‘The World Cannot Afford Conflict in Asia’

By N. GUNASEKARAN

Many foreign policy experts have been warning that conflicts in Asia would aggravate in coming days. The US is continuing efforts for hegemony in the Asian region, and its ongoing military encirclement of China is threatening peace and stability in the region.

Some of the conflicts endangering the peace and security of Asia are China’s counteroffensive to resist US hegemony, the confrontation between China and Taiwan, escalation of the Russian conflict in Ukraine, ongoing Israeli attacks on Gaza, North Korea’s development and testing of nuclear weapons and military confrontation between Israel and Iran.

East and Southeast Asia have witnessed many lasting conflicts along with territorial and maritime disputes. Myanmar’s military junta assumed power in February 2021 and a coordinated resistance is continuing, precipitating a serious crisis in the region.

The 60th Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting that brings together heads of government, defense and foreign ministers, parliamentarians, military leaders and security experts from around the world, was held in Germany Feb. 16-18. In this conference, Singapore’s Minister for Defense, Ng Eng Hen, asserted categorically that “the world cannot afford a conflict in Asia and it should be avoided at all costs.” He argued that diplomatic solutions for all conflicts in Asia must be arrived at via multilateral forums. He rightly pointed out that the world “cannot have three simultaneous theaters of instability” – referring to the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the intensified conflict between the US and China.

Since 2011, the US has been following the “pivot to Asia” policy, of increased US interventions in Asia. Based on this approach, the US has increased its naval and air force activity in the Asia-Pacific region. It has treaty obligations to aid Taiwan, Japan and South Korea in case of attacks on them. Naturally, this led to increased US military spending. It is reported that the US would spend about $1 trillion on defense each year by 2030. Consequently, countries in the Indo-Pacific region have been compelled to protect their interests by allocating large sums of money for defense spending. China has to spend about $500 billion each year by 2030.

US allies in the Asian Pacific region, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, have increased their total defense budgets by about 7.4%, from about $984 billion to over $1.05 trillion between 2022 and 2023. The biggest increase among the allies was from Taiwan, which increased its defense budget by about $3 billion, or 20%, heightening tensions between China and Taiwan.

A report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies revealed that the total global defense expenditure reached $2.2 trillion in 2023, a 9% increase from the previous year. The report also pointed out that the major drivers of this increased spending were the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine, and the exacerbating relationship between the US and China.

These billions of defense expenditures support a massive global arms industry. The big military corporations are reaping the benefits of conflicts. The US Department of Defense (DOD) revealed that Lockheed Martin Corporation, Raytheon Technologies Corporation and General Dynamics Corporation together accounted for $297.68 billion in market capitalization in 2022.

The world’s arms manufacturers always aspire for wars and the risk or fear of wars, since wars and conflicts guarantee the continued flow of profits. Currently, they take advantage of the conflict in Ukraine, since many countries increased their military spending. The current military operation in Gaza increased revenues of military contractors while the US went on providing Israel with additional military funding.

According to a report from Watson institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown university, war violence caused the deaths of over 940,000 people in the 22 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and its “reverberating effects” caused about 3.8 million deaths. The combined death toll in post-9/11 war zones was about five million.

Due to wars, towns and cities in countries such as Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere were destroyed, with estimated total costs over $8 trillion. The impact on the mental and physical health of millions of people which would last for generations was another worst dimension of destructive wars.

Asia’s poor nations are constantly increasing their defense expenditures due to the intensified conflicts and wars. Massive spending on defense have a dreadful impact on spending on human development, poverty eradication efforts and food security in these countries. Particularly, it hampers efforts to reduce severe poverty in the region. Already, due to political instability, weak governance, economic insecurity, and vulnerability to natural disasters, many of the poor people in the Asian region are living in horrific conditions. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) stated that Asia and the Pacific remains home to a large share of the world’s poor: 263 million living on less than $1.90 a day and 1.1 billion on less than $3.20 a day. The conditions of the people living in fragile and conflict-affected areas in Asia are very appalling.

The global resistance to war mongering, selfish exploitation of lasting conflicts by the big powers led by the US and the giant military corporations is the need of the hour.

N. Gunasekaran is a political activist and writer based in Chennai, India.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2024

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