Strategic Vision, Issue 56

Zane Zhang

STRATEGIC VISION for

Taiwan Security

Zane Zhang

Aswin Lin

Marina Ika Sari

Submissions: Essays submitted for publication are not to exceed 2,000 words in length, and should conform to the following basic format for each 1200-1600 word essay: 1. Synopsis, 100-200 words; 2. Background description, 100-200 words; 3. Analysis, 800-1,000 words; 4. Policy Recommendations, 200-300 words. Book reviews should not exceed 1,200 words in length. Notes should be formatted as endnotes and should be kept to a minimum. Authors are encouraged to submit essays and reviews as attachments to emails; Microsoft Word documents are preferred. For questions of style and usage, writers should consult the Chicago Manual of Style. Authors of unsolicited manuscripts are encouraged to consult with the executive editor at xiongmu@gmail.com before formal submission via email. The views expressed in the articles are the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of their affiliate institutions or of Strategic Vision. Once accepted for publication, manuscripts become the intellectual property of Strategic Vision. Manuscripts are subject to copyediting, both mechanical and substantive, as required and according to editorial guidelines. No major alterations may be made by an author once the type has been set. Arrangements for reprints should be made with the editor. The editors are responsible for the selection and acceptance of articles; responsibility for opinions expressed and accuracy of facts in articles published rests solely with individual authors. The editors are not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts; unaccepted manuscripts will be returned if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed return envelope. Strategic Vision remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover photograph of US Army, Tentara Nasional Indonesia, and Japan Ground Self-Defense Force paratroopers conducting trilateral airborne operations in support of Super Garuda Shield in Baturaja, Indonesia, on August 3, 2022, is courtesy of Nicholle Salvatierra.

Editor

Fu-Kuo Liu

Executive Editor

Aaron Jensen

Editor-at-Large

Dean Karalekas

Editorial Board

Chung-young Chang, Fo-kuan U

Richard Hu, NCCU

Ming Lee, NCCU

Raviprasad Narayanan, JNU

Hon-Min Yau, NDU

Ruei-lin Yu, NDU

Li-Chung Yuan, NDU

Osama Kubbar, QAFSSC

Rashed Hamad Al-Nuaimi, QAFSSC

Chang-Ching Tu, NDU

STRATEGIC VISION For Taiwan Security

(ISSN 2227-3646) Volume 12, Number 56, May, 2023, published under the auspices of the Center for Security Studies and National Defense University.

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From The Editor

This latest issue of Strategic Vision opens with an article by Drs. Pedro Brites and Luana Margarete Geiger from Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, which examines the faltering state of South American regional relations, the prospects for a Mercosur comeback, and how Taipei-Asunción relations complicate the region’s efforts to court Chinese money.

Next, Dr. Raviprasad Narayanan of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University looks at India’s presidency of the G20 this year, and how New Delhi is seeking to unlock the group’s potential to be a facilitator of diplomacy, especially among developing, non-Western nations.

We follow this with an examination of China’s extensive use of propaganda and disinformation against Taiwan, and how the people of Taiwan can develop critical media literacy skills, the better to identity and shield themselves against the effects of Beijing’s information warfare. This article was penned by Zane Zhang, a student in the Graduate Institute of International Security of the ROC National Defense University.

Next, Aswin Lin, a PhD candidate in the IDAS program at Taipei’s NCCU, does a deep dive into the North Korean practice of fielding midget submarines against its adversaries, and how this could provide inspiration for defense planners in Taipei, given the necessity for both countries to develop asymmetrical capacities.

Finally, Marina Ika Sari, a MOFA Taiwan Fellow at TCSS and a researcher at Indonesia’s Habibie Center, provides a backgrounder for last August’s Exercise Super Garuda Shield, and the importance of this longstanding military exercise conducted between the US military and Indonesia’s National Armed Forces, how it reinforces the US commitments to its allies and regional partners, and promotes joint readiness and the interoperability needed to fight and win together.

We wish our readers the best this summer season and hope you enjoy this issue. We look forward to continuing our coverage of the most important and impactful topics facing cross-strait and regional security in the Indo-Pacific region.

Dr. Fu-Kuo Liu Editor Strategic Vision

Articles in this periodical do not necessarily represent the views of either the TCSS, NDU, or the editors

Strategic Vision vol. 12, no. 56 (May, 2023)

Mercosur Uncertainties

Regional discord exacerbates China-Taiwan competition in Latin America

Pedro Brites & Luana Margarete Geiger

The election of Luís Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency in Brazil brought a new impetus to the faltering state of South American regional relations. There is an expectation that the new Brazilian government will seek to regain leadership of regional integration projects in South America and, in this way, reverse the weakening that has recently afflicted South American regional institutions. The geopolitical scenario today, however, is different from that which marked Brazilian foreign policy in the first two Lula administrations. The growing rivalry between China and the United States has manifested itself in South America. Beijing’s increased

presence in the region puts a check on the Southern Common Market, also known as Mercosur, and its ability to regain economic prominence. Therefore, the future of South American relations with the countries of East Asia is a central part of this regional realignment. In this sense, Paraguay’s relations with Taiwan are one of the fundamental elements defining the future of Mercosur’s relations with China.

Since the abandonment of Unasur—a South American economic bloc aimed at countering US influence in the region—and the decline of Mercosur in the mid-2010s, the goal of regional integration in South America has been put on the backburner.

Dr. Pedro Brites is deputy coordinator and professor in international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation and holds a PhD in International Strategic Studies from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

Dr. Luana Margarete Geiger is a non-resident fellow at TCSS and research coordinator at Observa China. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

The first day of 2023 with the inauguration of President Luís Inácio Lula da Silva, as he begins his third term as president of Brazil.

photo: Ana Pessoa

In addition, a lack of leadership from the region’s main economy, Brazil, facilitated the increased presence of extra-regional actors in the South American economies. One of the main beneficiaries of this was the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which saw its trade volume increase from US$180 billion in 2010 to around US$450 billion in 2021. Beijing has become South America’s main trading partner and the second-largest in Latin America, behind only the United States.

For Mercosur, this scenario led to a polarization of domestic policy in each of the bloc’s member countries, with certain sectors defending a closer relationship with the PRC and others prioritizing relations with the United States, the European Union, and Japan. Thus, the countries’ foreign policy reflected these internal disputes. As a result, some countries began demanding more freedom to engage in commercial relations outside the bloc, while others still sought to revive the project of regional integration. The abandonment of regional leadership was especially dramatic for the smaller countries of the

bloc, namely Uruguay and Paraguay. Historically, these two nations have used regional relations to achieve better negotiating leverage at the global level and have had relevant economic partners in Brazil and Argentina. For both Montevideo and Asunción, Brasília and Buenos Aires are among their top five trading partners. Thus, while Brazil set aside South American integration, the two countries sought to overcome Mercosur’s weakening by reviewing bilateral relations with partners in other regions, such as Asia. While Uruguay has sought, in recent years, to expand its bilateral relations with Beijing, which includes a proposal for a trade agreement, Paraguay maintained its preferential relationship with Taipei.

Only remaining ally

Having resisted the diplomatic and other enticements accepted by other countries in Latin America, Asunción is now Taipei’s only remaining South American partner and the largest country by area to officially recognize the Republic of China (ROC).

A folk dance troupe performs at a banquet for representatives of the Taiwanese expatriate community in Paraguay.

Photo: ROC Presidential Office

This has caused Paraguay to miss out on Chinese loans, investments, and credit, but Paraguayan elites evidently feel sympathy for Taiwan—a small territory that is bullied by a large, powerful neighbor. In part this may be because they read their own international history and conditions in a similar light. Therefore, Paraguay uses its diplomatic recognition policy in view of the mutual exchange of international status.

