In Geopolitics Today - Thursday, June 3rd
China's missile capabilities improving, Great Power competition comes to Bangladesh, and Russia abandons the US dollar in its National Wealth Fund
China Seeking the Advantage in the South China Sea through Anti-Ship Capabilities
Felix K. Chang, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, analyses Chinese Anti-ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) capabilities and some of the ways that China might exert sovereignty over the South China Sea (SCS). He points out that the proliferation of missile launchers does not mean that China can reliably hit ships at sea with ASBMs. That is because missiles and the warheads themselves are only part of a larger kill chain, which first and foremost requires accurate targeting and guidance derived from effective intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) tasks.
China, especially after the early 2010s, has significantly boosted its ISR capabilities in its surrounding waters, and this is especially the case in the South China Sea. It has fitted its DF-21D ASBMs with manoeuvrable warheads that are guided by terminal seekers. That way, even with slightly inaccurate ISR data, the terminal seeker has the potential to steer a warhead to its target.
Creating such a seeker is no mean feat however, says Chang, as it would have to function not only at hypersonic speeds, while also being encased in the plasma that forms around a warhead as it plunges through the atmosphere. China’s rocket forces could try to mitigate this by launching a salvo of several missiles and warheads against a single target. Of course, that does not imply that China’s ASBM capability has become operational—it does imply that it may be one step closer.
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How the US-China Rivalry Poses Headaches for Bangladesh
Bangladesh seems to have been caught up in the US-China rivalry in the South Asia/Indian Ocean region. Specifically, this contest seems to be over controlling access to the Bay of Bengal and projecting sphere(s) of influence through the Indo-Pacific region.
What strategic interest are in play for China? Tuneer Mukherjee argues in The Diplomat that “the Indian Ocean and its surrounding waters are home to China’s principal shipping lanes, and there is a need to guard its economic and energy security against an adversarial power seeking to infringe on Chinese access to these waters. China has, therefore, embarked on an agenda to actualize a commercial support base in the [Indian Ocean region], which could later be leveraged militarily.”
As the US-China strategic competition assumed a military dimension on both sides of the equation, the urgency to elevate the strategic partnership with Bangladesh into a military-to-military alliance seemed to be the way forward for the Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe. China’s longstanding friendship with Bangladesh was upgraded to a strategic defence partnership driven by President Xi during the visit to Dhaka in 2016.
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Russia to Abandon the US dollar in its National Wealth Fund
Russian news agency TASS reports that Russia plans to fully abandon the US dollar in its National Wealth Fund (NWF) structure, as well as reduce the share of the British pound, all within the next month.
This was revealed by Finance Minister Anton Siluanov on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday. He added that the share of euro and yuan will rise, gold will be added, but the portfolio of Japanese yen will remain unchanged in the NWF.
Russia began to sharply reduce investment in the US public debt in the spring of 2018 and this announcement could have significant repercussions as it furthers a trend of economic detachment. Siluanov said that "investments in dollars will equal 0%; in euro they’ll come to 40%; in yuan they’ll amount to 30%; in gold - 20%; and in pounds and yuan - 5% each. We have substituted dollars with an increase of 5% in euro, gold and yuan," the finance chief explained.
Russia's NWF has a total value of some $120 billion. The Central Bank of Russia has likewise decreased its dollar reserves and there are suggestions that Moscow already has an alternative to the SWIFT transfer system in place should the US deny Russia access.
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