Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comment during his confirmation hearing that the United States would deny China access to its man-made island bases in the South China Sea caused a predictable furor.
However, few people seriously think the US is going to blockade the islands. This is a poor option anyway.
China’s military is not going to be rolled back and abandon the islands. It can’t. Beijing’s leadership has proven it is no better at running an economy than anyone else in human history. That only leaves restoring China’s grandeur to justify Chinese Communist Party rule. Backing down in the face of US pressure would be humiliating and possibly threaten regime survival.
Even if the US has few decent options for direct military pressure on existing Chinese-held island bases, Tillerson’s comments and subsequent statements by Trump Administration officials suggest an abrupt change in longstanding US policy towards China.
One might now anticipate an end to accommodationist (some would say, appeasement) policy under which the norm was ‘de-escalation’ whenever China did something provocative.
While the US more or less stood by, the People’s Republic of China has come close to establishing de facto control of the South China Sea and greatly expanded its position inside the entire so-called 1st Island Chain. China’s military can make an opponent’s operations inside the chain extremely difficult – and this will become even more the case as the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities increase.
However, China’s leaders might ask themselves, ‘now what…?’
China’s strength inside the 1st Island Chain may not be the strategic advantage it seems – now that the United States appears willing to defend its interests.
Geography class
Regional geography is an unchanging variable and not in China’s favor in this case as it leaves open the possibility that if push comes to shove, the US and its partners could hem Chinese forces inside the 1st Island Chain. And, if necessary, make life exceedingly difficult for Chinese forces operating inside the chain.
The geography makes the 1st Island Chain effectively a barrier. There are relatively few ‘access (or exit) points’ through the chain that stretches all the way from Japan in the north down past Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and over to the Straits of Malacca in the south.
Access points can be easily defended against an adversary seeking to transit such channels. All can be covered and blocked using a combination of land and sea-based anti-ship missiles and long-range precision artillery, sea mines (‘dumb’ mines will do nicely, and ‘smart’ ones do even better), anti-aircraft systems, anti-submarine weapons, and the like.
Most of these weapons also can reach well inside the 1st Island Chain – and one should not forget Vietnam’s ability to ‘reach in’ from the West. Japan has already started installing such a defensive network in its Ryukyu Islands.
The aforementioned ‘asymmetrical’ weapons do not take into account the considerable resources of the US (and other nations) in the form of naval combatant ships, submarines, airpower, Marines, and surveillance resources that can be used to block the 1st Island Chain.
With a newfound US backbone, particularly if solidly linked operationally and politically with Japan and its considerable, if latent, military resources other regional nations might feel more confident about asserting their own interests.
Much of the intellectual work for an efficient strategic defense centered on defending from the 1st Island Chain and making use of economic pressure has already been done by retired US Marine Colonel, TX Hammes – whose ‘Offshore Control’ concept is a useful initial blue-print the Trump Administration would do well to consider.
China’s miscalculation?
President Xi and his immediate predecessors perhaps didn’t think through the geography angle as much as they might have. And China tipped its hand too soon in 2009 when it ended its so-called charm offensive, which was indeed lulling to sleep regional nations (and even many Americans), and started throwing its weight around.
Nowadays, almost nobody in Asia who isn’t on the Beijing payroll, or hopes to be, sees China as benign. The more prevalent view is one of an acquisitive bully.
Scratch the surface even in Malaysia and the Philippines and there is plenty of resentment toward the People’s Republic of China. And President Xi managed to do the near impossible by making Japan take its defense more seriously — something successive American administrations couldn’t achieve.
The Chinese thinking appeared to be that after absorbing everything inside the 1st island chain and intimidating Japan, the 2d Island Chain would be next, as China moved from strength to strength – with nobody able or willing to resist.
Beijing perhaps had reason to believe the US ‘wouldn’t do anything’ – and US behavior after the Scarborough Shoal standoff in 2012 between Philippine and Chinese vessels bore that out, as did successive invitations to RIMPAC while the island building effort was in full-swing. Add to that mix the United States’ scant support for the Philippines after the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on the South China Sea in 2016.
So, for a scheme ultimately dependent on American acquiescence, Donald Trump’s election threw a wrench into the works.
As welcome as a change in US policy might be, dealing with China’s attempts to dominate East Asia will not be not be easy nor risk-free, unless one wishes to cede everything inside the 1st Island Chain in what would uncomfortably look like a reprise of the Sudetenland in 1938.
Things might get frightening as Chinese invective kicks in – and the inevitable physical confrontation – involving the US or one of its regional friends comes along.
Flash point?
One bellwether may be at Scarborough Shoal and the US response to a Chinese effort to ‘fill’ the shoal and build on it. Taiwan is also in for a hard time – not least given its strategic position on the 1st Island Chain, which potentially gives the mainland a foothold to ‘break’ the chain and have unfettered access into the Pacific.
Taking some risk on behalf of US interests is unavoidable – and at long last imposing some risk on China is called for – as Professors Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes at the US Naval War College have advocated.
China needs to decide if potentially taking on the full might of the United States — to include serious economic costs (which the US is capable of inflicting) — is worth the effort and the drain on resources of continuing its drive to dominate East Asia and international waters and ocean territory of other nations.
With the right approach on the part of the US and like-minded nations, China may find that after all its effort to build island bases — ruining its image in the process and motivating Japan to take its defense seriously — it has merely done the 1917 equivalent of moving the Western Front a mile to the east – at great cost, but with few prospects for further advances.