Statistical models suggest that the lost finance from China could have reached 1 percent of Paraguay’s GDP per year during the commodities boom period. In the past, anti-Communism and US pressure also played a significant role, but more recently, the perceived benefits may be rooted in the pursuit of a different form of recognition that Taiwan grants to small states—attention, esteem, and relational status—that goes beyond narrow material benefits. In this sense, relations with the ROC provide the country—one that is smaller, poorer, and often overshadowed by its neighbors—with respect, which is valued high enough for Paraguay to maintain its partnership with Taipei.

Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benítez made his second official visit to Taipei in February 2023.

After an interview with the Financial Times in 2022, Abdo addressed the need for Taiwan to increase its investments in the country in order to help strengthen the argument in Paraguay of the importance of its partnership with Taiwan. Abdo’s administration ends in August 2023, as Santiago Peña was elected on April 30 to be the country’s next president. During the campaign, Peña’s ruling Colorado Party vowed to maintain ties with Taiwan should he win, while the opposition candidate, Efrain Alegre of the Concertación Nacional, had threatened to switch diplomatic recognition to Beijing.

South American markets

For Taiwan companies, Paraguay represents an entryway to South American markets, while Paraguay has increased its exports of food and agricultural products to Taiwan. Imports of Paraguayan beef products, for example, have increased from US$35 million in 2018 to US$240 million in 2022. Paraguay and Taiwan have also collaborated on joint projects to improve the Paraguayan public health system and to develop electric vehicle technology. In 2017, Taiwan set up

photo: ROC Presidential Office

ROC President Tsai Ing-wen and President Mario Abdo Benítez of the Republic of Paraguay visit Hualien Air Force Base on February 17, 2023.

the Taiwan-Paraguay Polytechnic University in the capital Asunción. In 2022, Taiwan sent two investment delegations to Paraguay.

A pillar of South American regional integration, Mercosur’s genesis stems from the democratization process in Brazil and Argentina in the 1980s, which ran parallel to the end of the growth cycle in Latin America. The integration process was formalized in 1991, and included Paraguay and Uruguay, with the goal of strengthening democratic transitions, peace, and security in the region.

In the 2000s, a limited focus on structural difficulties was partially substituted by the idea of a multidimensional integration process for Mercosur, including social and cultural aspects, with efforts to share social and political experiences among its members, as well as to deepen political integration, through the Mercosur Parliament, for example. Political convergence between leaders in the region also contributed to the project. These were insufficient, though, to overcome structural debilities within the states and to add regionalism to the political agenda at the domestic level.

The rise of conservative governments in the second half of the 2010s, in turn, meant a setback for regional institutions and led to the weakening of Mercosur. This intermittent interest in deepening the integration process led to the bloc’s decline at the end of the decade, marked by low-intensity cooperation. Mercosur is challenged by diverging domestic priorities, complicating the formation of identity and a common vision for the bloc.

The epistemic community that mobilized efforts to create Mercosur in the 1990s was made up of diverse social and economic segments, including diplomats, the military, academia, as well as industrial interests and government officials. Nowadays, this consensus is no longer in place, creating oscillations in how much emphasis is given to the bloc, which varies according to the administration in power, therefore contribut-

ing to the identity crisis of the bloc. There is, in this sense, a lack of internal consensus over the importance of structuring a regional space or how to do it.

Due to elements of the relations within the bloc, the conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and Mercosur is unlikely in either the short or medium term. Paraguay’s diplomatic relations with Taiwan is one of the main challenges facing the prospects of an FTA with China, though

“Mercosurrepresentsanarenainwhich the multilateral agenda might oppose China’s interests.”

not the only one. Nevertheless, there are other ways in which the region can and has been engaging with China. Argentina and Uruguay, for example, have both signed on to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Also, strategic partnerships have been signed bilaterally, and there are also examples of cooperation at the sub-national levels, as happened during negotiations for the COVID-19 vaccines developed in China.

In Brazil, the opinions of domestic actors seem to oscillate between seeing Mercosur as a platform for access to the international market, or as a structuring tool for integration in search for autonomy along the international insertion of the region. The newly inaugurated administration in Brazil has ignited a debate over a comeback for the bloc. It is important to remember that Mercosur was seen as the destiny of most of the Brazilian industrialized exports, and that the country also presents an autonomous individual leadership project in the region, which did not go unnoticed by its neighbors.

Under the Lula administration, Brazil-China relations will likely be favorably conducted using a multifaceted and multilateral approach, including through BRI discussions, the China-CELAC forum, BRICS, and Mercosur, as a way to strengthen ties with the PRC while also cautiously guarding against US

anti-China pressure. Mercosur represents an arena in which the multilateral agenda might oppose China’s interests.

Lula da Silva’s administration has yet to formally propose a vision for regional integration or on what role will be expected from Mercosur in the coming years. In many ways, a Paraguayan abandonment of Taiwan will depend on the incentives proposed by Brazil, provided

heterodox considerations over the bloc. The liberal view prioritizes the development of specific productive sectors, where comparative advantages are higher, and give preference to free trade areas in detriment to a customs union. The developmental view advocates for industrial development focusing on strategic sectors and giving preference to mutual access to the bloc’s internal markets, primarily benefiting Mercosur’s members.

it recovers its political weight. As an enthusiast of SouthSouth cooperation, Lula has tended to oppose attempts to weaken Mercosur’s cohesion or Brazil’s regional economic leadership by signaling to other members that national interests can be considered independently from Mercosur’s interests. The bloc also represents a multilateral arena in which Brazil can counter Chinese influence and predominance in its trade balance.

Discussion over the Argentinian vision for Mercosur has also been divided between more liberal and more

With elections scheduled for October 2023, and inflation rates reaching more than 100 percent since 2022, Argentina has its hands full dealing with severe economic difficulties. The election of current President Alberto Fernández was one of the reasons the sanctioning of the FTA between Mercosur and the European Union was postponed. Other reasons include Brazil’s climate policy under the Bolsonaro administration. The aforementioned FTA has been under negotiation for more than two decades.

Amidst a lack of leadership among Mercosur members, or any momentum to advance their political agendas, the President of Uruguay Luis Lacalle Pou announced in July 2022 his intention to move for-

“Since...2016,Taipeihaslostdiplomatic recognition in five Latin American countries.”

ward with negotiations for an FTA with China. The announcement has both created profound difficulties for the Mercosur trade bloc and highlighted the nature of Uruguay’s (and South America’s) deepening relationship with the PRC. In the first months of 2023, Lacalle Pou confirmed the advancement of bilateral negotiations toward an Uruguay-China FTA, which has been underway for at least two years.

Mercosur rules

The Uruguayan business community strongly supports the signing of an FTA with China, but due to Mercosur rules that prohibit its members from negotiating bilateral trade agreements without the bloc’s approval, Uruguay’s actions have raised tensions, and are seen as harmful to the unity of the bloc. The situation has also raised the question of whether Mercosur should be more flexible and allow its members to sign agreements individually.

Since Tsai Ing-wen assumed the ROC presidency in 2016, Taipei has lost diplomatic recognition in five Latin American countries. With the growing asser-

tiveness of Chinese diplomats, the issue of Taiwan is brought up more than ever before. This newfound attention can be strategically leveraged in Taiwan’s favor, by pursuing other agendas, as a way to boost its collaborative projects with countries with which it does not have diplomatic relations. A focus on the fields of education, culture, and language, as well as on technical cooperation involving universities and civil society, could be a way of developing a greater understanding about Taiwan, broadening the production of knowledge about the island at various levels, and creating new links for cultural exchanges with other parts of the world.

