The South China Sea China has the potential to become a cauldron of conflict, and China is stoking the fire. By claiming perhaps as much as 90% of the South China Sea, Beijing is trampling on the rights of other nations in the region, nations whose Exclusion Economic Zones (EEZs) and national waters are being violated.
China first laid claim to the South China Sea through its Nine Dash Line in the early 1950s. And other than pathetic vocal protestations by other nations – including the US – nothing was done about it for years. Perhaps no one took the claim seriously at the time.
To be sure, the case went to the International Court in The Hague, which in 2016 ruled against China. Unfortunately, there is no enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with that ruling.
Nonetheless, those who have been watching Beijing knew that it would not stop there. China soon started occupying various islets and partially submerged rocks within that Nine Dash Line. Not long after, China started improving those small pieces of land, dredging up sand and rock to buttress its artificially-created land.
Little by little progress was made, and ultimately China built runways on these man-made islets. Recently, Chinese cargo planes have brought military gear and associated logistical material to support full-time occupation. Though many seem to be taken aback by this development, missiles and their associated radars are logical additions to fighters in support of Beijing’s claims to the area.
Now a fait-accompli
Earlier this year, the nominee to be the next US Pacific Fleet Commander proclaimed that China now controls the South China Sea. He was not overstating the situation. The US and the rest of world – especially Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia the Philippines and Vietnam, the nations most affected by this – have sat by and done nothing but complain.
Even though Washington and Australia have sailed warships in the general area, called Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs), that action has been quite ineffective in stopping the Chinese.
Now it may be too late. It is almost impossible to imagine Beijing retreating from its newly created military outposts intended to defend its claim to nearly all of the South China Sea. Surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and anti-ship/anti-cruise ballistic missiles (ACBMs), along with their necessary surveillance and fire-control radars, have been installed. The SAMs pose a threat to fighters and bombers and the ACBMs are intended to counter air or sea-launched cruise missiles. Attacking those islets is now a military challenge.
But China is also opening up another front in this issue – language designed to bolster its position. Last month, Beijing took major airlines and an American hospitality company to task for referring to Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet as “countries.” China insists these are Chinese territories and the world must refer to them as such.
This, of course, is unadulterated bullroar and nearly everyone recognizes that. Obviously, in another effort to gain support for its claim, Beijing is using the subterfuge of linguistics. If China can hornswoggle the rest of the world into using words of its choice in order to not offend the Middle Kingdom and thereby risk losing its large commercial market, so much the better.
Beijing, after a few years or decades – yes, they do think and plan that far into the future – would be able to say something to the effect that, “Look at how the entire world refers to these countries! Everyone has acknowledged that they are not countries at all; they are merely undisciplined territories of China.” China knows that names have power.
Beijing intends to do the same thing in the South China Sea. “See, we have been here for years and no one has seriously challenged us over this; these islets – and the waters around them – are clearly ours. So, stop with all that nonsense about the South China Sea – after all, it is even named after us.” As the old saying goes, possession is nine-tenths of the law.
Status quo or casus belli?
Pundits have made various comments regarding Beijing in the South China Sea, but none have addressed the elephant in the room. Inaction by Washington and others in the region has resulted in China controlling Sea Lines of Communication that handle one-third of the world’s maritime traffic.
No one has faced the ever more obvious fact that the only way to get Beijing to comply with the ruling by The Hague is by means of force. That would be a difficult effort to mount since China is a member of the UN Security Council. Any resolution authorizing an international expedition to evict China from its falsely-claimed islets would be doomed to failure.
That leaves the Quad – formally, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue – of Australia, India, Japan and the United States to do the dirty work. But what to do? That raises a number of questions.
Why does the US – and now Australia – downplay their FONOPs in the area, claiming that they are only routine sailings? Is China’s defiance of international law only words or is Beijing psyched up for “bloody battles”? Are the US, the Quad and ASEAN nations willing to fight for the freedom of the South China Sea and the regional EEZs violated by Beijing? Are all so afraid of a military confrontation that they are willing to concede an entire sea to Beijing through inaction?
China’s flouting of international conventions and law by refusing to accept the ruling of The Hague and its bullying of others in the region have been serious enough provocations. However, by militarizing islets in the South China Sea, something that Beijing avowed in 2015 that it would not do, China has flung down the gauntlet, effectively issuing a call to arms. How – or will – the US and its allies answer?
Prester Kahn
I can tell you know nothing about East Asia, except some country names or maybe some left-over Asian girls.
It is really good that China is able to defend her legitimate interests now.
