of that is manifested in policies and programs, including the US-led free and open Indo-Pacific strategy, China’s Belt and Road Initiative and India’s ‘Act East’ policy.

The white paper provides little detail about the defence budget beyond acknowledging in a footnote that defence spending amounted to 2.36% of GDP in 2018. It says that Vietnam is ‘determined to develop its defence industry to meet national defence requirements’, including by making ‘selective investment in several advanced defence industrial establishments to move toward the formation of self-control, high-tech, and dual-use defence industrial groups or complexes’.

While it doesn’t offer in-depth updates on the force structure and organisation of the defence force, the 2019 paper does elaborate on the strategic context and espouse the national strategy for protecting the homeland. Its strategic doctrine is based on the core pillars of self-reliance and resilience, emphasising that the national defence struggle aims to settle all disputes peacefully.

Among the elements that threaten regional stability and prosperity are the disputes in the South China Sea, referred to in the white paper as the ‘East Sea’. The 2019 document uses strong language to characterise a deteriorating strategic environment but stops short of naming the challenger:

New developments in the East Sea, including unilateral actions, power-based coercion, violations of international law, militarisation, change in the status quo, and infringement upon Viet Nam’s sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction as provided in international law, have undermined the interests of nations concerned and threatened peace, stability, security, safety, and freedom of navigation and overflight in the region.

This statement captures recent developments in the South China Sea, particularly apparent since the arbitral tribunal ruling in 2016, which have seriously undermined the rules-based order in the region. More than anyone else, Vietnam has been at the forefront of those challenges, ranging from the threat posed by China’s militarisation of artificial islands and naval build-up, to more targeted provocations like repeated incursions into Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.

As a self-described maritime nation, Vietnam pays special attention to the safety and protection of the seas, committing to freedom of navigation and overflight, free trade and peaceful economic activities at sea—all in accordance with international law. The new white paper not only clearly spells out Hanoi’s position, but also endeavours to distinguish Vietnam from those who don’t contribute to the preservation of peace.

The document elucidates Hanoi’s threat perceptions and serves as a declaration of Vietnam’s commitment to peaceful cooperation and its readiness to expand defence relations regardless of political differences or economic disparities. Importantly, it rejects any notion of acceding to defence cooperation measures under coercive conditions.

Vietnam seeks to widen the scope of its international cooperation, declaring a willingness to cooperate in border protection, both land and maritime, including joint patrols and exchanges. The paper explicitly supports the right of innocent passage, as well as the security and safety of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea.

In particular, the paper declares that Vietnam ‘is willing to welcome vessels of navies, coast guards, border guards and international organisations to make courtesy or ordinary port visits or stop over in its ports to repair, replenish logistics and technical supplies or take refuges from national disasters’.

This stands as a direct rejection of measures aimed at limiting regional actors’ defence cooperation with external powers—something that China has suggested should be included in ASEAN’s code of conduct for the South China Sea.

Hanoi’s defence posture is well expressed in this concise document. It clearly conveys Vietnam’s awareness of the growing external threats to its national sovereignty as well as its determination to promote a peaceful international environment.