Militarization of South China Sea by 'peace-loving' China

By Vishnu Prakash

The Chinese National Defense paper (July 2019) reads: “Chinese people …. have learned the value of peace … Therefore … since its founding 70 years ago, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has never started any war or conflict.”

That would have been reassuring, except that the Chinese record has been the mirror opposite.

China jumped into the inter-Korean war (1950-53), grabbed Tibet (1950), attacked India (1962), engaged in border conflict with the USSR (1969), conducted a punitive expedition “to teach Vietnam a lesson” (1979) during the official visit of the Indian Foreign Minister to Beijing, test-fired missiles into the territorial waters off Taiwan (1995-96) and blatantly militarized the South China Sea after forcibly occupying islands/reefs belonging to the Philippines and Vietnam.

Beijing has also been flexing its muscles on the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands dispute with Japan and is at odds with Seoul over ownership of the Socotra (Ieodo) Rock. China can ignite the issue whenever it desires and has therefore been flagging its claim periodically.

With growing prosperity, enhanced military capabilities and the assertive leadership of President Xi Jinping, Chinese aspirations and territorial ambitions have been soaring. Addressing the National People's Congress (March 2018) he warned: "The Chinese people have been indomitable and persistent, we have the spirit of fighting the bloody battle against our enemies to the bitter end.”

Participating in the Raisina Dialogue in January 2019, along with top navy officials from the U.S., France, Japan and Australia, the Indian Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba noted that China had added 80 new ships in the preceding five years. No other navy had grown so rapidly in the past 200 years. China's first home-built aircraft carrier is likely to be operational this year and the second by 2022, taking its fleet strength to three.

Significantly, this phase of Chinese military modernisation coincided with American preoccupation in the debilitating Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. The U.S. spent $5.9 trillion on the “War on Terror.” The militarisation of the South China Sea gathered pace under a distracted Obama administration on the one hand and a resolute President Xi, on the other. The Chinese National Defence Paper is categorical: “The South China Sea islands and Diaoyu Islands are inalienable parts of the Chinese territory.”

In the first flush, President Barack Obama, who assumed office in January 2009, viewed China as a partner and peer. A joint statement issued after Obama's maiden meeting with President Hu in London in April 2009 read: “The sides agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century.” Analysts began to refer to them as the “Group of Two” or G2.

The nations went even further during Obama's visit to China in November 2009. In a joint statement they said: “China and the United States share a responsibility to address cooperatively the regional and global security challenges.” However, some observers were upfront. “Obama's first trip here signalled … a turning point in relations between a weakened U.S. power and China that senses its time has come.” (Wall Street Journal)

Obama did smell the coffee eventually, but the damage was done. He sought to reassert the U.S. as the lead player in the Indo-Pacific region while continuing to maintain “its neutrality in territorial disputes involving China … (and underlining) … a vital interest in freedom of navigation.” (Brookings Institute).

Obama travelled to Asia in November 2011 formally to join the East Asia Summit (EAS) and nudge it toward “focusing on difficult security issues in the region, especially maritime security.” Beijing was not amused.

Earlier in October 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, writing for the Foreign Policy journal promised an American pivot to Asia, “to lock in a substantially increased investment ― diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise” ― in the region. While there was widespread scepticism about the U.S.'s ability to walk the talk, Beijing took affront, viewing it as a containment move.

It doubled down on pushing its agenda, especially in the South China Sea. China claims almost 70 percent of the sea based on a dubious U-shaped “nine-dash line.” The South China Sea is an important maritime trade route and rich in natural resources, including hydrocarbons. The Permanent Court of Arbitration has already adjudicated that “There was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the 'nine-dash line'.” China brushed aside the ruling. It also refuses to respect the universally recognized right of littoral states to their 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

In 2012, China wrested control of the Scarborough Shoal, within the EEZ of the Philippines ― and reconstructed seven islands ― to monitor activity at the U.S. military base there. The U.S. let the Philippines down by declining to take sides and merely issuing a stern warning to Beijing.

Manila had little choice but to move to the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the auspices of the UN Convention on the Laws of the Sea. In July 2016, the court ruled that China had violated the sovereign rights of the Philippines by illegally seizing its maritime territory. Beijing disregarded the judgment.

Chinese belligerence with regard to Paracel and Spratly islands was more brazen. In 1988, it grabbed most of the Spratlys by clashing with Vietnam and killing 60 of its sailors. Since 2013, Beijing has been engaged in extensive construction on the floating and submerged reefs in the Spratlys, installing airstrips and missile defence systems. U.S. intelligence officials told CNBC news (May 2018) that China had positioned anti-ship cruise and surface-to-air missiles there.

Premier Li Keqiang of course denies militarising the South China Sea, maintaining that the defence equipment had been placed there to promote "freedom of navigation." That the Chinese navy conducts regular patrols in the South China Sea, and drives away non-Chinese vessels, matters little. For example, the Indian naval vessel INS Airavat, sailing in international waters in the South China Sea, after a port call in Vietnam in July 2011, was harassed by the Chinese navy.

India has strategic and economic interests in the South China Sea. Under a 2011 agreement with Vietnam, India has been exploring oil and gas in its EEZ. China has been needlessly objecting and asserting “indisputable sovereignty” over the area. Chinese bullying is becoming a matter of grave concern for littoral and other states having a stake in a free and open South China Sea. For the first time, in May this year, India joined naval drills in the area by the U.S., Japan and the Philippines.

Former Indian National Security Adviser (NSA) S.S. Menon observes: “The traditional American hub-and-spokes security architecture in East and Southeast Asia has not been able to prevent the rekindling of territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea and the East China Sea … and … one of the greatest arms races in history in the region in the last 20 years.”

The reality remains that even today power flows through the barrel of the gun. It is just that nations try harder to cloak their aggression in a veneer of legitimacy and peaceful intent. China has perfected that art. It is skilled in generating maps, documents and markers retrospectively to buttress its evolving claims. Only a united international front can thwart China's creeping expansionism, but that appears difficult. The current ambivalent American posture, hitherto the net security provider, does not help either. As such, the Indo-Pacific region may be in for a prolonged period of instability, until a new equilibrium emerges.

Vishnu Prakash is a former Indian ambassador to South Korea.