The move by US President Donald Trump’s administration to brand most of Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea a breach of international law does not mean much on its own: China has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the 2016 tribunal ruling that the US finally just endorsed.
Analysts say they fear it could lead to a miscalculation at sea if it prompts the Chinese Communist Party to more aggressively assert its claims — both to rebuff the US and to deter other claimants in Southeast Asia from taking action.
China’s campaign to build and later militarize artificial structures intensified after then-US president Barack Obama’s administration announced a “pivot” to Asia in 2011.
“This may not necessarily change the texture of what the US military is already doing in the South China Sea,” said Collin Koh Swee Lean, research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. “The concern we have is the Chinese may decide to step up their challenge against these US activities in the [South China Sea], thus increasing the risk of incidents.”
While the US and China are sparring on everything from trade to COVID-19 to Hong Kong, the South China Sea remains the most likely spot for the two powers to have their warships and fighter jets actually collide.
US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper has said he wants to deploy more US forces to confront China, and the US Navy appears to be stepping up “freedom of navigation” operations challenging Beijing’s territorial claims. Earlier this month, two US aircraft carriers conducted exercises in the South China Sea.
“The Trump administration is trying to find all the nails they can to hammer into the coffin,” said Zhu Feng (朱峰), executive director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University. “On the one hand it’s exploiting the China factor for the elections, but in general the US has fundamentally changed its attitude toward China.”
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement on Monday denouncing what he called a “completely unlawful” campaign by China over fish and energy deposits across most of the sea, which is vital for global trade and has territorial disputes involving six governments, marked the fourth anniversary of a ruling by a UN tribunal in favor of the Philippines against China.
Beijing has said the tribunal had no jurisdiction, as it had earlier said it would not abide by dispute settlement mechanisms under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“The world will not allow Beijing to treat the South China Sea as its maritime empire,” Pompeo said.
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs David Stilwell on Tuesday singled out Chinese state-owned companies.
Describing them as “modern-day equivalents of the East India Company,” he said China uses the firms as “battering rams” for influence in the region.
Asked about the possibility of US sanctions against individuals or companies, he told a conference of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies that nothing was off the table.
China has fired back, with Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijian (趙立堅) on Tuesday rejecting Pompeo’s statement and accusing the US of “doing all it can to stir up trouble in the South China Sea and drive a wedge between regional countries and China.”
Another spokesperson, Hua Chunying (華春瑩), said China has no working oil rigs in disputed areas of the South China Sea, and said the country is committed to upholding freedom of navigation and overflight.
The risk of an incident in the South China Sea leading to a larger standoff has risen “as de-escalation will be complicated by the deteriorating relationship,” the Eurasia Group said in an analysis published on Tuesday.
It also said that China might be more likely to declare an air defense identification zone over the waters, “which would attempt to force international commercial and military jets to recognize China’s sovereignty.”
“The US and China do not want to have an open conflict or a war over this issue, but the problem is on the ground,” said Zheng Yongnian (鄭永年), director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. “If there is no effective communication between top leaders on the issue, it is easy for the situation to get out of control.”
The South China Sea encompasses an area roughly the size of India, and China claims more than 80 percent of the waters. So far, Beijing has reclaimed about 1,290 hectares of land on seven reefs or rocks on the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), constructing ports, lighthouses and runways. It has installed missile batteries and other military equipment.
The US stance marks the first time it has explicitly endorsed the substance of the tribunal ruling and declared that China has no right whatsoever to waters and seabed off its neighbors’ coasts, said Greg Poling, director of the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
That should lead to stronger objections to China’s moves to intimidate on fishing and oil and gas drilling, he said, as well as adding pressure on other countries to speak up more.
“It’s a bigger deal than it might seem at first,” he said. “The US is still neutral on who ultimately owns which disputed island, but it’s now firmly on the side of the Southeast Asians when it comes to most of the waters.”
Still, at least one key claimant did not see things spinning out of control. Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teodoro Locsin, whose country has moved closer to China in the past few years, said on Twitter that the world’s biggest economies still needed each other to recover following the global pandemic.
Later on, China said Locsin spoke with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) and both sides agreed to hold “peaceful negotiations” to resolve differences in the South China Sea.
The US move would be effective only if it follows up with claimant states in the region to find ways to exert more pressure against China, Murray Hiebert, BowerGroupAsia’s head of research and a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Southeast Asia Program, said during a virtual briefing on the South China Sea.
“It’s stronger than what was said before, but one of the problems we have with the current administration is they make very strong statements on an issue and disappear for months at a time,” he said. “That means it’s really not that effective.”
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