China nudges up South China Sea
tension By Richard Javad
Heydarian
MANILA - Earlier hopes that a
leadership transition in China would help to ease
tensions in the South China Sea have faded as
Beijing carves out a more assertive position in
the contested waters.
China's recent
announcement that patrol vessels will beginning
next year "intercept and board" any foreign
vessels in areas over which it claims sovereignty
in the South China Sea represents the gravest
threat yet to freedom of navigation in an area
crucial to global trade.
Adding to the
tensions, Beijing also recently issued new
passports for its citizens which bear an official
Chinese map that incorporates all contested
territories in the South China Sea and
beyond. The move has
sparked new diplomatic flare-ups, including with
rival claimants in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Moreover, Cambodia, a key Chinese ally,
blocked the inclusion of the ongoing territorial
disputes at the recently concluded Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit's formal
agenda, provoking uproar among certain member
nations. The Philippines, for one, launched a
formal protest against the omission.
A
number of factors may explain China's renewed
assertiveness over the territorial disputes.
Intent on consolidating power, the new leadership
in Beijing is clearly in no mood to risk any
popular backlash by scaling down the increasingly
hard-line stance on the issue it inherited from
the Hu Jintao era.
Just as Israel has
tested newly re-elected US President Barack
Obama's commitment to the Middle East by launching
a surprise offensive against Gaza, China's Xi
Jinping may also be challenging America's
so-called "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific by rattling
key US regional allies. More than two years into
the US's "pivot", there are still lingering
questions as to its intent, feasibility and
impact.
At the same time, states in the
region such as Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam
have upped the ante on the disputes in different
ways and across multiple occasions to not only
test China's resolve and score domestic political
points but also to encourage greater US strategic
involvement.
Pivot test The
timing of China's recent provocations is
instructive. During the 2010 ASEAN Regional Forum
(ARF) held in Hanoi, US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton directly inserted America into the South
China Sea disputes by stating that her country has
a "national interest" in "freedom of navigation"
in the Western Pacific, including presumably the
waters surrounding the hotly contested Spratly and
Paracel island chains.
Obama's decision to
select Southeast Asia as his first official
foreign destination of his send term signals - at
least symbolically - his administration's
commitment to reaffirming the US's role as an
"anchor of stability and prosperity" in the
Asia-Pacific region.
"The United States is
a Pacific power whose interests are inextricably
linked with Asia's economic, security, and
political order," said US National Security
Advisor Tom Donilon about Obama's recent Asian
tour, which included stops in Cambodia, Myanmar
and Thailand "America's success in the 21st
century is tied to the success of Asia."
While Washington has emphasized the
economic dimensions of its "pivot" policy,
witnessed in its push for a pan-regional free
trade agreement known as the Trans-Pacific
Partnership Project (TPP), it has simultaneously
equivocated on its more meaningful military
aspect.
As a recent study by David Berteau
and Michael Green of the Washington-based Center
for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) put
it, "[The Department of Defense] has not
adequately articulated the strategy behind its
force posture planning, nor aligned the strategy
with resources in a way that reflects current
budget realities."
The US has announced it
plans to commit a few thousand additional troops
and re-direct around 10% of its naval assets to
the region over the next decade. Assuming the
Obama administration is sincere about its plans,
there are two apparent reasons for such strategic
equivocation:
A conscious effort to not antagonize China and
empower moderates at the expense of hawks within
the US's military-security establishment;
Severe fiscal uncertainties which could
undercut America's long-term operational
commitments and capabilities.
In recent
months, both US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta
and Secretary of State Clinton have repeatedly
re-assured China that the "pivot" policy is not
aimed at containing its rise. To underscore those
claims, the US Navy recently announced its
openness to China's participation in its 2014 "Rim
of the Pacific Exercise". While rapidly developing
its 'anti-access' (A2/AD) and naval capabilities,
China seems unconvinced by the US's conciliatory
rhetoric or deterred by its "pivot".
"US
Pacific Command (PACOM) faces a fundamental budget
challenge: even with an administration pledge to
hold US capabilities steady in Asia while cutting
force structure elsewhere, US$487 billion in
planned cuts means hollowing out other commands'
assets in ways that will ultimately force
cannibalizing of PACOM assets when crises hit the
Middle East or elsewhere," Green wrote in his CSIS
report.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton
Carter recently said that an additional US$500
billion in defense budget cuts under the
"sequestration" provision of the congress-approved
budget bill would be "chaotic, wasteful and
damaging, not just to defense but to every other
function of government".
Emboldened
hawks Some strategic analysts believe that
uncertainties over the US's ability to finance its
"pivot" policy have emboldened more hawkish
elements in China's new leadership, including
those intent on pushing the limits of the
territorial disputes as a nationalistic way to
consolidate domestic power and legitimacy.
With the recent provocations and ASEAN's
inability to adopt even provisional guidelines for
a legally binding code of conduct for the South
China Sea, some strategic analysts now wonder
whether the territorial disputes and their
potential to inhibit free navigation will lead to
an armed US versus China confrontation in the year
ahead.
"All concerned parties should avoid
any kind of provocative or unilateral actions that
can raise tensions or undermine the prospect for a
negotiated solution," said State Department
spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in response to China's
recent "intercept and board" announcement.
"As a Pacific power we have a national
interest in maritime freedoms and unimpeded
economic development and commerce and the rule of
law," said Pentagon spokesman George Little. "Our
alliances, partnerships and enduring presence in
the Asia-Pacific region all serve to support those
goals."
ASEAN Secretary General Surin
Pitsuwan, meanwhile, warned that China's plan to
stop and board foreign vessels in the area
increased "a level of concern and a level of great
anxiety among all parties, particularly parties
that would need the access, the passage and the
freedom to go through."
Despite the
warnings and alarms, it's still not clear China
would be willing to risk a full-blown
confrontation in the area. The "intercept and
board" decision, first announced by Hainan Island
officials, has yet to be fully embraced by China's
top leadership. Not only has China's Foreign
Ministry expressed its commitment to freedom of
navigation in the South China Sea, it has also
equivocated on what constitutes "illegal entry" or
a violation of China's sovereignty by foreign
vessels.
Top Hainan officials such as Wu
Shicun, director general of the foreign affairs
office of Hainan province, has tried to comfort
baffled neighbors by saying that the new
regulations/restrictions will only apply to
vessels engaged in illegal activities (also not
defined clearly) within China's 12 nautical mile
zone, or territorial waters.
China's
recent actions also come in response to rising
assertiveness by US regional allies, seen in
Japan's recent attempt to purchase the contested
Senkak/Diaoyu islands, the Philippines' push for
more US strategic involvement, and Vietnam's
stepped up energy exploration and
offshore-drilling projects in disputed
territories. But as both sides ramp up their
rhetoric and threats, the potential for a clash in
the South China Sea continues to grow.
Richard Javad Heydarian is a
foreign affairs analyst focusing on Iran and
international security. He is the author of the
upcoming book The Economics of the Arab
Spring: How Globalization Failed the Arab
World, Zed Books, 2013. He can be reached
at jrheydarian@gmail.com
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