21/01/2013
The South China Sea connects the western Pacific with the Indian Ocean and hence with the rest of the world. Historically its sea lanes have perhaps been most vital to global sea-borne commercial activities. And partly because of its position straddling the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, most of Southeast Asia was embroiled in the commercial streams that swept through the region during the first period of globalization which precipitated the colonization of most of the area. The process of decolonization also brought much turmoil to the region.
During the current period of globalization, more than half of global sea-borne trade has been going through the South China Sea region again and has, as a result, promoted development for most of the countries in Asia and many others elsewhere as well. Yet the sea lanes and the maritime domains in the South China Sea region have been subjected to increasing pressures and assertive behaviors that might produce severe constraints to the security and prosperity prospects of many East Asian countries. What are the reasons for this sorry state of affair?
Chinese officials and Chinese press have regularly accused the United States of roiling the current tension by inducing other Asian countries, particularly those in Southeast Asia, to support a new strategy of encirclement or containment against China. For example, when the US State Department expressed concern over China’s establishment of a prefectural-level city on Woody Island of disputed Paracels Beijing summoned the US embassy’s deputy chief of mission Robert Wang to lodge “strong dissatisfaction.” The statement by the read by deputy spokesman Patrick
Ventrell on August 3, 2012 included the following sentence: “In particular, China’s upgrading of the administrative level of Sansha City and establishment of a new military garrison there covering disputed areas of the South China Sea run counter to collaborative diplomatic efforts to resolve differences and risk further escalating tensions in the region.”
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