21/01/2013
The past few years have been an eventful period for the South China Sea dispute, which has always been a crucial issue for peace and stability in East Asia. In 2009, the submissions of extended continental shelf claims to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf by various parties in the dispute created the first round of diplomatic tussles. China’s action of submitting its nine-dotted line map in the South China Sea to the UN, in particular, sparked strong opposition from other claimant states. The diplomatic contentions at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 2010 in Hanoi, particularly between the American and Chinese officials, marked the unprecedented rise of tensions over the South China Sea issue for over a decade. In the first half of 2011, a series of incidents, including Beijing’s heavy-handed actions against the Filipino and Vietnamese fishery and energy exploration activities in the South China Sea, further exacerbated the relations among relevant parties in the regional dispute. As a result of all the happenings, the relations between China and some ASEAN claimant countries have worsened and external major powers are getting increasingly involved in the South China Sea issue.
The intense strategic and diplomatic pressures mounted on Beijing have prompted Chinese policy-makers and analysts to give serious attention to the dispute by reviewing other countries’ policies and deliberating on China’s appropriate responses and future policy options. This paper attempts to examine the domestic debate in China concerning the South China Sea dispute since 2009. It seeks to provide a comprehensive overview of the Chinese debate on three issues: (1) the ways various schools of thought have viewed the South China Sea dispute, (2) the types of policy proposals made, and (3) areas where consensus and disagreements exist. I will also attempt to analyze how the debate relates to China’s official position and actual policy and behaviour in the dispute. Being the most powerful party and having engaged in three military conflicts in the territorial dispute, China’s policy is critical in shaping the future developments of the dispute and also the dynamics of regional security. From this comprehensive overview, we can derive some useful clues to better understand China’s response to the South China Sea dispute in the coming years.
Four notable themes seem to have emerged from the Chinese debate. First, contrary to the widespread external criticism of China for its growing assertiveness, the predominant view among Chinese analysts is that all the tensions and disputes are mainly attributable to the collusion between the United States and regional claimant states. Second, it has been frequently proposed that China should be more proactive in the South China Sea in order to change its current reactive posture. It has been suggested that China can achieve this goal by taking initiatives in three areas: accelerating exploitation of resources in the South China Sea; restraining the involvement of the United States in the South China Sea issue; and exercising greater flexibility in adopting multilateralism to deal with various non-traditional security challenges in the South China Sea. Third, the majority of Chinese analysts and officials believe that the disputes in the South China Sea in the past few years have led to the worsening of China’s regional security environment. Fourth, it appears that there is an emerging consensus that Beijing should practice a qualified moderate policy in the South China Sea in the near future.
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