Strengthening Mercosur could be beneficial for Taiwan’s relations with South America. Strong regional integration can favor the smallest countries in the bloc, such as Paraguay. Thus, there may be less incentive for Assunción to seek a sudden change in its foreign policy. After all, the opportunity cost of derecognizing Taipei would be greater in the event of advances in the regional economy. It is therefore impossible to dissociate the future of the bloc from the foreign policy of the countries in the region. n

photo: Foreign Ministry of Ecuador

Inauguration of the 43rd Summit of the Heads of State of MERCOSUR and Associated States held in Mendoza, Argentina.

Strategic Vision vol. 12, no. 56 (May, 2023)

G20 Summit Diplomacy

India uses G20 presidency to spur group to exceed UN in global relevance

Raviprasad Narayanan

India, which holds the Group of Twenty (G20) Presidency this year, hosted a high-level tourism summit for G20 members May 2224 in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, prompting Beijing to boycott the event. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China would not attend the event because the government was against “holding any kind of G20 meetings in disputed territory,” it was reported in international media.

For more than six decades, Sino-Indian tensions have periodically been irritated by conflicting interpretations of the de facto border in the Himalayan

territory. These tensions came to a head in 2020 when more than 20 Indian and a reported four Chinese soldiers died in the Galwan Valley area, in hand-tohand combat using improvised blunt-force weapons. China’s refusal to attend the G20 tourism meeting may speak to a further deterioration of Sino-Indian ties, at just the time when responsible diplomacy is needed most—especially as conducted through the sort of summit diplomacy that the meetings of the G20 offers. Indeed, one might argue that the international body was made for this.

As evidenced by China’s boycott, international relations are in a permanent state of flux, owing to the vi-

Dr. Raviprasad Narayanan is an associate professor at the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

As current president of the G20, India is pulling out all the stops to promote its culture and history to delegates.

photo: G20

cissitudes of global politics, with events, personalities, ideologies and histories as determinants. For the past two decades or more, there has been a shift beyond the Cold War legacies of competing ideologies and toward enhanced resources. Three decades after the end of the Cold War, there is a need for new participatory forums that move beyond the existing stultified ones. The G20 is representative of global geopolitics shifting toward a newer template of geo-economics as the primary determinant of global order. India considers this group of the world’s largest economies to be the harbinger of tomorrow’s world order, bringing together people beyond the narrow tropes that have served only to constrain.

The G20 is markedly different from the United Nations, where all members are ostensibly committed to maintaining international peace and security, reflecting the urgency of the post-WWII world in which it was formed, and geared toward preventing another destructive war. Geopolitical realities, expressed through ideological rhetoric, emerged to take center stage as the original aims of the global body were retreating, owing to economic and militarily powerful nations being able to use diplomacy as tool to coerce recalcitrant members to acquiesce to their desires.

The Cold War was witness to the United Nations becoming the world’s preeminent global institution, where the internal decision-making structure made up of the permanent members of the UN Security Council (also known as the Big Five, or P5), set the agenda, discussing and deciding issues with minimal feedback from countries that often bore the brunt

of the decisions made. The P5 still consists of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and China—essentially the victors of WWII. To many UN members, the P5 represent an anachronism held over from seven decades ago, requiring much-needed introspection and correction. The names of the P5 are viewed not only as a legacy of WWII victory, but also of the societal, political, and economic impacts of colonialism in Africa and South America, as well as Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, who have little say in how the P5 works and why decisions are made before deliberations even take place.

The first session of the UN General Assembly opened on January 10, 1946. It was during this session that the Security Council met for the first time.

photo: UN

“Prevailing geopolitical frailties have preciselycreatedthespacefortheG20 toemergeasameetingtemplateforthe largesteconomiesintheworldtoday.”

These prevailing geopolitical frailties have precisely created the space for the G20 to emerge as a meeting template for the largest economies in the world today. As a platform to band together, discuss economic possibilities, streamline trading mechanisms with taxation norms becoming expressions of shared complementarities, geo-economics is bringing together a newer understanding of the concept of “international peace and security” being decided by economics, not politics and warfare.

Articulating interests

The G20 was founded in 1999 when highly industrialized and fast-developing countries came together to discuss global economic issues without being limited by existing barriers on interlocution as interpreted by vested interests, or of stonewalling robust debate carrying international weight. Not to be interpreted merely as a bloc, the G20 gives voice for emerging weighty economies to articulate their interests, allowing the needs of economic structures to be less constrained by overbearing political aspects. With

global financial flows becoming increasingly interconnected, the G20 lays a lot of importance on having common policies to prevent financial crises—which happen with almost decadal regularity—from derailing economic growth and leading to political complications, both domestic and international.

The countries comprising the G20 represent around 90 percent of world’s GDP, and more than 80 percent of trans-continental and intra-continental trade. With this ballast, the G20 cannot be ignored.

There are a number of variables and determinants encouraging India to position itself at the vanguard of the G20. Holding the G20 Presidency in 2023, India sees the G20 as an objective structure with strong domestic attributes representing a genesis of perceptions stemming from internal and external domestic social structures, requiring a platform of expression. This leads one to surmise that the G20 can be seen as an example of structural constructivism. This year is important for India for several reasons.

This year marks almost a decade of elected rule by a political group striving to make India strong in economic terms, lifting hundreds of millions out of

The G20 tourism meeting held May 22-24 in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir, was not without its security challenges.

photo: G20

poverty to become autonomous economic agents. An ideology that invokes past greatness and achievements in science, mathematics, and philosophy serves as an inspiration for future economic success.

India has a global profile, moreover. It has eclipsed the United Kingdom, its former colonizer, and become world’s fifth-largest economy. Media and government in the UK has been quite parsimonious about former colonial possessions getting ahead. Moreover, India has the world’s largest population of young people, a source of dynamic energy and creativity that will make it a global economic player.

Multiple payment rubrics

India today pursues a free-market economic ideology with regulatory mechanisms, and as such wants the G20 to be the voice for countries that, for reasons as yet not understood, have been largely ignored by the United Nations. Cold War-era perceptions still cloud powerful lobbies influencing foreign policy making in the P5. The G20 is a platform where ar-

guments for multiple payment rubrics can be made, in place of being anchored to only one dominant monetary construct. Negotiations on bilateral and multilateral payment mechanisms, unconstrained by a single framework, are beginning to resonate within this grouping.

In addition, the rapid anchoring of technologies to economies has led to an upending of existing arrangements, positioning the G20 as an avenue for airing alternative workable economic propositions where technology can be shared, not linked to conservative proprietorial legalities, making shared economic bandwidth possible. As a high-tech power, India wants to share its success story with the G20; of having become a global leader in app creation, digital technologies, facilitating economic growth in the digital sphere, and challenging the conventional stereotypes of economic parameters.

The G20 goes beyond the UN’s P5 in that it comprises member countries from every continent. South Africa, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, India, and Indonesia, as well as other countries, highlight the P5 inequal-

A delegate experiences the lush valleys, Bengal Tigers, and other tourist attractions of Siliguri, the gateway to North-East India, using VR technology.

photo: G20

ity that ignores almost three-quarters of the world’s population. It is indeed a truism that the P5 comprises only around one-quarter of the world’s population, with the rest left feeling inconsequential.

Moreover, the G20 comprises members from Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and South Asia, incorporating their opinions and ideas, inclusively, not exclusively. The G20 reveals a temperament of accessibility and availability of a much-needed forum for economies to speak about economic globalization, rather than as a divider of global grassroots aspirations.