Prester Kahn The Chinese are eminently practial when it comes to making win-win business deals. I find it hard to imagine they’d be stupid enough not to cut in their neighbors on mineral rights and the like. (Would that the same could be said for the USA under Trump).
Is the author aware China possesses a potent nuclear arsenal, and has built close military ties with another country with an even more potent nuclear arsenal?
It’s one thing to argue China’s territorial claims with respect to the South China Sea are wrong. It’s quite another to think getting them to acknowledge this position is worth the risk of nuclear war.
20 missiles or one passing Typhoon could convert those new islands back the way they were in 1940’s. US doesn’t create Typhoons.
Prester Kahn. "The fiction that Taiwan "belongs" to the PRC is as much BS as Sadam Hussain claiming Kuwait as a "historic" part of Iraq." – I disagree with both points, for historic reasons.
Prester Kahn. If China has the historic right to claim the islands than nobody else can have it. Vicinity is not enough to claim anything as size of neighboring country can overrule vicinity. The Philippines definitely have no right to own the SCS, because not even China has this exclusive right, just the area within the nine dots. No, the US doesn’t want China’s land, just weaken China to extinction.
"Malaysian fishing rights" is the least of the issues. The SCS has extensive mineral and energy deposits, beside being a major water transportation route.
The problem with your supposition is that China does not properly "own" those rocks. If anything, they have invaded "rocks" that were underwater and thus part of the seabed in an attempt to extend their national border. Conversely, the location of these "rocks" are closer to the independent country of Taiwan (or Nationalist China) than the PRC and should belong to Taiwan.
The fiction that Taiwan "belongs" to the PRC is as much BS as Sadam Hussain claiming Kuwait as a "historic" part of Iraq.
Whoever wrote this is obviously a moron. Do you really think the United States is willing to go to war with a nuclear armed power over Malaysian fishing rights???? Sure those islands are a threat, but certainly no more of a threat than a carrier battle group anchored in the same sea or a bomb laden B2 flying overhead, both of which are perfectly permissible under international law. China’s claim to the SCS has both economic and military implications, but to overstate them is patently absurd. If China starts denying commercial shipping access, or attacks a ship conducting a FONOP that would be a different story. If Vietnam has an economic dispute, by all means, raise is with the WTO…. If the Phillipines doesn’t think that would work than maybe it should build its own Islands right across the reef from China’s.
Otto Tomasch …thanks. I was not talking about the US. I was talking about the Philippines. People on the Philippine islands have lived there for millions of years. Does the Philippines have a historical right to own the SCS since those islands are located right in the middle of the SCS?
When you said "China is….threatened by …the USA", did you mean the USA wants China’s land as she did North America?
Wood Wu. China claims to have historic rights to the area including these islands. On the other hand, the US had no historic rights to claim North America but did it just the same. China is a world power which is militarily not just endangered but threatened by another world power, the USA, which has no business in the SCS. The US claims the right of the fittest – why should China not do the same?
Otto Tomasch Okay. Then, could the Philippines claim ownership of the whole SCS since it contols and possesses all the huge islands in the SCS?
What drivvle. Placing military installations on man man islands, while demanding that the international community respect the sovereign seas arounds those islands is no different than what Russia did in Crimea. China represents the biggest threat to the international community of any power on the world stage.
These small rocks are awfully stationary targets.
Wood Wu. Not own but control. That’s the idea behind taking possession of the rocks. Otherwise, the rocks would be worthless for anybody bothering about them.
Otto Tomasch, I think your point is irrelevant to the SCS dispute. You focused on the land features but missed on the waters. The dispute is, if China owns the rocks, will China also own the entire sea?
I think Diego Garcia, etc. are irrelevant to the SCS dispute. Those places abide by the law which gives a territorial sea of 12 nautical miles, while the SCS dispute involves almost 1000 nautical miles of the sea. China’s logic is, if I own an island in the SCS, I also own the entire sea.
If China’s such a logic were followed universally, the US could claim ownership of the entire Pacific Ocean since the Hawaii islands in the middle of the ocean are owned by the US. The same logic should apply to the Philippines too. The Philippine islands such as Luzon etc are located in the SCS. Why can’t the Philippines claim ownership of the SCS?
The US will sooner or later relinquish its role as the regional hegemon to China. This transfer of power is already set in motion.
Why bother to refer to The Hague Tribunal when it discredited itself by ruling that Taiping Island ( which is under the jurisdiction of Taiwan, China ) is not an island. International Laws is only for lesser countries than the US and the West. Diego Garcia, Panama, Timor Sea or Falkland island ? Sounds familiar? Japanese claim of an EEC around the Okinotori atoll is legit? You expect the Chinese to acquiesce to all these?