The importance of American military might to Australia and the Asia-Pacific

To now, the unaccountable CCP spends many billions to discourage dissent against China with its dominance in the South China Sea boosted by 20 constructed islands that host navy and air bases and enable continuous patrols.

With regard to Brunei, where the Sultan virtually decides everything as the Bruneian people accept the Malay Islamic Monarchy as their political system identity, it was reported in August 2021 that China had managed to buy Brunei’s silence by injecting $US6 billion into oil refinery and local infrastructure, “along with promises to boost trade and agricultural cooperation”.

During August 2021, after the Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reversed his threat to cancel the Philippines-United States Visiting Forces Agreement, probably influenced by the military and public backlash after China massed a flotilla of 220 Chinese fishing boats near Philippine-claimed reefs in March 2021, China announced several billions of dollars of assistance to the Philippines to aid railway infrastructure and other projects, in addition to the $24 billion pledged in 2016.  

In September 2021, however, with the Global Times bragging that China now had “the power to dispel or reject a vessel's entry … if [it] is found to post a threat to China's national security”, many regional nations were already supporting US efforts to counter China’s ambition to control the South China Sea.

Indonesia, which has been a long-time member of the non-aligned movement and is a non-claimant in the South China Sea, recently signed a deal with the US to build a coast guard base on the strategically important Batam Island.

While China has sought to bargain over the tract of sea near the 272 tiny Natuna islands northwest of Borneo, with China officially including such waters on a territorial map in 2016, Indonesia during 2018 opened a Natuna Islands military base for up to 1,000 personnel and declared in January 2021 that Indonesian sovereignty “is not negotiable”.

Nevertheless, 63 Chinese vessels in 30 locations spotted within Indonesia’s maritime exclusive economic zone in December 2020.

However, many countries in the Asia-Pacific region still rely on the US and spend little of their own resources on military spending, leading one writer from the CATO Institute to argue in August 2020 that Washington should step back to force Asian countries (especially Japan) to pay more for their defence spending given that China poses an even bigger threat to its nearby neighbours than the US itself.

As a percentage of GDP, while the US level of military spending was 3.7 in 2020, Australia’s was 2.1, Canada 1.4, Indonesia 0.9, Japan 1.0, Malaysia 1.1, New Zealand 1.5, the Philippines 1.0, Singapore 3.2, South Korea 2.8, Thailand 1.5 and Vietnam 2.3.

As it stands, such nations benefit from the US expanding its Pacific presence to counter China, aided by the US’s defence spending since 2014 still being around 3-4 per cent of GDP, albeit lower than the 4-4.9 per cent range from 2004 to 2013.

In addition to the US maintaining facilities on Kwajalein and Wake Island with the US having some 375,000 military and civilian personnel working across the Asian Pacific, the US Indo-Pacific Command and the Federated States of Micronesia concluded high-level talks with the US military to  build a new base on the island nation consisting of more than 600 islands in the Western Pacific, some 3,700 miles from Hawaii.  

Earlier in 2021, the Pentagon submitted a $27 billion plan to Congress to bolster capabilities across the Pacific region over the next six years, including armed ground-based cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles, as well as a plan to add more capable missile defenses and new space-based and terrestrial sensors.