In assuming the G20 Presidency for a year, India got off the ground early, by hosting a G20 Development Working Group in Mumbai in December 2022. The G20 attaches great importance to the annual finance ministers meeting. The year will see India hosting over 200 meetings in many cities, discussing means of combating pandemics and environmental issues. Delegates to different cities will witness a multi-

terrain, multi-lingual, multi-cultural India, with its economic aspirations articulated by youth and experts alike. The theme of India’s G20 Presidency is Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, a Sanskrit phrase meaning “the world is one family.” The emphasis is on the environment as life-continuum in socio-economic terms.

Rapid evolution

The organization is a relative beginner in the field of multilateral economic bodies, with slightly over two decades in existence. In its early days, the G20 might have been described as giving a voice to the discontent and the underdeveloped. Yet, this grouping has evolved rapidly to become a voice that is gaining global attention. With 20 leading economies as members, their economic imprint is visible, both regionally and worldwide. Staying focused on economic issues that influence all nations, the G20 has overtaken long-standing institutions like the United

Delegates gather at the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting in New Delhi to address the multi-dimensional challenges facing the global economy.

photo: G20

Nations, by being flexible and accommodative, not self-constrained by preaching lofty values, ignorant of the realities. To begin with, the very composition of the G20 is interesting and thought-provoking.

The members of the G20 are a delight to political scientists and international relations scholars, revealing a mix of democracies, quasi-democracies, constitutional monarchies, absolute monarchies, authoritarian states, and members of several multilateral initiatives. Going beyond the history of colonization, countries like India, South Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and South Korea can speak as equals to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Japan, who as colonizers, left behind social and economic ruination. Social constructivism plays a role here by highlighting shared economic values and expertise being a template, not limited by political schisms of the past.

In terms of the P5, the G20 makes the post-WWII body look anachronistic. Steering clear of political jargon, the G20 does not advocate for adherence to any particular political system. As a grouping, the G20 does not, as yet, have a central secretariat,

which could stymie progress. Rather, there is a focus on economic steps to alleviate shared problems. These steps are pushing economic growth that is realistic, timely, and green. The European Union, as a collective member, may be discomfiting to some members, especially since the UK’s departure. This makes France’s and Germany’s voices in the EU predominant, with Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Poland left in an uncomfortable position.

Is the EU represented by one voice, or will not having internal negotiations stall future G20 decisions?

The BRICS and OPEC have members in the G20, raising concerns about energy sourcing in a postpetroleum world. Early criticism of the G20 included its lack of unity in taking a stand on global health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. The G20 wants commonality on this issue as it leads to economic disruptions and attendant costs. By boycotting the recent meeting, China has dealt a blow to the high-minded ideals of the G20, as well as to the aspirations—as outlined in this article—that it can become a valuable forum to address the deficiencies of the United Nations. n

The G20 foreign ministers deliberate upon global challenges including multilateralism, food and energy security, and counter-terrorism.

photo: G20

Critical Media Literacy

Taiwanese must be diligent to detect PRC information warfare, propaganda

The electorate in the Republic of China (ROC), as much as the candidates themselves, are currently preparing for the upcoming presidential election season in Taiwan. The contenders are busy outlining policies, giving interviews, and working hard to get their message across to potential voters. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is also busily preparing for Taiwan’s election season, spreading disinformation, creating uncertainty, and engaging in what ROC President Tsai Ing-wen has described as “cognitive warfare tactics.”

Since the last election cycle, the information landscape has changed greatly, and Beijing’s influence over media platforms—both legacy media and so-

cial media—has markedly improved, making it ever more important that the Taiwan electorate develop the skills needed to identify fake news, and separate fact from China’s attempts to subvert Taiwan’s democracy through information warfare.

The channels through which citizens get their news and entertainment have evolved rapidly over the past few years. In the mid-20th century, by capitalizing on advances in computer microminiaturization, human society marched into the Information Age, also known as the New Media Age. In 2006, Facebook was opened to the global society as an online social media and networking service. Since then, our lives in the physical world have overlapped with our lives

Zane Zhang is an officer in the ROC military who studies at the Graduate Institute of International Security of the ROC National Defense University. He can be reached for comment at Jumperjoke199@gmail.com

Zane Zhang

Social media and Internet services have opened up new avenues for sharing personal information and ideas without personal interaction.

photo: Jason Howie

on this virtual network. Online society is now part of our reality, and this transition has had a huge impact on our lives. Twitter, Telegram, Reddit, Instagram, and other digital news websites proliferate. Online social interaction is now an inseparable part of living, and—since the widespread nationwide lockdowns in so many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic— quite possibly one that has overtaken IRL (or “in real life”) social interaction.

Civilizational leap forward

Many see this development as one of the most tremendous improvements in human society, akin to the civilizational leaps forward that attended the agricultural and industrial revolutions before it. People can now share ideas and exchange thoughts in a much easier and more effective way, but like all new progress and social evolution, it has created new challenges. With advanced information technology comes the potential for information disorder.

According to Claire Wardle, a research fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, there are three major types of information disorder: misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. Misinformation is when false information is shared inadvertently, but no harm is meant. Disinformation refers to false information that is knowingly shared to cause harm. Malinformation is when genuine, factual information is shared in order to cause harm, such as by making private information public. Most of the cognitive warfare operations being conducted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against Taiwan involve misinformation and disinformation.

Chinese disinformation efforts range from the overt to the subtle. In 2018, a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) psychological warfare unit inserted subliminal messaging in ads from large companies to support the CCP’s “One China” principle, it was reported. Other methods include manufacturing large numbers of online subscribers to support pro-unification

photo: geoffroy

A forest of campaign banners festoon an overpass in Taipei during a 2002 election. Campaigning in Taiwan’s democracy is famously exuberant.

political candidates; spreading racial slurs in online forums in the guise of Taiwanese users; and hacking into digital signs at Taiwan’s convenience stores to display fake news and critical messaging. From late2019 to late-2020, China launched 1.4 billion cyberattacks on political, economic, and military targets in Taiwan, according to a report from a Japanese Defense Ministry think tank.

With all these varied avenues of attack, and more, it is almost impossible to block every channel for Chinese information warfare. However, teaching people how to recognize disinformation can lead to resiliency. Critical media literacy is increasingly becoming essential knowledge and a required skill for the global population, especially for people living in Taiwan who are facing the challenges of psychological operations and grey-zone tactics by the PRC.

In the past, citizens expected the news media to provide only the facts, and for reporters to secure independent confirmation from a variety of additional sources, before reporting on a potentially controver-

sial story. The trade of journalism has changed in recent years, however, even in the West, where such ethical standards are seen as outdated, and a potential hindrance in a market where news outlets must compete for viewers against online channels, social media, 24-hour cable news, and other competitors who strive to get the story first, rather than to get the story right.

Propaganda defense

Viewers must therefore develop the skills of critical thinking and analysis, the ability to engage in reflection and ethical thinking, and the use of tools and technology to defend themselves against being propagandized. Critical media literacy plays an important role in Taiwan to counteract the PRC’s psychological operations and grey-zone tactics.

