China threatens U.S. Congress for crossing its ‘red line’ on Taiwan

[Double Edge]

Your own article citing Indian refusal to allow Australia to join these exercises show that inter-operabiility is a long way off. No Indian Admiral is going to command an American task force for the foreseeable future.

But it leaves Japan & the US intact. Thit grouping won't be so easy for china to scuttle like the last time. Get interop with the americans and the rest will flow in time. The idea of opposing is to prevent the quad breaking up like the last time and until the Aussies make their mind up as to whether security or economy matters more. They just join the party later

Baby steps for now. Won't freak China out but the message comes across at the same time. Let's put it this way, it would improve HADR much more than it is currently.

India and Singapore ink naval pact | TOI | Nov 30 2107

Looks like we'll be showing the flag more often in Singapore from now on

Easy access to the Singapore port, with refueling and berthing facilities, will serve to enhance the operational reach of Indian warships and aircraft east of the Malacca Strait, which is a critical choke point for China's ever-expanding energy supplies. It fits into India's overall "Act East" policy to deepen military ties with ASEAN countries like Singapore, Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia and Indonesia as a counter to China.

India, in turn, will provide naval practice and logistics facilities to Singapore, which will include live firing drills in the Andaman Sea, to add to similar services already being provided to the army and air force of the city-state for the last 10 years

Appreciating India's "leading role" in the Indian Ocean Region, Dr Ng said Singapore would "encourage" more Indian warships to come its shores, help in further securing the sea lanes of communication towards the Andaman Sea and the Strait of Malacca, expand and institutionalize maritime exercises with like-minded regional and ASEAN partners.

"We want to see more participation, cooperation and activity in both the Strait of Malacca and the Andaman Sea," said Dr Ng

[Double Edge]

Softening of China's strategic posture ? Who spotted this trend ?

Trump Factor & Softening of China’s Strategic Posture | China US Focus | Nov 28 2017

Due to various causes, China’s strategic posture in East Asia and the western Pacific after Xi Jinping became China’s top leader in November of 2012 until roughly a year prior to the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress this October was mainly characterized by assertiveness and hardline actions. Such a posturing resulted in both positive and negative consequences for China from a Chinese perspective.

However, China’s strategic behavior in the same region began to moderate as situation shifted both at home and internationally. This trend started even before Donald Trump’ election as the U.S. president. China began to soften its posture over South China Sea on the eve of G20 Summit held in September 2016 in Hangzhou. Still, the Trump win was a tipping point in the sense that he installed fear on China, primarily through his rhetoric against China’s trade practice which, if became real policy, would damage China’s economy and finance. His phone call with Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen soon after his election, and his tweets to use “One China” policy as a bargaining chip was also highly disturbing to China. China worried that Trump was very anti-China, very adventurist, and very Machiavellian. This fear tactic worked almost immediately: Xi was extraordinarily patient and prudent in dealing with Trump. Xi stood firm only on the core issue of Taiwan and the “One China” policy, and largely refrained from speaking ill of Trump in public. Instead, China did its best to cultivate good will and connections in Washington.

First, China’s behavior toward North Korea’s adventurism has become extremely harsher than before, doing so much and so quickly that the previous Chinese leaders had been either unwilling or dared to do. Moreover, Xi exercised extraordinary restraint over South China Sea and sought to improve relations with ASEAN and its member states, especially Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia to stabilize maritime situation and increase Chinese diplomatic influence. And even for a few months, there was no further statements on the importance of China-Russia strategic partnership and military cooperation, for the benefits of the relationship with Washington. There has perhaps been less naval activities in the sea near Japan - President Xi has repeatedly indicated since late May that China hopes to substantially improve relations with Japan. China and Japan might resume their formal summits that had been suspended for several years. Relations with Singapore saw marked improvement, too. Previously the relationship deteriorated to the lowest point due to Singapore’s position over South China Sea.

Quite encouragingly, the pattern of moderation or retrenchment continued and was reinforced around the Chinese Communist Party’s 19th National Congress. The Party Congress was instrumental in charting China’s foreign policy in the foreseeable future. Toward the end of August 2017, all of a sudden both India and China withdrew troops along the strategic border area of Doklum to end (or exactly speaking, to suspend) the months-long military stand-off. China also took out bulldozers that were constructing a road on the plateau that was in the first place caused by Indian intrusion. Moreover, a breakthrough in China-ROK relations dramatically emerged on October 31: shortly after the end of the 19th Party Congress, China de-linked relationship between THAAD deployment and the overall China-ROK relations. In fact China abandoned the policy it insisted on for more than one and half years. It is enlightening to observe that China is willing to make substantial concessions unilaterally to a smaller country for overall strategic interests, in a time of historic chance provided in a large degree by Trump’s “America First” (or as it were Alienating the World) disposition in general.

