And have you actually read the original RAND study?
No
I provided numerous sources and surveys on ASEAN/Indonesia believing that:
1. In the Asia region, China is more important and powerful than the US
I didn't say otherwise.
2. In a US-China conflict, they should stay neutral
Really?
I posted here a similar situation of a supposed neutrality of decades of existence that ended up dying in 2022.
Do I need to live in or visit countries I frequently mention? So everyone here must have visited the whole world to be talking about the whole world. Or rather, everyone here must have visited China at some point in their lives to have the legal authority to talk about the country. Or does this...
www.sinodefenceforum.com
Do you really guarantee the neutrality of any country at all? I do not.
Have you actually travelled or lived in the ASEAN region before?
Do I need to live in or visit countries I frequently mention? So everyone here must have visited the whole world to be talking about the whole world. Or rather, everyone here must have visited China at some point in their lives to have the legal authority to talk about the country. Or does this condition only exist for me? If you are going to use an authority argument, I suggest you try another argument.
I am from indonesia, and the idea that indonesia will allow armed overflight of B-52s enganging in direct hostilities against China is laughable, when vietnam a country who has more powerful military than indonesia and has history of direct hostilities will never allow such overflights, let alone indonesia a country with no prior hostilities against China with far weaker military, btw our navy is such a bad shape that recently our german made sub just sunk, with the loss of all crew inside.
And say if indonesia for argument sake decided to "indirectly" support the us, when the hostilities ceased win or lose, what do you think going to happen to indonesian economy? China will remember who is who, and will punish any nations that support us armed agression against her, economic embargoes and trade sanctions will be delivered with vengeance against indonesia, China is indonesia's biggest trading partner and largest source of investments, will the us and japan able or willing to compensate indonesia economic damage? No we will be discarded like a used condom
Nice. Now explain to everyone why Indonesia carries out bilateral and multinational exercises with the US, some exercises that are clearly documented as a strategy of containment of China via PDI as the Pitch Black (the last one in 2022) that Indonesia participates. I don't know if you know, but the air bases in northern Australia provide the infrastructure for aircraft and fighters, including American bombers and aerial refueling aircraft that are employed in the PB exercise. RAAF Base Tindal, RAAF Base Darwin and RAAF Base Townsville on the northeast coast of Australia positioned outside China's current missile threat rings are appropriate infrastructure for allied US forces to use to support DFE and ACE operations in the event of conflict with China and are continuously employed under the PB exercise that Indonesia participates in. Just to remind you, exercises are not military stops or initiatives for thousands of soldiers to play with tanks, helicopters and aircraft, various experiments are carried out, testing new tactics for the conflict, creating or intensifying a joint integration of forces, and the BP is clearly tendentious to create a scenario of war against China. I wonder why Indonesia participates if it seeks neutrality?
I can go even deeper.
From a neutral source:
The drills take place annually, but this year’s are the largest ever amid rising tensions with China in the region.
Do you know what this general increase in exercise 2022 means for the purposes of military interoperability between multinational forces? There is a statement about this in the article itself.
Furthermore, we are on a topic where lessons learned from Ukraine can be applied in a future China intervention against the US and allies, Ukraine since 2014 has carried out several joint exercises with the US and other European allies in the clear initiative to integrate completely to a joint formation with the participating members, this before any argument in favor of joining NATO as a permanent member, which only occurred from 2019. This means that Indonesia's involvement via PB and Garuda Shield is clearly indicating that Indonesia will not be as neutral as claimed here. In addition, Indonesia and Australia have signed bilateral defense agreements. Are they not enemies?
Still in the Garuda Shield exercise, look at what your country's army commander claimed:
“The destabilizing actions by the People’s Republic of China as it applied to the threatening activities and actions against Taiwan is exactly what we are trying to avoid,” he said at a joint news conference with Indonesian military chief Gen. Andika Perkasa in Baturaja, a coastal town in South Sumatra province.
China's influence over asean has been gaining this past year.
I didn't say otherwise.
If pla wins the initial engagement like we expect, then all surrounding asean nations will have no choice but to follow china.
Mike Tyson is a visionary: Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
Do you really believe this? Will all neighboring nations kneel before China without a fight? This view of yours is very optimistic.
I don't know why you keep mentioning Russia. Russia has weak conventional military. It doesn't dare attacking the weapon coming in to Ukraine or the isr assets that are helping Ukraine. China will have no of that. China is looking to blast through every adversary within second island chain. Do you think Indonesia will stand against that and get punished?
This is not the context I am giving here, first they cited the national public's view of the "neutral" country as solid evidence of a neutral stance, I gave a recent example that this is not intrinsically true, then they cited economic dependence as evidence of neutrality, I've already given recent reports that this is nonsense, all in the Russian context.
When it comes to these surveys, it doesn't matter much in the military, or even economic sense. The US knows it can't compete with China's economic power in the region. But they do have a relatively cheap weapon on their side that provides them a distinct advantage over China, which would be classic imperialist strategy of divide and conquer, to subvert the governments in these areas using the usual means.
Since this is the lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict thread, what more classic example than Ukraine herself being yanked out of "neutral" relations with Russia all the way back in 2014, and laid the ticking bomb for the conflict today. Russia and Ukraine were heavily intertwined economically as well (in addition to culturally, politically, not to mention loads of family ties). They'll simply take advantage of the latent Sinophobic tendencies within the population, which based on Indonesia's history it does unfortunately have, though perhaps not as prominent anymore.
Also not to say ASEAN countries will fall easily to this, there's also anti-Western sentiment and Ukraine is kind of a special case in terms of ideology. Even the most ardent anti-Chinese ASEAN country in Vietnam has no interest of opposing China, and militarily they're the strongest. So in the ASEAN I think the main threat here would be the US attempt to wreck the region's economic potential as a way to weaken China. This is what China will need to work with ASEAN govts to watch out for.
Personally, I think S Korea is the bigger near term danger with regards to triggering a conflict with the US. There's a reason why N Korea has been very active recently, but that's probably outside the scope of this thread.
It is exactly this kind of critical analysis that I expect from SDF members. Congratulations.