It is not just in Taiwan, but countries around the world are already under attack via sophisticated efforts in information warfare. In 1999, two colonels

CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the 20th National Congress of the CCP in Beijing on October 16, 2022.

photo: PRC Government

of the PLA, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui, wrote a book titled Unrestricted Warfare, in which they introduced the Three-Warfare framework: “public opinion warfare” to control the enemy’s perceptions, “psychological warfare” to intimidate and cast doubt, and “legal warfare,” which uses the enemy’s own justice system against him. Since the publication of that book, the bounds of military confrontation have become blurred. A variation of the English translation of “Unrestricted Warfare” is “Transfinite Warfare.” International litigation, diplomatic coercion, trade competition, economic aid, and cultural activities: all have been weaponized by the PRC against Taiwan and the West in a new form of warfare that uses what the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief has termed “extra-military instruments.” Information maneuvers, as well, serve as a part of the psychological operations and cyber warfare. These competitive interactions conducted by the adversary take place in a grey zone that, in the words of USSOCOM, falls between the traditional duality of war and peace.

As the world learned from the Russo-Ukraine War, grey-zone tactics can serve as preparation for a more intense and violent confrontation, and may signal the beginning of a full-scale war. Holding too tightly to

the traditional paradigm of war, and thereby ignoring China’s theory of unrestricted warfare, is no longer practical, or safe. Modern states face the threats of hybrid warfare, blending conventional warfare, irregular warfare, and cyber warfare, and combining kinetic operations with subversive efforts. Information operations will be a critical part of hybrid warfare, especially for Taiwan, where almost 90 percent of the population are active on social media platforms.

Use of force

Currently, Taiwan is in a severe situation, facing a potential invasion by the PLA, and this situation is getting worse over time. The CCP closed its 20th National Congress on October 22, 2022. In his opening speech, General Secretary Xi Jinping advocated, again, for the “peaceful reunification” of Taiwan, and vowed, again, not to renounce the use of force to achieve that aim. Many believe that Xi’s goal is to unify Taiwan during his third term in office, thereby ensuring that his name will go down in history. The opposing action that starts a war may not be a conventional one; by and large, information and cyber operations may be the prelude to invasion. All resi-

Reporters cover a presidential press conference. China has purchased media companies in Taiwan to promote Beijing’s cross-strait narrative.

photo: ROC Presidential Office

dents of Taiwan should have the essential ability to correctly interpret the information that is being foisted upon them, and to critically evaluate the source and intentions behind such information.

Moreover, while there are other means to deal with the PRC’s employment of information warfare, enhancing the media literacy of the public is a long-term plan. It has been argued that, rather than educating the people, the answer is to enact legislative protections, and that a Digital Services Act would be a more concrete way to safeguard cyber security and counter disinformation and misinformation. While this may be true in some circumstances, it raises a host of other concerns: that the prevention of so-called “harmful content” may undermine freedom of speech, for example. Having long lived under dictatorships and colonizers, the people of Taiwan cherish their hardwon democracy, and they value their liberties, prime among which is the freedom that all people have to articulate their own opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction. Giving the government the power to curtail such freedoms—even in the name of security—runs counter to Taiwan’s

values and opens the door to possible misuse, if not by the current administration, then by a future one.

In July last year, the ROC National Communications Commission passed a draft of the Digital Services Act, which would have empowered politicians and bureaucrats to declare certain online content harmful and remove it. The legislation was opposed by scholars, civil rights organizations, service providers, and the public. There were grave concerns about giving the government enough power to define what “harmful content” is, and on that basis to restrict people’s freedom of speech. In September, the commission withdrew the draft and made plans for a new agenda for the legislation of digital service. The incident demonstrates how much Taiwanese citizens cherish the value of participatory democracy, and that there must be limits on governmental authority. Although there have been cases in which this type of law has been passed, such as the EU’s successful passage of the Digital Services Act, these have happened in opposition to, not in accordance with, the will of the public, and they have already garnered criticism for lacking transparency. Improving the critical literacy

The ROC Military held a flash mob event on the streets of Ximending, Taipei to improve the public perception of the armed forces.

photo: ROC MND

of the citizenry may not be the easiest or quickest solution, but it remains the best, fairest, and most just course of action to the challenges presented by the disinformation threat, as well as to progress in a democratic society.

The presence of fact-checking institutions is another potential countermeasure to the adversary’s information campaign, and one that has been employed extensively in the West in recent years. Though today’s “fact-checkers” have proven to be no less susceptible to compromising the ethics of their trade than journalists, these nongovernmental operations can, if used properly, help equip the public with the tools necessary to identify misinformation, disinformation, and fake news. Indeed, the proper use of such tools is part and parcel of media literacy. In Taiwan, local members of the International Fact-Checking Network, such as Taiwan FactCheck Center, routinely verify the factuality of information and promote the veracity and correctness of responsible reporting. This demonstrates the resilience of the society, and it also shows that Taiwan is on the right path—a path that will gradually elevate its strength in media literacy.

A long way to go

However, it’s never enough. Taiwan still has a long way to go in terms of media literacy education. Compared to the United States and other western countries, media literacy education is not very far advanced in Taiwan, nor in much of Asia. People living in Taiwan still frequently receive misleading information produced on content farms, often shared by friends and colleagues who are themselves oblivious to its falseness and intended harms. Yet, false information is not just about Chinese content farms. According to Wardle, there are several major classifications of false information, ranging from mild to severe. Some is intended as satire or parody, yet

has the potential to fool the reader—sometimes intentionally. There are also false or misleading headlines, visuals, or captions that are not supported in the body of the content. There is misleading content designed to frame the narrative about an issue or an individual. The best lies, it is said, are mixed with the truth, and approaching the more dangerous end of the spectrum is content that contains outright disinformation, but is reported along with just enough truth so as to conceal its mendacity. More egregious is wholly fake content that is masking itself as true, and designed to deceive and do harm to the enemy or victim.

Taiwan is facing attacks by state-sponsored actors conducting information operations. That the PRC operates the infamous PLA Unit 61398 to conduct cyberattacks is an open secret. There is also research showing that Hong Kong was under attack by pragmatic information operations by multiple fake accounts during the 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement. Taiwan shares a similar culture and language with the PRC in the Sino-culture sphere, which makes it especially susceptible to the PLA’s information operations.

The controversial issue of China-sourced fake accounts launching attacks on various Internet social platforms, such as PTT, Facebook, Twitter, and LINE, against Taiwan-based targets continues unabated. For now, the ROC government still needs time to build up its capacities and upgrade its regulation of new media and digital services, and elevating the public’s critical media literacy is one of the optimal strategies to withstand, or at least identify, such attacks.

Improving the critical media literacy of ROC citizens is a critical and urgent task, for information operations are part of the hybrid warfare in the PLA playbook as it takes its own “anti-secessionist” rhetoric to heart. Indeed Taiwan is already under attack by a regular barrage from the PRC’s false information campaigns. n

Midget Submarines

North Korea’s asymmetric naval strategy may hold lessons for Taiwan

Aswin Lin

On March 26, 2010, the world was shocked when news emerged that the ROKS Cheonan, a corvette in the South Korean Navy, mysteriously sank near Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, killing 46 of the ship’s complement of 104 sailors. At first, investigators suspected a shark-class submarine was behind the attack. However, after conducting a thorough investigation, they uncovered the existence of a new class of sub, which they dubbed the Yeono, or salmon, class. At a displacement of just 130 tons, the Yeono is what is called a midget submarine. It can be operated by a crew of just one or two, but sometimes carries up to nine officers and crew, with little or no sleeping

accommodations on board. They usually work in conjunction with mother ships or operate not far from port, from where they can be quickly launched and recovered.

