On October 13-15, 2007, in the waters off Japan, a multilateral interdiction exercise was held under the auspices of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI).
The exercise, entitled “Pacific Shield 07,” was the second PSI-related maritime exercise hosted by Japan and included active participation of six additional countries — Australia, France, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to these seven, another 34 countries sent observers to the maritime drill, including 10 countries from the Asia-Pacific region. Two states that had expressed reservations regarding PSI, India and Malaysia, were among the observers. Key Asian countries notably absent included China, Indonesia, and South Korea.

PSI, launched in 2003 by U.S. President George W. Bush, is a cooperative arrangement aimed at interdicting WMD- and missile-related shipments. PSI is not a formal institution or treaty; rather, it is centered on a “Statement of Interdiction Principles,” essentially a statement of purpose. Countries do not “join” PSI, as such, but rather become PSI “participants” when they publicly pledge support for the initiative’s Interdiction Principles. [1]

Pacific Shield 07: Interdiction and Inspection Training
During the three-day exercise, naval vessels and aircraft from six of the seven participating countries undertook a series of mock interdictions and inspection drills. (The seventh country, Singapore, sent personnel but no other assets to the exercise.) The countries that sent observers to the PSI exercise included: Bahrain, Brazil, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Denmark, El Salvador, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam. [2]

The first day of the Pacific Shield exercise included a “search, detection, tracking/boarding” drill that took place in the waters east of Izu Oshima, an island off Japan’s eastern coast, about 120 kilometers south of Tokyo. As part of the mock interdiction, participating forces chased and boarded a target vessel, the USNS 1st Lt Harry L. Martin, provided by the U.S. Navy. According to the drill scenario, the Martin was suspected of carrying WMD-related materials. Teams made up of personnel from the participating countries boarded and inspected the ship. [3]

Pacific Shield’s second day drill involved the on-board search of a ship berthed at the Shinko Pier in the Port of Yokosuka at the mouth of Tokyo Bay. In this part of the exercise, the six participating countries took turns boarding and inspecting the docked ship for “suspect materials” hidden on board. The final day of the exercise involved an in-port inspection of containers at the Port of Yokohama; police, military, and customs officials from Japan, Australia, Singapore and the United States took part. During this exercise, a mock report was received indicating that sodium cyanide, a highly toxic chemical that is controlled as a chemical weapons precursor by the Australia Group, might be in the process of being transshipped through the Yokohama port, bound for a “country of proliferation concern.” The officials involved inspected the suspect vessel, located the hazardous materials, and removed the chemical. [4]

Status of PSI in Asia: Skepticism Remains
In total, 12 Asian countries either participated in or sent observers to Pacific Shield, a significant gain over the five Asian countries that had participated in Japan’s earlier PSI exercise, “Team Samurai 04”. That exercise, held in October 2004, saw participation of 22 countries, including Asian observers, Cambodia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. [5] Although more Asian countries participated in the 2007 exercise, demonstrating increased interest in PSI, skepticism on the part of a number of key powers continues to hamper the reach of the initiative in the region.

Of all Asian countries, Japan and Singapore have been the most active in PSI, with both countries acting as hosts and participants in numerous exercises. The Philippines has also shown significant support for the initiative, including President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s public endorsement of PSI in a speech to the UN Security Council in September 2005. [6]

While PSI deals with interdicting the transportation of WMD and WMD-related materials on land, sea, and air, in practice the initiative has emphasized sea-based transportation nodes. Thus, it is significant that the Marshall Islands, which ranks sixth in the world in the number of ships registered under its flag, is another active supporter of PSI. In August 2004, it signed a PSI-related ship-boarding agreement with the United States. [7] These agreements facilitate the ability of U.S. agents to request more information about or to board vessels that are suspected of carrying proliferation-related cargo. Additionally, on October 23, 2007, shortly after observing Pacific Shield, Mongolia signed a ship-boarding agreement with the United States. [8] In answer to a question about the reasoning behind having a ship-boarding agreement with Mongolia, a land-locked country with no naval forces, State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack noted that, as part of efforts under PSI, the United States has been endeavoring to sign agreements with all countries that could be considered “flags of convenience.” McCormack noted that the U.S. government has been effective in “getting a fair percentage of the total [ship] registry around the world” under boarding agreements, such as that with Mongolia. Its location notwithstanding, Mongolia currently has 61 ships under its flag, ranking it 18 out of the 32 countries that offer “flags of convenience.” [9]

