BBC map of competing claims in the South China Sea
Huge news in Asia this week as the China-US relationship received another jolt when Sec of State Clinton announced that the US would help mediate in the disputes over the islands in the South China Sea. This was a slap in the face to China, a reassuring support for the nations now confronting Chinese expansion around its borders, and a signal that US regional hegemony is not going to go gently. Come below the fold to see why the Obama Administration jumped into this mess.
Island claims in the South China Sea (explanation)
Our tale begins with this NY Times report:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking at an Asian regional security meeting in Vietnam, stressed that the United States remained neutral on which regional countries had stronger territorial claims to the islands. But she said that the United States had an interest in preserving free shipping in the area and that it would be willing to facilitate multilateral talks on the issue.
Though presented as an offer to help ease tensions, the stance amounts to a sharp rebuke to China. Beijing has insisted for years that all the islands belong to China and that any disputes should be resolved by China. In March, senior Chinese officials pointedly warned their American counterparts that they would brook no interference in the South China Sea, which they called part of the "core interest" of sovereignty.
The South China Morning Post, out of Hong Kong, reported:
What happened in Hanoi is particularly significant. When Clinton declared that resolving territorial claims in the South China Sea was now in the United States' "national interest" and "a diplomatic priority", she was not just reflecting growing US concern about the potential for Chinese maritime dominance. It showed Washington had firmly grasped an historic opportunity, too.
For months now, a rising chorus of East Asian concern at Chinese assertiveness has been voiced in Washington, just as the young administration of US President Barack Obama mapped out ways to re-engage with a neglected region. Alarmed by the refrain that the US was a declining power, US officials spoke privately of the need to reassert US strategic primacy in Asia.
The South China Sea is the subject of disputes between several nations over control of groups of rocky, largely uninhabited islets whose possession offers authority over an area thought to be rich in resources. Island groups in the area are claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC), and Indonesia.
These disputes have taken on a new urgency with recent Chinese moves to ramp up tension in the area. China now upgraded its claim to a "core interest" on par with its goal of annexing Taiwan and retaining control of Tibet. Chinese officials told US officials that the South China Sea was a core interest at the Shangri-La forum in May of this year. To underscore this intensification of claims, China then held military exercises in the disputed islands. This is not, as some might think, a kind of starting point for future intensification, but rather, a formal acknowledgment of rising tensions that have been steaming for many months.
In 2002 the nations in the area and China all pledged to show self-restraint in the island disputes. This agreement, which Vietnam had hoped to make legally binding, has essentially been torn up by China.
Some of you may recall that a small flotilla of Chinese ships harassed the USS Impeccable on a mission in international waters last year (BBC). At the same time China began putting greater pressure on competing claims in the area.
Last year China also put pressure on US oil companies exploring in the area under leases from other nations to suspend their operations, claiming that the whole region belongs to China.
In addition to its actions against the US, China has also been moving against other claims in the area, most pointedly against Vietnam. In December of 2009 Beijing passed a new "island protection law" that contains a claim to 3 million square miles and more than 16,900 islands in the South China Sea, sparking protests from Vietnam (and Indonesia and the Philippines). Vietnamese fishing boats have been regularly seized in recent months. In May the President of Vietnam visited that nation's holdings in the area, and China responded by publicly sending out patrol boats to protect its fishing boats. Although nothing has appeared in the papers yet, there are widespread rumors of combat between Vietnamese and Chinese patrol boats. In Dec of 2009 Vietnam bought six more Russian subs.
Note that Sec. Clinton's announcement came at a conference in Vietnam. It was a huge diplomatic victory for Hanoi. Vietnamese military officials have visited US carriers in the South China Sea and bases in Hawaii, and Hanoi is now allowing US ships to be repaired in its ports.
Malaysian forces fired on Chinese fishing boats in Malaysian-claimed waters this year as well. Incidents of violence over the islands between China and other claimants go back several decades.
The US announcement that it would ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea was also spurred by other nations. The Philippines sent an envoy to the US in June, who basically inquired as to what the US was going to do about the PRC. It is also rumored that Indonesian forces fought with the Chinese navy in the last couple of months.
It is the recent incidents that apparently have sparked the US response to China's upping the ante.
The South China Sea moves are also part of a larger game. In March, three weeks before a Chinese flotilla sailing in international waters off Okinawa buzzed Japanese vessels with its helicopters, six ships of the Chinese navy's North Sea Fleet based in Qingdao, Shandong Province passed through waters between the Okinawa and Miyakojima islands, headed to the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines, and went on to operate in the South China Sea.
In April, a flotilla of 10 ships of the Chinese navy's East Sea Fleet headquartered in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province passed through international waters between the main island of Okinawa and Miyakojima Island. During these exercises, two Chinese navy helicopters came within about 90 meters of a Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyer watching over the exercises. There was an outcry in the Japanese media and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs lodged a protest with China. Chinese vessels also chased a Japanese vessel out of "disputed waters."
The irony is that China was engaged in needless brinksmanship against Japan. The then-new Japanese Prime Minister, Hatoyama, had taken a friendly stance towards China, and the Japanese public was showing in polls unprecedented friendliness towards China. All of this was completely undermined by repeated aggressive actions by Chinese ships.
Japan has responded in several ways. For example, it is moving shore up its defenses around Taiwan:
Minister of Defense Toshimi Kitazawa, according to the Kyodo News Agency, announced on last Tuesday Japan's Self-Defense Forces are "positively considering" deploying personnel on Miyako Island or Ishigaki-jima in the next five to eight years and stationing a 100-man coastal surveillance unit on Yonaguni Island in response to growing naval activities of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). He was quoted as saying, "Defending strong points in the Sakishima chain is very important. We are positively considering the plan."
Japan has also moved its air defense zone closer to Taiwan. It seems likely that any Chinese attack on Taiwan will result in Chinese ships and aircraft massively violating Japanese sea and air space. Recall that China claims the Senkaku Islands just north of Taiwan, which are indisputably Japanese. Then remember that the US is bound by treaty to defend Japan.
Japan sent several ships to help with the US Navy's humanitarian aid operation "Pacific Partnership". This too was a signal to China.
This fall there will be an East Asian Regional Conference in Hanoi. In addition to the usual culprits, the US and Russia were pointedly invited, as a signal to China. At present China is arguing that issues between China and other nations should be solved bilaterally -- with mighty China facing a smaller neighbor, with the obvious advantage to Beijing. But it appears likely that with the US taking a hand, some kind of multilateral framework to balance Beijing's rising expansion may emerge.
The move not only directly rebukes China on its unilateral rewriting of South China Sea maps, but also sends a signal to other nations around the China littoral, such as Japan and South Korea, that are viewing China's increasing aggressiveness with alarm. US naval vessels are staging a massive exercise off the coast of Korea, originally slated for the Yellow Sea but moved after China's protests (though we have sailed carriers there before). Japan has a small team observing.
Does the new stance signal a sea change in the Obama Administration's China policy? Much will depend on how willing the nations around China are to act in concert. Much will also depend on who is making foreign policy in the US, and on the domestic situation. Stay tuned; the next few years promise to be very interesting.
Vorkosigan
ADDED: Weasel pointed out that I hadn't really stated that we're the existing hegemon in the area. I thought the SCMP quote addressed that, but I thought I'd highlight the fact that China is pushing back against an extant US hegemony in East Asia.