Although the Korean People’s Army (KPA) is lavishly funded by North Korean standards, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is a poor country, with a reported 60 percent of its population living below the poverty line. The military therefore cannot afford to keep pace with the technological and investment-heavy advances being made by South Korea’s military, as well as of their security alliance with the world’s largest and best-funded armed force, the US military. The Korean People’s Navy—the naval

Aswin Lin is a PhD student in the International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies at National Chengchi University in Taipei. He can be reached for comment at aswinagustinus7@gmail.com

Officers with the US 7th Fleet command ship USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19) examine the damage to ROKS Cheonan (PCC 772).

photo: Cynthia Griggs

branch of the KPA—must rely on asymmetric naval warfare for its naval strategy.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the decline in availability of Russian military equipment has forced North Korea to adapt. It has developed its own domestic defense industry and is producing new vessels that, while clearly unable to go one-onone against the South Korean and American navies, could prove effective at waging asymmetric warfare at sea. North Korea has about 70 diesel-electric attack, coastal, and midget submarines in service. Many of the DPRK’s submarines are older designs, with limited endurance. However, they are sufficiently capable of using torpedoes and mines to threaten the US and allied navies operating near the Korean Peninsula.

It should come as no surprise that midget submarines should be an attractive option for planners in Pyongyang, given their low price tag and history of successful use by countries ranging from Colombia to Japan. Germany deployed midget submarines to great effect late in World War II, to attack Allied supply lines. Even in modern day, the United States is developing the Dry Combat Submersible S351 Nemesis

for the Special Operations Command. Ferried to the area of operations and deployed by surface ships, these diesel-electric boats will be able to infiltrate the shallow waters of an enemy’s harbor and deploy mines or special operators—essentially guerrilla warfare in a littoral environment.

Family dominance

North Korea must defend against threats mainly from the US Pacific Fleet and the Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy, and also to certain degree, the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. According to a US Defense Intelligence Agency report, North Korean security strategy has two main goals. First, it must safeguard the Kim family’s dominance over the North Korean leadership elite. With a very weak economy facing various international sanctions and strong political pressure, North Korea has little choice but to adapt, while still hewing to its original national security strategy.

The policy marking midget submarines as a priority is considered wise because midget submarines are

Crew from the sub tender USS Frank Cable work on Japanese navy submarine HA-51, a World War II Type C three-man midget submarine, at Guam Shipyard.

photo: Jennifer Walker

cheaper, able to move fast, more mobile, and easier and faster to repair. Midget submarines also have multiple functions: they can infiltrate enemy harbors better than regular submarines, lay sea mines, and conduct reconnaissance. Sea mines also play an important part in maritime defense strategy: not only can they prevent foreign forces from conducting amphibious landings in North Korea, but they can also be planted in enemy ports.

low waters in which they would be expected to operate. Despite these drawbacks, several nations have found the midget submarine to be a versatile tool in their asymmetric defense toolkit.

Of course, midget submarines are not without their disadvantages. They are extremely short-ranged, for example, needing a mother submarine or surface vessel to transport them where needed. Moreover, the use of conventional submersible maneuvering systems that rely on ballast adjustment and vectored thrust mean that they can be slow and unwieldy, and without advanced maneuvering capabilities, can be difficult to steer clear of potential entanglements, which can occur with greater frequency in the shal-

North Korea is not alone in using asymmetric strategies and tactics at sea. In recent years, several detailed studies have demonstrated Iran’s efforts to develop the necessary doctrine and capabilities to wage asymmetric naval warfare. This is due to the necessity for the Iranian military to adapt to an economy that has been eroded by sanctions. This involved preparing the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN) to conduct naval warfare exercises in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, practicing swarming tactics with heavily armed small boats and fast attack boats, along with the development of sea mines and submarines, and anything else that might allow Iran to exploit the vulnerabilities of a technologically superior and larger number of adversaries, specifically the US Navy.

In 2007, the IRGCN succeed in arresting 15 Royal Navy personnel, sailors and marines of the Type 22 frigate HMS Cornwall, while they were conducting a routine search of a merchant ship, believing

“Inbothcases,aneconomicallyand technologicallyweakerforceisfacing offagainstalarger,better-equipped military.”

British sailors from HMS Cornwall during their detainment in Iran after their capture by the Navy of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

photo: Mehr News Agency, CC BY 4.0

the British crewmembers to have been operating in Iraqi waters. IRGCN equipment mostly comprised fast attack boats, and revealed Tehran’s strategy in the Strait of Hormuz as a mix between anti-access/ area denial (A2/AD) and guerilla tactics. Iran also uses indigenous midget submarines, based on the North Korean design.

Asymmetric lessons

Are there any lessons that Taiwan can learn from North Korea’s asymmetric naval strategy? The two systems of government could not be more different of course, and the aims and goals of their respective militaries are likewise divergent. Yet in both cases, an economically and technologically weaker force is facing off against a larger, better-equipped military. In November 2020, Republic of China (ROC) President Tsai Ing-wen launched the Indigenous Defense Submarine Program. Tsai broke ground on a submarine construction facility in Kaohsiung with

plans to build eight submarines of around 2,500 tons. Construction was set to begin with a prototype, and the first boat is scheduled to enter service in 2025. The United States agreed to export key components to support the program. China Shipbuilding Corp. was granted the contract to build the submarines. According to the Taiwan News, Taipei has allocated US$1.6 billion for this project.

These boats will naturally improve the capabilities of the ROC Navy. Whether they will make Taiwan stronger in terms of relative power vis-à-vis China, however, is another question. According to the latest China Military Power Report put out by the US Department of Defense, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) greatly outnumbers the ROC Navy; even just the PLAN’s Eastern and Southern Theater Navies are already larger than the South Korean and Australian navies combined. Moreover, according to William Murray, an associate research professor at the US Naval War College, the ROC Navy is very vulnerable, and can easily be neutralized because of the

ROC President Tsai Ing-wen participates in the groundbreaking ceremony of the National Submarine Factory on May 9, 2019.

photo: Pierre Osias

superior quality of the PLA Rocket Force (PLARF).

Geographically, Taiwan’s maritime areas present a potential problem for large submarines. According to the National Academy of Marine Research, on the western side of the island, the sea floor in the Taiwan Strait is on average 60 meters deep, whereas in the east, it drops to around 2,000 to 6,000 meters deep. Adding eight submarines will not give Taiwan significantly more deterrence capabilities vis-à-vis the PLAN, with the latter holding clear dominance in the undersea realm through its estimated 66 submarines, 16 of which are believed to be nuclear-powered. Taiwan could better employ midget submarines by either laying mines in Chinese military ports or by attacking Chinese warships with torpedoes as they leave their bases. This would provide a much higher probability of success against the PLAN.

In his book titled Dangerous Decade: Taiwan’s Security and Crisis Management, Brendan Taylor, a professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University, revealed that the ROC Navy has already been trying to develop a prototype for

a fleet of stealthy, missile-equipped fast-attack vessels, which it had hoped to have in service by 2021. Implementation of this plan was hindered because not all ROC planners are convinced of the merits of a fully asymmetrical defense strategy, with many holding tightly to their belief in the superiority of conventional military equipment.

The situation on Taiwan is not the same as that of North Korea. Still, the two countries face more or less the same problem: a difference in relative power. The opponents facing Taiwan and North Korea are far more powerful and influential, both militarily and economically.