Although the United States and active Asian PSI participants, such as Japan and Singapore, have had some success in gaining cooperation of smaller economies like Mongolia and the Marshall Islands, major regional players have been harder to persuade. While India sent observers to Pacific Shield, the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been under significant pressure from India’s political left not to allow the country’s foreign policy to be directed by Washington. The U.S. law lifting a decades-long nuclear embargo of India if it meets certain conditions (known as the Hyde Act) stipulates that it is U.S. government policy to achieve India’s full participation in PSI, a declaration seen by many in India as seriously impinging on New Delhi’s independent foreign policy. [10] In early September 2007, members of India’s Communist parties strongly criticized a non-PSI-related naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal that included India, the United States, and three other nations because it appeared to be a step toward India’s being drawn into a U.S.-dominated security structure. [11] This internal pressure, compounded by the current turmoil, also driven by India’s Leftist parties, over the fate of the U.S.-India nuclear deal will likely preclude India’s deeper involvement in PSI in the near future. (For further details on the role of India’s Leftist bloc, see “Did China’s Autocracy Use India’s Democracy to Stall the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal,” WMD Insights, November 2007.)

Malaysia, like India, participated as an observer in Pacific Shield despite previous public statements expressing skepticism about PSI. Malaysia’s inclusion in the exercise, however, does not appear to indicate a significant warming to the initiative by Kuala Lumpur. According to a statement by Malaysia’s Defense Minister in April 2007, while his government supported the principles of PSI, it was still studying the legality of the initiative and had no immediate plans to “join.” [12] Malaysia, along with its neighbor Indonesia, has been particularly concerned about PSI-related activities in the Straits of Malacca, having balked in the last few years at U.S. suggestions of increasing the international community’s involvement in the waterway. [13] Currently, the Straits’ three littoral states – Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore – have had primary responsibility for security in the waterway, which is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Additionally, Malaysia and Indonesia, along with a number of other Asian countries, have looked suspiciously on U.S. intentions with regard to PSI while the U.S. remains outside the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This concern is intensified by arguments of U.S. pundits opposed to UNCLOS warning that ratification of the treaty would endanger PSI activities. [14] According to officials from the Bush administration, which now favors U.S. ratification of the convention, Malaysia and Indonesia have both given indications that they would be more willing to participate fully in PSI if the United States joined the sea convention. [15]

U.S. ratification of the UNCLOS, however, would likely do little to convince other Asian holdouts to participate more actively in the initiative. Asia’s two most influential PSI-outsiders remain China and South Korea; both were invited to Pacific Shield and chose to stay away from the PSI exercise due to sensitivities about the reaction of North Korea. Although PSI drills are never officially described as targeting one particular country, concerns about North Korean activities clearly played a role in the planning for Pacific Shield. Commenting on the exercise, a senior official from the Japanese Ministry of Defense was quoted during the exercise as saying, “We certainly had North Korea in mind.” [16] Both Seoul and Beijing see PSI exercises that take place in the waters of Northeast Asia as a source of potential tension at a sensitive juncture in the Six Party Talks process, under which North Korea has begun to implement its February 2007 pledge to eliminate its nuclear weapons program. [17] Concerns about Japan’s increasing defense profile also appear to be a factor in Beijing’s view of PSI. Although Chinese government officials did not comment directly on the latest exercise, one report from a pro-Beijing media outlet in Hong Kong argued that Japan’s enthusiasm for hosting PSI-related events stemmed from efforts by Tokyo to become a major military power. [18]

Future of PSI in Asia: Sea Change Unlikely
Although the list of participants for Pacific Shield appears to point to a growing acceptance of PSI in Asia, the lack of support from a number of major powers in the region still impedes the U.S.-led initiative’s effectiveness, particularly with regards to confronting potential WMD-related transfers to and from North Korea and securing key shipping routes such as the Malacca Straits. Concerns within the region about the scope and legality of PSI will likely continue to dampen Asian enthusiasm for the counter-proliferation initiative.

Stephanie Lieggi – Monterey Institute James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies