Things are heating up in the South China Sea
between Washington and Beijing to a more intense and potentially explosive level.
America’s apparent aim: to ratchet up the challenge to China’s territorial claims and military dominance in East Asia’s most strategic body of water, where most of the region’s sea-
In this tussle on the high seas, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, espe-
China Sea — Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam — have long been of two minds: wanting to avoid tension- stoking brinkmanship, while seeking to restrain Chinese maritime aggressiveness.
What China wants
The good news is neither America nor China want a full- scale war, which would be disastrous for global security and prosperity, and could very well go nuclear.
Short of that nightmare scenario, the contending superpowers seem keen to assert their interests, even if it raises tension and perhaps provokes
- tegic interests explains why.
For Beijing, dominating the South and East China Sea has been a paramount defense objective, to counter potentially hostile forces within the so-called First Island Chain, the Indonesian, Philippine and Japanese archipelagos circumscribing the seas near China.
The South China Sea is even more crucial for China due to
its oil imports pass, plus the valu-
gas deposits found in those waters.
These maritime security objectives are tightly intertwined with Beijing’s assertion of sovereignty over Taiwan and nearly the entire South China Sea, under its “ninedash line” claim first enunciated in 1947 by the mainland’s Nationalist regime before losing power to the communists two
Geopolitically, moreover, as a rising power, China needs to at least be dominant in its region, just as the United States sought preeminence in the Western Hemisphere two centuries ago.
In 1823, then-President James Monroe warned European powers not to expand imperial rule in the Americas, especially in
In effect, this Monroe Doctrine barred Europe from militarily intervening in the region.
With Europe occupied with the Napoleonic Wars between France and the continent’s monarchies, the Monroe Doctrine was largely unchallenged, enabling the US to dominate the Americas on its way to becoming a global power.
Now, it’s China’s turn. If it cannot be preeminent in Asia, forget the world. And any Chinese leader who fails to assert the nation’s territorial claims would lose nationwide support and could fall from power.
What America wants
The United States wants to maintain its global clout, increasingly challenged in this decade by China and Russia. In Asia, that means maintaining and building up defense alliances, and curbing Chinese military assertiveness.
Plainly, if America can’t stop China from dominating other countries, then the region would seek accommodations with Beijing, which weakens US clout.
Key to Washington’s plan was to move 60 percent of its naval assets to East Asia. That was supposed to happen under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement ( EDCA), escalating deployment of US forces in the Philippines and granting them access to our military bases.
But President Rodrigo Duterte stopped full EDCA implementation. Result: America cannot maintain large enough naval and air forces in the region to match the thousands of missiles and warplanes which the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can unleash from land batteries and bases.
While the US can deter invasions across vast seas, it would be hard put to defend Taiwan from fullscale PLA attack across the narrow Taiwan Strait, which Beijing has threatened to mount if the island ever declares formal independence.
And having allowed China to take over both Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012 from Philippine control, plus
Spratlys, America will now conduct its so-called freedom of navigation operations (fonops) to challenge Chinese claims of 12-mile territorial waters and airspace around its illegally reclaimed islands.
The US has also formed the Quadrilateral alliance with Australia, India and Japan, and its Quad partners have also sent warships into the South China Sea. So have America’s allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization defending Europe.
Throughout the year, the US Navy conducts fonops where Washington does not recognize sovereign maritime rights claimed by various nations, including the Philippines, where the second most frequent sailings are usually done, next to Iran.
The US disputes our Constitution’s claim of territorial waters within our maritime baseline circumscribing our main islands.
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which grants our exclusive economic zone 200 nautical miles from our baseline, as well as our extended continental shelf (ECS) 320 nm away.
Will there be war?
The big question for Asia and the world, of course, is whether US fonops might spark armed confrontation with the PLA Navy. As reported on October 1, a PLAN destroyer sailed just 45 yards close to a US destroyer sailing near Chinese- occupied Gaven Reef, also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
While wanting to avoid fullscale war, America may find strategic use in incidents stirring tension and provoking more PLA activity and buildup, which may then make Asean states more willing to accept protection from and provide facilities to US or Quad forces.
And one scenario that could get Washington the EDCA reactiva-
Philippine facilities or forces are adversely affected or even attacked. That could force President Duterte to backtrack from his close Beijing ties and allow EDCA.
Could that happen? One thing is expected: By 2022 Duterte will step down, and a new regime can reverse his foreign policy and allow US forces en masse, with nuclear- capable armaments able to hit most of China from the Philippines.
Then the real danger begins.