On Jan. 30, a US Navy destroyer sailed through waters within 12 nautical miles (22.22km) west of Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島), one of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) in the South China Sea. The goal of this particular maneuver, unspecified at the time, was generally interpreted as the US exercising its freedom of passage — both for navigation and flight routes — within the South China Sea area. It just so happened that the timing coincided with US Secretary of State John Kerry concluding his visit to Beijing. Only four days earlier the US Department of State had criticized President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for visiting Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島).
Were these by coincidence, or are the events somehow connected? At the very least, it can be surmised from this run of events that the US Department of State is continuing to adopt a hard line within the South China Sea.
The US is a sea power, and former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton often reiterated that the US would respect the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and international law on disputes within the South China Sea, while calling on all parties involved with the tensions to establish an agreed code of conduct compliant with the spirit of the UNCLOS.
However, the US has yet to ratify the UNCLOS, and still recognizes the 3 nautical mile convention formerly followed for the definition of what constitutes the territorial waters to which a state can lay claim. For this reason it is often unwilling to recognize another state’s claim to territorial waters extending 12 nautical miles beyond the coastal baseline of its territory, and does on occasion enter other nations’ territorial waters.
A precedent to this type of behavior can be found by examining the Vietnam War, which lasted for about 20 years from 1955 to 1975. For the first nine years of the US’ involvement in the conflict, it did not extend the war beyond the 17th parallel — established by the Geneva Accords of 1954, demarcating the north and south.
This approach was paying few dividends for the US, which led it to try to find a way around limiting its position to the south of that demarcation line. On Aug. 2, 1964, the US Navy sent warships into the Gulf of Tonkin, entering North Vietnamese territorial waters within 11 nautical miles of its coast, in an attempt to lure the North Vietnamese navy into an attack. This they did, giving the US the pretext it needed to secure congressional approval for further involvement in the war.
From here they embarked upon a campaign of heavy aerial bombing of the north. The north’s taking of the bait — attacking the US warships — unleashed chaos onto itself.
In May 2014, China moved an exploratory oil rig — the Haiyang Shiyou 981 — to the waters west of Triton Island, where the Vietnamese attempted to prevent it from establishing a permanent position. These tensions led to arson attacks against Taiwanese-owned factories in Vietnam. At the time the US Department of State criticized China for moving Haiyang Shiyou 981 into the waters just off Triton Island, saying that it was provocative behavior.
Last year, the US was back to its old tricks. The US government sent the USS Lassen within 12 nautical miles of the Spratly Islands’ (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) Subi Reef (Jhubi Reef, 渚碧礁). The official line was that this was done to protect freedom of navigation within the South China Sea, but the parallels to sending US Navy warships into the territorial waters of the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 are there for all to see.
Had China not been able to keep itself in check, and had it been tempted to respond in a more robust manner, it would have been all but inevitable that things would have blown up between the two nations. China was able to exhibit the requisite restraint.
It is possible to discern the outlines of the US’ approach to China and Taiwan’s stances on territorial claims in the South China Sea from the manner in which these events have unfolded: That is, obstructing China from becoming too much of a power in the South China Sea, coupled with a reluctance to see Taiwan doing too much in the South China Sea area.
Given Beijing’s extended interpretation of the nine-dash line in the South China Sea, and how it is putting that interpretation into practice, the US had initially hoped the government of Taiwan would fall in line with its own position concerning that interpretation.
Unfortunately, Taiwan has thus far failed to do so, preferring to maintain a position closer to that of China.
Next, the US supported the Philippines in taking Beijing to the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration over the issue, hoping that this would curtail China’s expansionist ambitions in the South China Sea.
However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared on Oct. 29 last year — one day after the announcement of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s preliminary finding on the case — that it neither accepts nor recognizes any ruling by the court, and that its position on the issue is, again, the same as that of Beijing’s.
From the US’ perspective, after this it was no longer possible to support any proactive action on the part of Taiwan’s government in the South China Sea. As such, it was entirely foreseeable that the US would have little truck with Ma’s Itu Aba Island escapade.
The US government was not as strongly opposed to former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) visit to Itu Aba Island in 2008. Two reasons for the change in the US’ stance and attitude on the issue can be inferred: First, the US’ dissatisfaction with the way Ma’s policy is more in line Beijing’s position; second, the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling is due in the first half of this year, and all parties are keen to influence the judges’ decision.
The US is not only unhappy about how neatly Taiwan’s and China’s positions dovetail on the South China Sea issue, it is also wary of how any action in the Spratly Islands on Taiwan’s part might influence the decision of the arbitration court judges.
Over the past two years, China has been busy reinforcing its land reclamation and construction efforts on the islands and reefs it claims as its own, in the hope of getting around Clause 3, Article 121 of the UNCLOS, on “Regime of Islands,” which states: “Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.”
The US’ movements within the territorial waters of Triton Island are a reminder of events from two years ago, when tensions over the island erupted between China and Vietnam. They could be said to be a kind of psychological reaction born of anxiety prior to the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling.
The US was opposed to Ma’s trip to Itu Aba Island, saying that it was “extremely unhelpful” to efforts to promote peace in the region. In the same vein, the US’ actions around Subi Reef and Triton Island, despite their claims that they were aimed at maintaining peace, were not beneficial for peace either.
If the US really wants to address tensions within the South China Sea region in an objective, neutral way, the first thing it should do is ratify the UNCLOS, to give some credence to its own position on the issue, and its own role therein.
The second thing it should do is support Taiwan’s participation in the process, as a party to the negotiations, so that Taiwan is given an opportunity, during the negotiations, to account for the legality of the “nine-dash line” that it drafted.
Chen Hurng-yu is a professor at the Graduate Institute of Asian Studies at Tamkang University.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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