Asymmetrical combat capabilities

Taiwan, like North Korea, cannot rely solely on a traditional view of symmetric warfare that would force it to blindly compete in a cross-strait arms race. Former Chief of General Staff and Commander of the ROC Navy, retired Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, has asserted in various interviews that Taiwan must develop asym-

The Tuo Chiang-class is a Taiwanese-designed multi-mission vessel to provide the ROC Navy with a modern, stealthy ship to defend Taiwan’s coastline.

photo: Kenchen945

metrical combat capabilities. Rather than focusing on expensive conventional weapons such as warplanes, tanks and warships, Admiral Lee suggests prioritizing cheaper equipment that is harder for the People’s Liberation Army to target. In 2019 alone, China spent more than US$250 billion on defense, while Taiwan spent a mere US$11 billion. Admiral Lee emphasized the flaw in the current policy is the opportunity cost: It is clear that Taiwan cannot outspend China militarily. With China’s GDP continuing to rise and its extravagant military spending, it would be irrational for Taipei to believe that the ROC can achieve air and sea superiority.

Lee’s view—as expressed in an interview with Reuters—incorporates the best of both worlds, in which Taiwan would field a “small number of large, expensive weapons to preserve public morale and counter Beijing’s grey-zone operations,” while still investing in a large number of small, cheap, and lethal weapons. In addition to mobile anti-ship missiles, portable anti-aircraft missiles, and fast-attack missile boats, this latter category should include midget submarines. This would force the decision makers in Beijing to think twice before considering the use of

force against Taiwan, lest they find themselves caught in a quagmire akin to the one in which their Russian friends are currently trapped in Ukraine.

In sea warfare, the North Korean experience shows that inferior navies are still capable of dealing out le-

thal damage to more advanced and better-equipped opponents. The 1996 Gangneung submarine infiltration incident is one such example, as is the sinking of the Cheonan. It shows that midget and other small submarines can cause major headaches for the enemy, and that equipment considered obsolete by Western standards can still present a very real threat.

Taiwan cannot afford to rely on strategically ambiguous promises of US military assistance in the event of a Chinese attack. Taipei must fully embrace the reality that Taiwan must prepare an asymmetrical strategy and develop a response for the worst-case

South Korean military personnel inspect the Sang-O class submarine stranded on the South Korean coast in September 1996.

photo: US Forces Korea

“Theexactgeographicalcoordinates arenotavailableinthepublicdomain, leadingtoasituationwherethePRC can claim territory never controlled bythem.”

scenario. The imbalance in relative power between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will only grow larger as successive administrations in Taipei continue to ignore the opportunity cost and efficiency of its defense and security strategy. Being committed solely to a traditional posture is not a wise undertaking anymore, and the sooner politicians and defense planners in Taipei realize this, the sooner Taiwan can begin to prepare for what many believe is inevitable.

Geographic advantage

A Chinese assault on Taiwan would be incredibly risky for Beijing. It would require one of the largest amphibious invasions in human history. Taiwan’s geography also gives the ROC armed forces an advantage because they would only need to defend a few select beaches. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated how a well-motivated defender can hold off the advance of a better-equipped invader. Cheap precision munitions can destroy an aggressor’s

more expensive battleships, amphibious assault ships, and aircraft. According to independent researcher Tanner Greer, a broad consensus has emerged among US defense analysts who have visited the island that Taiwan must radically retool its military. In the event of a Chinese invasion, it must be able to buy enough time for Taiwan’s allies to intervene, the most important part being the deterrence effect on China.

Like North Korea, the ROC government and the Taiwanese public must understand the consequences of such a large gap in relative power. The Korean People’s Navy is one of the most secretive in the world, and detailed information about its capabilities is scarce. What can be gleaned from open-source information, however, suggests that the DPRK is at least as advanced as other countries, such as Iran, in its ability to conduct asymmetric warfare at sea. It is very important to pay further attention to the evolution of the KPA Navy so that other countries can learn from it, especially those, like Taiwan, that face threats from larger maritime powers. n

A North Korean guide offers a tour of the USS Pueblo, which was attacked and captured by a North Korean vessel on January 23, 1968.

photo: Dean Karalekas

Super Garuda Shield

Fourteen nations come together as ‘joint, multinational force’ in Indonesia

Marina Ika Sari

Even as Chinese missiles flew over Taiwan last August—some falling into Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ)—in what most observers recognize as a clear reaction to the visit to Taiwan of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, US forces were drilling with their counterparts from 13 nations just a few thousand kilometers away. Super Garuda Shield, a two-week exercise held August 1-14, 2022, was “a natural progression of where we need to be as we see what China is doing in the region,” said Major General Stephen Smith, Commanding General, 7th Infantry Division and exercise director for Super Garuda Shield 2022. Smith was quoted in Stars and Stripes as characterizing China as America’s “pacing

threat” in the Indo-Pacific, adding that Super Garuda Shield “should put fear in their hearts—how we can come together as a joint, multinational force.”

Diplomatic relations between Indonesia and the United States have been mutually beneficial since their establishment in 1949. The two countries elevated their relationship to a Strategic Partnership in 2015 to deepen cooperation in six areas: maritime, defense, economic growth and development, energy, global and regional issues, and people-to-people contacts. Since Washington lifted its military embargo against Jakarta in 2006, defense cooperation between the two countries has continued to increase in terms of the number of activities and their scope. Indonesia

Marina Ika Sari is a MOFA Taiwan Fellow at the Taiwan Center for Security Studies, and a researcher at Indonesia’s Habibie Center. She can be reached for comment at marina@habibiecenter.or.id

Soldiers from Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the United States conduct field training in Baturaja as part of Exercise Super Garuda Shield 2022.

photo: Christopher Wilkins

and the United States have held annual military meetings at a strategic level in the form of security dialogues, education and training exchanges for military personnel, defense industry collaboration, and joint military exercises. Super Garuda Shield represents one of the most successful examples of this growing partnership.

Facilitating readiness

First held in 2007, Garuda Shield is a bilateral exercise between the Indonesian Army and the US Army that was initiated to facilitate the readiness and capability of military personnel. Indonesia and the United States initially decided to organize Garuda Shield as an annual bilateral exercise. However, in 2008, 2009, and 2010, Garuda Shield was expanded, and became a multilateral exercise for peacekeeping operations. Other countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Mongolia, Nepal, the Philippines, Togo, and Thailand participated in the 2008 and 2009 drills, with Brunei Darussalam joining in 2010.

After three years as a multilateral exercise, Garuda Shield once again reverted to its bilateral status in

2011. The training materials also expanded to civil humanitarian actions, wherein Indonesian and US armed forces interacted with local communities and held sports and cultural activities to strengthen the bonds of friendship between personnel. In 2013, Garuda Shield introduced a new training scenario focused on air operations to support international peacekeeping missions.

From year to year, Garuda Shield has evolved in terms of the number of personnel involved, training location, and training focus. In 2021, 2,161 Indonesian Army personnel and 1,547 US Army personnel participated in a war exercise held in South Sumatra, East Kalimantan, and North Sulawesi. Some of the training scenarios included a staff exercise, field training exercise, live fire exercise, aviation and medical exercise, as well as two combination training programs, namely Joint Combined Exchange Training and Garuda Airborne.

By 2022’s 16th Super Garuda Shield, the exercise had evolved from bilateral drills to one of the most extensive multinational joint exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. Unlike the previous year’s outing, which was only attended by Indonesian and US forces, the scope

US and Indonesian Apache AH-64E attack helicopters conduct live-fire training during Super Garuda Shield 2022.

photo: Kyle Abraham

of the joint military exercise last year saw 14 countries take part as participants or observers, including Canada, France, India, Malaysia, New Zealand, the UK, South Korea, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Singapore, Australia and Japan. The joint exercise involved 4,337 army, navy, and air force troops from participating countries. The two-week joint exercise was initially planned to be held, at least in part, in the North Natuna Sea, which might have provoked China, because for years Beijing has been employing grey-zone tactics there, well inside Jakarta’s EEZ. The venue was changed, and the exercise took place from August 1 to 14 in three locations: the Combat Training Center in Baturaja, South Sumatra; the Marines Training Center in Dabo Singkep, Riau Islands; and the Training Center in Amborawang, East Kalimantan.