So, there has been an emerging pattern of moderation and restraint. Strategically speaking, the moderation or retrenchment should be quite positive for China’s overall interest in the long run, because of its nature of delaying the Clausewitzian “culminating point of victory”.

Substantial concessions unilaterally ? hah, how about when everyone started to push back and resolve to do more that China came to its senses

We will see how long for this soft stance continues, meanwhile defensive perimeters are being set up for the next phase of Chinese confidence

[Officer of Engineers]

Much ado about nothing. The Chinese is not in a position to challenge the Indian Navy for the foresseable future and the Indian Navy is not going to challenge the China Navy in the Taiwan Straits nor the South China Seas where the main Chinese challenges are.

[Double Edge]

Australia in the quad so long as Lay-bour isn't in charge. Oh well, kudos to the Aussies. Better in the open than not

Sam Dastyari's position 'untenable' after Chinese donor revelation: Julie Bishop | SMH | Nov 29 2017

Revelations that Labor's Sam Dastyari told a Chinese benefactor his phone was most likely being tapped by intelligence agencies makes his position in the Senate "untenable", the Turnbull government says.

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop has accused Senator Dastyari of acting against Australia's national security interests and Attorney-General George Brandis said the revelations raised serious questions about his loyalties.

'It isn't our place': New tape of pro-Beijing comments puts more heat on Dastyari | Brisbane Times | Nov 29 2017

An explosive tape recording shows for the first time that Senator Sam Dastyari delivered a scripted, deliberate and detailed defence of the Chinese government's aggressive land grab in the South China Sea, despite the senator's repeated attempts to deny it.

A brief report in a Sydney-based, Chinese-language newspaper last year about the June 17, 2016, press conference was partly responsible for Senator Dastyari being sacked from the Labor Party frontbench last September.

Americans got the Russian 'collusion' monkey on their back. Aussies got a Chinese one. How much of it really is against the national interest as opposed to domestic politicking as usual is anyone's guess

This is how autocrats screw with democracies

[Double Edge]

Much ado about nothing.

Confidence building ?

You said its politics earlier. Domestic politics. If people from numerous countries ask what is their leadership doing abut China's growing assertiveness. They will say Quad. Works

The Chinese is not in a position to challenge the Indian Navy for the foresseable future and the Indian Navy is not going to challenge the China Navy in the Taiwan Straits nor the South China Seas where the main Chinese challenges are.

The way i say the same thing you do is external SLOCs are no match for internal ones.

That is so long as India doesn't sit on its hands and works to maintain its natural advantage from Geography

[Officer of Engineers]

Confidence building ?

You said its politics earlier. Domestic politics. If people from numerous countries ask what is their leadership doing abut China's growing assertiveness. They will say Quad. Works

Japan, the US, and Australia would not be saying Quad. They have formal alliances that take care of such things.

[Double Edge]

Japan, the US, and Australia would not be saying Quad. They have formal alliances that take care of such things.

Why was Abe the one to push the idea as early as 2007 then ?

And what did you mean when you said politics

You keep slamming the idea but its being pushed and talked about

[Officer of Engineers]

Why was Abe the one to push the idea as early as 2007 then ?

And what did you mean when you said politics

You keep slamming the idea but its being pushed and talked about

Because these are nothing more than dog and pony shows. Is India going to share her command codes or weapons release procedures? Is the USN going to walk the Indian Navy through her nuclear release procedures? Are the Japanese going to share her aquostic signature database with India?

Train as you fight and fight as you train. No one is doing any fighting with these exercises.

[Double Edge]

Ah, if you put it that way then India does look like the odd one out. Which makes the whole exercise a lobbying campaign led by Abe to get India into some sort of alliance.

That will take some doing. It would take much more than losing in '62 to do it.

Now, the Chinese have got to know this so i don't get the reticence from Indian leaders over the years to not antagonise China if that even is a real reason.

