Thu, Sep 04, 2014 page3

• US warned to ‘keep perspective’ on disputes

  MANAGING RELATIONS: Experts say the US should refrain from heightening tensions with China, and that it should ‘press Taiwan to clarify its position’ on the ‘nine-dash line’

  • By William Lowther / Staff reporter, in WASHINGTON
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  Three top US experts say that territorial disputes in the South China Sea could make a series of critical issues — including peace in the Taiwan Strait — “measurably more difficult to manage.”

  The warning comes in a paper, Keeping the South China Sea in Perspective, published by the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

  It says the US should not regard the South China Sea disputes as signaling an incipient cold war with Beijing or as the central strategic issue in US-China relations.

  “Such an approach is likely to lead to an outcome in which the US does not achieve its objectives, but instead greatly intensifies US-China tension and distrust of each other’s strategic intentions and at the same time increases the chances of other claimants acting imprudently,” the paper says.

  Written by two former senior directors for Asia on the US National Security Council, Jeffrey Bader and Kenneth Lieberthal, and by US Rear Admiral Michael McDevitt, the paper calls for US policymakers to lower heightened tensions and to protect the relationship with China “from becoming hostage to matters that it cannot control.”

  US government officials and spokespeople should stop condemning Chinese actions as “provocative” or “aggressive” while remaining silent on the actions of others that alter the status quo, the paper says.

  The paper also says that the US “should press Taiwan to clarify its position” on the so-called “nine-dash line” used as the basis for Taiwan’s claims in the South China Sea.

  It argues that China’s “bullying approach” to its maritime territorial claims has increased the influence of analysts who say that China’s peaceful rise is a mirage and that intense competition, if not outright conflict, between the US and China will “define the future.”

  As the paper details, the South China Sea disputes pit China against five other claimants — Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia.

  Freedom of navigation and overflight aspects of these disputes involve vital US interests, but the territorial claims themselves do not, the paper says.

  “The US thus needs to keep this issue in perspective and shape a strategy designed to minimize the chances of a downward slide into confrontation or conflict,” it says.

  Such a slide, the paper says, could make other critical issues — including maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea — more difficult.

  Four island groups in the South China Sea — the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and the Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) — are claimed by Taiwan and China, while Vietnam claims the Paracels and Spratlys and the Philippines claims many of the Spratlys and the Scarborough Shoal.

  According to the paper, the South China Sea has particular military sensitivity for China because it has an important submarine base on Hainan Island, whose vessels exit and return through South China Sea waters.

  There is concern that China might impose an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, which would be “destabilizing, would heighten tensions and should be strongly discouraged,” the paper says.

  The paper says that “probably most” of the issues in contention will remain unresolved for years to come and there is “very little likelihood” of serious negotiations in the near term.
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