Grant Newsham is a senior research fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies and a retired US Marine Officer.
"…. restoring China’s grandeur to justify Chinese Communist Party rule. Backing down in the face of US pressure would be humiliating and possibly threaten regime survival."
That’s right! Chinese leaders just like their predecessors, the emperors, are so arrogant they can’t stand losing face or be seen as weak. Emperor Xi must be careful, losing face is tantamount to losing the legitimacy to govern. If somehow China gets its nose rubbed in the dirt in a military confrontation, chances are the communist party’s reign will be challenged.
What has Beijing achieved in the SCS? Beijing has beat Washington’s world hegemony, control of all the seas, in China’s adjacent waters. The US has halted its "freedom of navigation" unilateral warship forays. This means that the US, being vulnerable somewhere, is vulnerable everywhere. That’s big.
Meanwhile China, not interested in going further east, has rolled out its One Belt, One Road economic development and transportation strategy heading westward, where the markets are. Again the US is stymied with its helpless carrier fleets.
Kin Lun Wong Good comment. Ha! Ha! ’nuff said.
Yawn yawn yawn…………………………………………..zzzzzz.
Guys, u shud know dat atimes sometimes throws in these articles by clowns to create a buzz in their fb forums. Its fun reading em but dont get hot under d collar.
John Liang I think it’s very clear who the imperialists are today. That would be the countries invading and subjugating their neighbors territory, Russia and China.
John Liang Its debt-to-GDP ratio has soared from 150% to nearly 260% over a decade, the kind of surge that is usually followed by a financial bust or an abrupt slowdown.
China will not be an exception to that rule. Problem loans have doubled in two years and, officially, are already 5.5% of banks’ total lending. The reality is grimmer. Roughly two-fifths of new debt is swallowed by interest on existing loans; in 2014, 16% of the 1,000 biggest Chinese firms owed more in interest than they earned before tax. China requires more and more credit to generate less and less growth: it now takes nearly four yuan of new borrowing to generate one yuan of additional GDP, up from just over one yuan of credit before the financial crisis. With the government’s connivance, debt levels can probably keep climbing for a while, perhaps even for a few more years. But not for ever.
The only imperilist country in the world is the good old USA. The whole idea of this US argument of exerting power in South China Sea is about containing China and try to tell the rest of the world that US has not declined.
Well， China has grown to become the 2nd largest economy in less than 30 years. China has reached an economy level that it will find hard to reach 7% or higher growth rate but it is still growing at around 6% a years and that is far away from 3% your professor predicted. US growth was pretty much stagnated for most part of last 10 years averaging around 2%. China will surpass US in economy within this century. Sorry to say applied military technology and war mongering does not make a country rich and that is how US lost 14 trillions in the last 30 year with wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan.
Steve Jarvis Sure, where is the money going to come from ? Coming down freely from the printer or rainning down from the sky ? Trump promised to cut company tax, build a wall at US-Mexico border, there is every chance this president will run the US economy to the ground. Think about it what sort of gain can trump achieve politically and economically in a war with China ? China has been the major factor for econmic growth world wide and a war with China would have far greater implication for world economy in general.
Karl, This potential conflict has everything to do with shipping lanes. The area’s greatest value is as a trade route. According to a 2015 Department of Defense report, $5.3 trillion worth of goods moves through the sea every year, which is about 30 percent of global maritime trade. That includes huge amounts of oil and $1.2 trillion worth of annual trade with the United States. All East Asian nations depend upon these sea lanes to import oil from the Middle East and export goods to Europe.
It’s also true that the South China Sea Fisheries are rich resources producing 10% of the worlds catch! The United States Energy Information Agency estimates there are 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in deposits under the sea — more than exists in the reserves of some of the world’s biggest energy exporters.
Finally the South China Sea is important strategically for the Chinese military. The deep waters allow Chinese submarines to evade detection while they patrol the waters. Very important since a new generation of Submarines are coming online that will enable China to have second strike capability against the US in the event of a nuclear exchange.
this has less to do with shipng lanes and the access to those shiping lanes , its more like false pride , those islands might be closer to japan or the other mentioned country’s, then to china, but all are far form territorial water of either country.
those unihabited island are in international water and only china improved and populated those islands , i believe this is not worth risking the human race for
why has japan and other country’s who claim the right to those islands .
never deveoped, or populated those places?
didn’t we steal our whole populated country from the indians not to mention how we got the hawyen island and dozen of other territories , some thousands of miles from america, just wondering
No American parent wants to see their child die period, let alone in a foreign conflict. That’s obvious. But as to the underlying point about the South China Sea not be worth fighting for I’ll have to disagree.
Important American allies, Japan, Taiwan, S Korea, Phillipines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, all depend upon foreign trade across these waters. If America allows an imperialist China to sieze these waters then all of these countries become dependent on China’s goodwill. If that happens China will dominate East Asia politically, militarily, and economically.That is enough to justify American support for her allies in the region.
America has the military power, the economic strength and the the support of major allies in the region to prevent Chinese imperialist aggression. It’s the only nation that is capable of standing up to China., for that reason I believe most nations in the region will realize it’s in their interests to support America.
This is a politically sensitive issue for the Chinese and it’s likely they won’t back down until they are taught a hard lesson. Let us hope they see reason before then, a conflict would be costly to all sides, especially the Chinese.
i am from the philippines so mr. american marine new-sham can forget this country as an ally of the US…. its only a matter of time before we scrap all the military deals with the US… the vestiges of US control is going….