In one of the talks, a prof who's been publishing since the 80s had the following to say

I'm a bit puzzled about the references repeatedly in all such seminars on pearls and diamonds. Which really amounts to the infrastructure being used for strategic purposes and that seems to be the trend in fashion these days. The line is China is there and we have to balance it

I remember that the same countries of Bay of Bengal and India included had talked about the peace zone in the Indian ocean and we asked the great powers to get out of it. Now the regional players are doing exactly what we didn't want others to do.

What are the consequences of this or is there a way out where rather than getting into a race for building strategic assets and infrastructure we can do something where this kind of competition can either be curbed or contained if not reversed at all

The panel wasn't very forthcoming other than to point out India didn't do much to prevent China setting up bases around. There is this need to balance China is the line we get fed. It's lobbying to get public opinion behind the idea.

[Double Edge]

No ETA's mentioned as to actual deployment. Classified bla bla

6 attack subs + 34 ships

India kickstarts process to build 6 nuclear-powered attack submarines | ET | Dec 01 2017

NEW DELHI: India has kick-started an ambitious project to build six nuclear-powered attack submarines that is expected to boost the Navy's overall strike capabilities in the face of China's naval build-up and increasing military manoeuvring in the Indo-Pacific region.

Confirming the launch of the mega project, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba also gave a clear indication that Indian Navy was ready to play a bigger role including under the proposed quadrilateral coalition among India, the US, Australia and Japan.

In a press conference on the eve of Navy Day, Admiral Lanba also touched on a range of key issues confronting the Navy including acquisition of a range of submarines, warships and weapons systems, asserting that it was ready to face any traditional and non-traditional threats.

"It has kicked off and I will leave it at that. It is a classified project. The process has started. I will not comment further," Admiral Lanba said, replying to a question on the project.

On the evolving security scenario in the maritime sphere around India, he said it was odd for China to deploy submarines for anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean region and that a threat assessment is being carried out by the Indian Navy on it.

"We are all aware of the prevailing security scenario in our maritime domain. The continued presence of both traditional and non-traditional threats in the maritime domain demand constant attention and robust mitigating measures," he said.

He also spoke about possible security challenges in case of presence of Chinese warships in the strategically-important Gwadar port in Pakistan which is being developed by China.

"It will be a security challenge. We will have to look at it and mitigate," he said.

The Navy Chief said eight ships of Chinese PLA Navy were deployed in the Indian Ocean region at any point of time and that there was a unique situation in August when the numbers had gone up to 14.

Additional deployment of Chinese warships and submarines were reported during the over two month-long standoff between Indian and Chinese armies in Dokalam.

On expanding the Indian Navy's presence in critical sea lanes, Admiral Lanba said it was gradually increasing its deployment in Andaman seas, Malacca Strait, Gulf of Oman, Persian Gulf, North Arabian and Sunda and Lumbok.

"In short, our ships and aircraft are deployed from the Gulf of Aden to the Western Pacific on an almost 24x7 basis," he said.

Referring to the bilateral naval agreement between India and Singapore providing for deeper cooperation including logistics support, he said similar agreements are being negotiated with a number of countries.

"We are negotiating similar pacts with a number of other countries," he said adding the Navy has activated the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) with the US by taking fuel at sea from the US three months ago.

Talking about the controversy in the Russian media that a US team was allowed to board nuclear-powered submarine INS Chakra, the Admiral said "No US official has even seen it from close quarters."

Talking about modernisation of the Navy, he said 34 ships are under construction and projects worth Rs 40,000 crore have been identified for participation of the private shipyards.

He said 23 Indian private sector shipyards have qualified for participation in indigenous shipbuilding projects on the basis of their capacity, capability and infrastructure.

The Navy chief said work on Indigenous Aircraft Carrier, IAC 1, is progressing well, adding he was hopeful that the ship would join the Navy by 2020.

He said steps have been taken to bolster the aviation arm of the Navy by induction of new fighters, surveillance aircraft and ship-borne helicopters.

"The Indian Navy is at the threshold of joining a select league of navies capable of providing Submarine Search and Rescue in the Indian Ocean Region with two Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel Systems scheduled for induction next year," he said.

Subs are for area denial not anti-piracy

Being refueled mid sea by American tankers is getting closer to showing the flag in more ports

[Double Edge]

Because these are nothing more than dog and pony shows. Is India going to share her command codes or weapons release procedures? Is the USN going to walk the Indian Navy through her nuclear release procedures? Are the Japanese going to share her aquostic signature database with India?

