France's Presence in Asia-Pacific: History and Security Challenges

Extract

[...] Secondly, we will deepen the military dynamics that have marked the Asia-Pacific in recent years, their nature and their causes. Finally, we will look at the more specific case of France, an unexpected and materialized actor of its kind in this region, and we will see why it considers it important to maintain a military influence there, and how it is trying to achieve this. The Asia-Pacific, a strategic space at the heart of rivalries A continued and renewed strategic importance over the past few centuries To better understand how the Asia-Pacific has become the zone of tensions it is today, it seems useful to look to history for the reasons that have given rise to the various "hot spots" that we will be discussing later. [...]

[...] II- Towards a new militarization of the Asia Pacific Hotspots that can lead to armed conflicts As we have seen, the Asia-Pacific region represents today a zone of rivalries in terms of political and economic influences of old and new powers. This situation could be (almost) benign if these rivalries did not persist regarding territorial or political disputes, sometimes old and potentially leading, either directly or through the game of alliances, two hostile powers to a military escalation. The oft-repeated wish by Chinese leaders for the 'reunification' of their territory is one of the major stakes in the region. [...]

[...] In what way does the increasingly affirmed scope of the stakes, particularly security-related but also economic, environmental . in the Asia-Pacific explain a strengthened presence, including military, of old and new great powers, and question the position of France, present physically in the region by its Overseas Territories? To do this, we will first attempt to understand what made the Asia-Pacific a strategic region at the heart of rivalries between powers yesterday and what makes it so today, both because of the meeting of their areas of influence and the challenges (economic, environmental . [...]

[...] However, it should be noted that the place that France gives to the Pacific is sometimes contested. One event in particular, the nuclear tests resumed in 1995 in Polynesia, were particularly poorly received by neighboring countries; they recall the limits of what France can afford to do in the region. We should also observe an evolution of specific terms, also in France. The Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, has recently mentioned the term of the Indo-Pacific region rather than Asia-Pacific to address the security issues related to it. [...]

[...] Further north, Afghanistan, which sees the withdrawal of troops that had allowed the Taliban to be chased away in 2001, remains a very weak state, and large parts of its territory are once again controlled by these groups, which rely on numerous illegal activities such as drug trafficking to discredit the state. We cannot evaluate today the consequences that would have a return of the Taliban to power: Afghanistan could once again find itself at the center of international jihadist terrorism, and a domino effect could occur in several neighboring countries, such as Pakistan. [...]