Rocky reefs in South China Sea
The dispute over maritime claims in the South China Sea appears to be intensifying. This raises two questions: first, whether the tensions will erupt into armed conflict and, second, what role New Zealand should play. A recent conference organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam and attended by scholars and officials from two dozen states, including myself, sponsored by the Asia New Zealand Foundation, set out the issues and provided a basis for a cautious prediction.
Lying south of China and north of Indonesia, and bordered by Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, the South China Sea conveys one-third of the value of the world’s maritime traffic, including oil and gas to Japan and South Korea.
It is recognised by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as an international waterway, with a common right of transit to be enjoyed by mariners of all nations. The Law of the Sea also assigns 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) resource rights to the bordering states.
Nevertheless, successive governments of China, both Nationalist (from 1932) and Communist (from 1949), have claimed the sea in its entirety. Their claims are based on an alleged history of exploration, fishing, and sporadic settlement, and also in the so-called ‘‘nine-dashed line’’ or ‘‘U-shaped line’’.
But the claimed maritime territory is not specified by geographic data points. It is only indicated on maps produced by the governments of China, and it seriously overlaps the EEZ claims by the five littoral states. Hence the dispute.
Until 1982, when the Law of the Sea Convention was signed, the dispute was latent. It became manifest after preliminary exploration found evidence of hydrocarbons in the seabed, and demand for exclusive fishing rights arose as traditional grounds were depleted by unregulated exploitation of marine life.
The economic rise of China stimulated a nationalist resurgence which rejected the ‘‘Century of Humiliation’’ perpetrated by the Western imperial powers (and latterly by Japan). This entailed assertion of China’s more extensive historical borders, not only land borders with Russia, India, and Vietnam, but also maritime borders with Japan and five Southeast Asian states.
Starting around 2013, the government of China began sending dredges and construction teams south to build up selected reefs and shoals into concrete islets. These islets were then equipped with working and living structures flying the flag of China. Subsequently, Chinese surface warship and submarine support facilities, missile emplacements, and bomber landing strips and operations were detected on the islets.
The potential for armed conflict was foreshadowed by a naval battle with Vietnam in 1974 following China’s seizure of the Paracel Island group, and again in 1988 as China occupied Johnson Reef. The following decades saw China occupying other reefs, provoking confrontations by China’s coast guard vessels with those of Philippines and Vietnam.
The United States, New Zealand and most other Western governments have rejected China’s claims. They cite a ruling by the UN Arbitral Panel in 2016 that, under the Law of the Sea Convention, China has no valid historical claim to the disputed islets.
The US Navy is conducting explicit ‘‘Freedom of Navigation Patrols’’ by warships that deliberately transit through the 12-mile circles around the islets fortified by China. China’s islet garrison forces have reacted with not only angry radio warnings but also threatening overflights and dangerous warship manoeuvres, most recently in October, involving a nearcollision induced by a Chinese destroyer PLAN Luyang with the USS Decatur, a US destroyer in transit.
Thus the potential for miscalculation, an exchange of fire, and an escalation of military conflict appears to be rising. In the context of the Trump Administration’s hard line on China in economic policy, could the South China Sea be a flashpoint that could ignite a US-China war?
This is predicted by some Americans such as Peter Navarro, author of an alarmist book, Death by China, and now a trade adviser to President Trump.
Nevertheless, at a South China Sea conference in Vietnam in November, courtesy prevailed in the formal presentations and in private discussions I had with other delegates, Chinese as well as Vietnamese and American. It became clear that other interests are mitigating the territorial dispute; these include in diplomacy, trade, investment, aid, tourism and management of joint maritime resource development zones with China.
My conclusions from the Vietnam conference are: China has now secured its physical presence in the South China Sea and no government is in a position to dislodge it. China has won this round. While diplomatic and legal protests will continue, all parties wish to avoid military confrontation. China can now shift its energies to extending its New Silk Road initiative to the south and west. All other protagonists in the South China Sea dispute, and New Zealand, will continue to interact pragmatically with China so as to advance their own interests.
So I’m cautiously optimistic that war in the South China Sea can be avoided.