110. ANALYSIS: Collin Koh on maritime security concerns in SEA - China / India maritime power; lessons learnt from maritime conflict in Ukraine war; and likelihood of a clash between China & Taiwan

Collin Koh, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technology University, on maritime security concerns in South East Asia; tensions in the South China Sea; China's build-up of maritime forces; Singapore's security concerns; India's maritime power - as well as lessons learnt from the use of maritime force in the war in Ukraine, and whether Russia's invasion of Ukraine increases or decreases the likelihood that China might attempt to integrate Taiwan by force. 

**If you're primarily interested in lessons learnt from maritime conflcit in the war in Ukraine & whether Russia's invasion increases likelihood of military clash between China and Taiwan - skip to minute 14:17**

"China remains a black box when it comes to its strategic intentions [as a maritime power] on the one hand it talks about diplomacy and economic cooperation but on the other hand we are still seeing China resort to maritime coercion”

"There are some key lessons that can be drawn from the Ukraine war for the South Asian maritime region - first of all - a weaker power can actually hold up against a stronger power… A weaker power can leverage asymmetric strengths to counter a stronger power"

"China is already drawing lessons from this war… as part of China’s military modernisation Russia has clearly been one of the models that they tried to emulate... and it came very likely as a huge shock to China that… in terms of its doctrine, its training and its equipment… the Russian military has grossly underperformed beyond expectations… China has already been conducting reviews of what they saw as lessons from Russia… these changes will take time"

Collin Koh on Maritime Security in Southeast Asia 

Collin Koh on AUKUS and Risks of Submarine Proliferation 

Collin Koh on twitter: @CollinSLKoh

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer