Quora Answer: Will China Invade Southeast Asia?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Will China invade Southeast Asia?”

If you are referring to a military invasion, that is not going to happen.  When we consider these things, we have to look at the motive, and the capabilities.  Invasions are not cheap, and military action has political, and economic consequences.

Firstly, there is absolutely no compelling reason for China to invade Southeast Asia.  Many of these nations are major trade partners, with close diplomatic relations.  The only Southeast Asian nation with a historically frosty relationship with China is Vietnam, and they have good reasons for this.  They are also the only nation in Southeast Asia to have actually fought a war with China, and they prevailed.  China does have competing maritime claims in the South China Sea, with Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, and Malaysia.  There have been skirmishes with several of them, and one violent one with the Vietnamese.  That is not enough to justify an invasion of Southeast Asia.

The nations of Southeast Asia belong to ASEAN, the regional bloc that encompasses every single nation as members, with Timor Leste, and Papua New Guinea, as observers.  Indonesia, and Malaysia, are founders, and leading members of the Non-Aligned Movement.  ASEAN is a dialogue partner with the US, India, China itself, Russia, and the EU.  Singapore, and Malaysia, are part of the Five Powers Defence Arrangement, with Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

We must consider also, just as China has some troops, and equipment based in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, which are firmly in their sphere of influence; the rest of ASEAN have troops based there by other powers.  Singapore, for example, is a refit base for the US Navy.  Malaysia has an Australian squadron based at Butterworth.  There are American, British, Australian, New Zealand, and other, troops, based in Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.  These are training detachments, liaisons, or intelligence assets.  This is a strategic region straddling the busiest waterway in the world.  As such, any invasion of Southeast Asia will drag in a lot of regional and world powers through a complicated net of defence arrangements, with the possibility of this turning into a world war.  Nobody wants that.

We must also consider what China has to gain from an invasion.  It is not as if the region is shut of to Chinese investments, and influence.  What can China gain from military action that they already do not have?  Diplomacy, and trade, is far more effective than the gun, at getting things done.  When we consider the military capabilities, the PLAN does not have the surface fleet to transport an invasion force sufficient to take the major islands.  They have a lot of submarines, and patrol craft.  They do not have landing ship tanks, and transports.  They also do not have the surface fleet strong enough to contend with regional navies, let alone the American Pacific Fleet, which will definitely intervene.  If the PLAN want to contend with the defenders, it will have to position all its naval assets in the South China Sea to support this.  This would leave Chinese ports, and bases, in the East China Sea vulnerable to a Japanese or South Korean incursion.  That is untenable.

The PLA air wing is also insufficient to secure air supremacy.  China’s southernmost bases are in Hainan, which is still too far for them to provide sufficient air cover, since China’s carrier air wing is not combat ready, and even then, too small.  Singapore, by itself, has an air force larger than what the Chinese can field in the region, with more 4^th and 5^th generation fighters.  China is not going to strip the northern regions of its air force just to invade, and leave Beijing vulnerable.

With no naval, or aerial, supremacy to protecting an invasion force, there is no possibility of China invading Southeast Asia.  This is force projection over thousands of kilometres, which no nation in the world, other than the US, is capable of, at the moment.