Train as you fight and fight as you train. No one is doing any fighting with these exercises.

Cultural familiarisation is not dog and pony, its like woodstock, glastonbury get together. Everyone gets together, make some music, pass the beers and smoke a big one : D

The United States has carried out more naval exercises with India than any other nation. But naval sources and experts say these are more about “cultural familiarisation” than drills for joint combat.

Because India will not sign an agreement on sharing data, naval exercises are conducted through voice and text commands with rudimentary SMS-style data exchange, Indian and Japanese military sources said.

“Think of it as directing your friend to your house in the 1980s. Your left may be his right, neither of you have situational awareness,” said Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a senior fellow at New Delhi’s Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies who has tracked the military exercises.

“What the Americans want is 2017 - drop a pin on Google maps and hit share. You know where your friend is and he knows where your house is and how to get to it.”

The Indian defence ministry did not respond to a request for a comment.

Priceless

Indian navy the odd man out in Asia's 'Quad' alliance | Reuters | Nov 22 2017

[Double Edge]

Regardless of the potency of the quad or its lack thereof. China doesn't want India in it. To date India has been attentive to Chinese red lines but they've been taking us for granted. So this is Indian signalling to China. Maybe the time for such a quad is still far off but the makings of one do send a signal to China which will force a calculation on their side.

[Officer of Engineers]

That subtlety is lost on the Chinese. American manned spy stations and American manned SAM batteries were in China during the Cold War and look at China-US relations today. This little dog and pony show even have less revelance than American military forces stationed in China.

[Double Edge]

No subtlety was lost on the Chinese ten years ago when the idea first came up or they wouldn't have persuaded the Aussies to back out.

Chinese demarches to 4 nations | Hindu | Jun 14 2007
China warns Canberra on security pact | The Age | Jun 15 2007

Professor White said the sending of diplomatic notes by China to the four countries would demonstrate how concerned it was about the way the strategic architecture of the region had changed in recent months.

"They are worried about all of them but I think what irritates them is that the Australian policy has changed. The Japanese and the Americans have, for some time, been developing the view that they'd like to have a closer relationship to, in a sense, hold China out at arm's length.

"They see this as a pattern in which the US and Japan have been trying to consolidate an alliance of democracies in Asia, which they feel is directed against them."

It's an open question ten years later when the Aussie economy is still more dependent on China whether the same is possible again. For the first time since 1788 the Aussies have to contemplate a future where there won't be a friendly western power that is dominant in East Asia. If twenty years from now the biggest economy isn't the US but China then nobody wants to lose out but not at the expense of their present positions

What does rules based order mean ? American dominance in Asia. That dominance is in question. There will be a rules based order in Asia just not as we know it.

The Japanese are facing that same question as well and will not submit to a Chinese rules based order in the region. The need might be the most acute for them or Abe wouldn't be pushing this the second time around. Kinda strange isn't it, why does a treaty partner feel the need to float yet another grouping.

If Japan, Korea & Taiwan isn't a workable counter balance to China then its time to explore alternatives commensurate with a potential future reduced US role in the region. A plan B if you will.

Watch China & others actions in this regard in the coming months. China thought they'd nixed this idea ten years ago.

[Funtastic]

No subtlety is lost on the Chinese or they wouldn't have persuaded the Aussies to back out ten years ago. It's an open question ten years later when the Aussie economy is still more dependent on China whether the same is possible again. For the first time since 1788 the Aussies have to contemplate a future where there won't be a friendly western power that is dominant in East Asia. If twenty years from now the biggest economy isn't the US but China then nobody wants to lose out but not at the expense of their present positions

What does rules based order mean ? American dominance in Asia. That dominance is in question. There will be a rules based order in Asia just not as we know it.

The Japanese are facing that same question as well and will not submit to a Chinese rules based order in the region. The need might be the most acute for them or Abe wouldn't be pushing this the second time around. Kinda strange isn't it, why does a treaty partner feel the need to float yet another grouping.

If Japan, Korea & Taiwan isn't a workable counter balance to China then its time to explore alternatives commensurate with a reduced US role in the region. A plan B if you will.

Watch China & others actions in this regard in the coming months. China thought they'd nixed this idea ten years ago.

Just like the Dali lama wants to return to China, so will Taiwan be begging China for reunification therefore you should forget about including her in the mix for a workable counter balanceto China