AS SOUTHEAST Asian nations cut their defence budgets to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, they have been left with fewer resources to respond to China's territorial claims in the region.
With most Southeast Asian countries making economic recovery from the pandemic a top priority, defence spending seems to have a taken a back seat as it does not provide an immediate economic boost.
The defence sector has become an easy target for cuts to fund more urgent measures but it has come at a cost.
For example, Indonesia has decided to lower its 2020 defence budget by seven per cent from the initial 131 trillion rupiah (US$9.2 billion), earmarking the funds for anti-coronavirus efforts instead.
Military spending in the region totalled US$40.5 billion in 2019, roughly 40 per cent higher than in 2010, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
In the Philippines, Defence Minister Delfin Lorenzana has indicated he will allow money from this year's defence budget to be used to deal with the virus.
Malaysia has scaled back military spending in recent years to help mend the country's finances, and this trend is likely to accelerate as the pandemic and the drop in oil prices further cloud the fiscal outlook.
Thailand approved an eight per cent reduction of the 233 billion baht (US$7.43 billion) defence budget.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Asean leaders are expected to discuss ways to deal with Beijing's territorial claims when they meet for a virtual summit later this month, to be hosted by Vietnam, which takes a hard line stance towards China.
But the 10-member bloc's forces are a far cry from China's in both quality and quantity.
Beijing announced last month a 6.6 per cent jump in its annual military budget to a record 1.27 trillion yuan (US$179 billion), even with dropping revenues for the first time in 44 years.
With this in mind, Asean countries may have little choice but to rely on the United States which does not look kindly on Beijing's securing of sea lanes from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
Indonesia has recently deployed warships and aircraft around the Natuna Islands in the South China Sea, where Chinese coast guard vessels have been operating in Indonesia's exclusive economic zone.
China, on the other hand, is planning massive military drills in the South China Sea as early as this summer.
It told the Indonesian government on June 2 that it was willing to negotiate a solution to overlap between Beijing's "nine-dash line," under which it lays claim to most of the South China Sea, and Indonesia's exclusive economic zone around the Natuna archipelago.
Jakarta refused the offer, asserting that China has no rights to the waters under international law.
Indonesia's armed forces chief Hadi Tjahjanto spoke last Thursday with Adm Phil Davidson, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, to confirm the rescheduling of joint drills that had been planned for this year.
But the announcement was likely meant to send a message to China that Asean is in close contact with Washington.
However, China has remained unwavering on its "core interests," such as the South China Sea and Taiwan, since President Xi Jinping said in March that the virus outbreak was basically under control.
Beijing's summer military exercises may include it's first-ever deployment of two aircraft carriers, apparently to counter US freedom of navigation operations in the area that took place in April and May.
Earlier this week, Vietnam's foreign ministry said a Chinese Coast Guard ship had rammed and stolen equipment and seafood from a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel Islands.
This follows an April incident in which a Chinese vessel collided with and sank a Vietnamese boat near the islands.
Beijing has also furthered its effective control in less direct ways such as when it reported a successful vegetable harvest on a beach in the Paracels and later said that a live-fire naval drill had been conducted aroun
d the islands.
Such moves have alarmed some in theinternational community as China seem to have caught the US and its neighbours off-balance while they have their hands full responding to the coronavirus.