The ambitious military drills included field and maritime training such as amphibious, maritime security, military operations in urban areas, air defense, air operations, and airfield seizure exercises. During

this exercise, the United States, Indonesia, and Japan performed their first-ever trilateral airborne jump. In addition, a command post exercise was conducted to train military personnel to plan, command, and communicate with each other in a simulated operational environment. In terms of the latter training, operators initially experienced difficulties with signals at the training location, which became an obstacle in communications among personnel. However, technicians sorted the problem out, and the glitch in fact served to illustrate the need for such exercises: to iron out potential operational difficulties during training rather than during a future high-stakes deployment.

Boosting ties

Furthermore, military personnel also carried out social-service activities for the community around the training site in Baturaja. They distributed 500 food packages to help meet the community’s daily needs and provided free mass medical treatment.

Paratroopers from America, Japan, and Indonesia conduct a multinational airborne operation to kick-off Super Garuda Shield on August 3, 2022.

photo: Matthew Crane

These social activities benefited the community and helped boost ties between the troops and the local people. Toward the peak of the joint training, Sports and Culture Day activities were held to boost interpersonal relations among the soldiers.

“The interaction between foreign military personnel and their Indonesian counterpartsonsuchalargescalecontributed to building strategic engagement between Indonesia and major powersintheregionandbeyond.”

According to a statement from Major General Smith, the scenarios used during the exercise were fictional, not a war plan. The training included planning and execution of field maneuvers, training, and building joint readiness and operations, from communications to applications, and carrying out civic missions such as building roads. In last year’s exercise, more countries took part to build friendship and trust from the lowest level up, with the personnel involved ranging from soldiers still in their teens, to generals. In the words of British political scientists Andrew

Cottey and Anthony Forster, defense diplomacy is “the peacetime use of armed forces and related infrastructure (primarily defense ministries) as a tool of foreign and security policy and, more specifically, the use of military cooperation and assistance.” When the concept was developed in the 1990s, defense diplomacy initially emphasized political action against the enemy. In subsequent decades, the objectives expanded to reduce and prevent conflicts with other countries, establish relations with potential adversaries, promote civil-military relations, and develop state capabilities in peacekeeping operations.

Cottey and Forster also classify the forms of defense diplomacy activities, ranging from strategic dialogues, military personnel exchanges, training and education, placement and assignment of military personnel, military assistance, and bilateral and multilateral military exercises. The 2022 Super Garuda Shield joint military exercise met the criteria of defense diplomacy as a bilateral exercise for training purposes given to military personnel. The exercise demonstrated the implementation of defense diplomacy through activities at a more concrete operational level by providing knowledge and expertise

TNI soldiers dismount from the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter in joint training rehearsal as part of Super Garuda Shield in Indonesia on August 8, 2022.

photo: Andrew Mendoza

related to defense management, technical skills, and military operations in the field.

The 2022 Super Garuda Shield joint military exercise manifested an increasingly close strategic partnership between the United States and Indonesia. The involvement of a dozen other countries—including Australia, Singapore, and Japan, which participated in the joint military exercise for the first time—indicated that they consider Indonesia as a valuable strategic partner. Through the 2022 Super Garuda Shield, the interaction between foreign military personnel and their Indonesian counterparts on such a large scale contributed to building strategic engagement between Indonesia and major powers in the region and beyond.

In addition, those countries’ commitment mirrored the strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific region to their national interests. The main objective of the 2022 Super Garuda Shield was to strengthen regional cooperation, to create a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and to maintain regional peace and stability.

Defense diplomacy is carried out by military forces

to build good relations between countries, reduce tensions and misperceptions, foster mutual trust, and be mutually open and transparent in revealing their defense policies and military capabilities so that other parties do not perceive them as a threat. In the context of the 2022 Super Garuda Shield, the interaction and communication built by military personnel from various countries enabled them to get to know each other better and fostered a sense of camaraderie and mutual understanding. Ultimately, defense diplomacy can bolster military-to-military relations, leading to robust defense cooperation between countries to prevent conflict and reduce tensions.

Facing potential threats

Defense diplomacy aims to increase a country’s capability to face potential threats, which can be done by conducting joint military training, purchasing defense equipment, and exchanging military personnel.

The 2022 Super Garuda Shield joint military exercise facilitated the exchange of knowledge and skills that

Marines and Sailors land on the beach during an amphibious raid alongside reconnaissance Marines from Dispen AL on Singkep Island on August 3, 2022.

photo: Andrew King

can improve the capabilities and performance of military personnel when carrying out field operations. Moreover, the joint exercise could enrich the troops’ experiences through the interaction and involvement of large-scale foreign military personnel. They could learn from each other about tactics, defense doctrine, operational planning and strategies, as well as decision-making processes in the military, which provide new military insights from other states.

The joint military exercise in three locations allowed the military forces to experience training in different types of terrain. Remote locations also require high-

of the Indo-Pacific as a pivotal area on the global political chessboard and facilitates regional security cooperation. The commitment of the countries involved also shows that Indonesia can be a strategic partner in implementing defense diplomacy. Indonesia’s success in hosting the 2022 Super Garuda Shield joint military exercise could enhance Indonesia’s positive image in the international community. The bar has been set for future joint exercises to improve the quality and increase the quantity of participating countries and their military personnel in order to foster Indonesia’s defense diplomacy with its partner countries.

level coordination and operations management capabilities, as well proficient logistics. Therefore, the exercise can increase interoperability between military units responding to crises.

One of the aims of using defense diplomacy is to build and develop a country’s defense industry through defense industry collaboration, transfers of technology, licensing, and investment. During the 2022 Super Garuda Shield, various pieces of advanced defense equipment were used in the exercise, such as warships, jet fighters, personnel transport aircraft, attack helicopters, missile launchers, and others. The joint exercise provided an arena for participating states to promote the sophistication of their respective defense equipment. It also allowed the military personnel to practice operating modern and advanced defense equipment, and to develop their abilities and skills. In the future, the joint exercise could provide opportunities and potential cooperation in the defense industry sector among participating states.

The augmentation of the 2022 Super Garuda Shield to involve so many countries reflects the importance

In Beijing, the expanded drills were viewed by Chinese leaders as a threat, with Chinese state media accusing the United States of using this and other examples of military diplomacy to build an Indo-Pacific alliance similar to NATO, which Beijing sees as intentionally provoking a conflict. While the Chinese government has not released an official comment on the 2022 Super Garuda Shield, Chinese officials did lodge a discrete diplomatic protest in 2021 against the Garuda Shield exercise’s growing scale. In the formal letter, the Chinese government expressed its concern about the security stability in the area.

Moreover, while China’s increasingly belligerent behavior in the region is seen as a common threat to all of the littoral states, Beijing is focused on annexing Taiwan next, and yet it seems unlikely that the Armed Forces of the Republic of China would ever be invited to join the multilateral exercise in future years. This is mostly due to the One China Policy as applied by Indonesia. Despite this flaw, a Chinese attack on Taiwan would put the entire region at risk, and the skills of interoperability learned at Garuda Shield might one day have to be employed to ensure that China’s military does not go too far in taking more and more territories—like those in the Natunas, for example—that leaders in Beijing increasingly covet throughout the region. n

“In Beijing, the expanded drills wereviewedbyChineseleadersas a threat.”