The sheer scale of the work was almost the perfect metaphor for modern Chinese foreign policy writ in sand: we’re big, we’re capable, and we can and will build whatever we want. Following a decade of increasing tensions, China is making its boldest move for dominance of the South China Sea. After years in which all regional parties have used fishermen and coast guard boats to impede or arrest foreigners in the disputed region, China is cutting through the proverbial Gordian knot of maritime territorial conflict.
The ramifications of the construction have not been lost on China watchers. These islands are a patently transparent effort by China to bolster its claim to contested territorial waters from an expanded presence on and around the Spratly Islands. However, the efforts are part of a larger problem with China and Western interactions. In this case, it specifically has to do with differing interpretations and adherence to international norms and laws (principally the international law of the sea and maritime border definitions).
With so much at stake in the South and East China Seas (economic resources, environmental issues, and security matters), new scrutiny must be paid to Chinese strategists and political thinkers’ opinions, interpretation, and past behavior with regard to international maritime law. This piece seeks to better define the vagaries and uncertainties (to outsiders) of these interpretations. It advocates for new engagement strategies, tools, and policy initiatives needed to address this problem before it becomes a serious security liability for the U.S. and its allies.
The Spratly Islands and the South China Sea
The current site of the construction lies roughly 810 miles (1300 km) off China’s coast, well outside traditional norms of contiguous maritime territorial claims. China and its neighbors have all claimed the Spratly Islands for the past six decades with all but Brunei constructing facilities in attempts to buttress their claims. No doubt the proximity of the Spratly Islands to the five closest claimants (Brunei, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Malaysia) means that a multilateral agreement must be made to prevent disaster and keep open some of the most important shipping waters in the world (roughly $5 trillion in ship-borne trade a year), but that would be under the best of hypothetical situations with China removing its presence there. Moreover, none of these states can hope to match the PRC in terms of economic or military power, and all parties have considerable economic and ecological interests to consider.
The South China Sea is a resource haven for its littoral states, all of which have developing economies (save for Brunei which, although only having a population of roughly 400,000, is considered developed). The U.S. Energy Information Agency “estimates there to be approximately 11 billion barrels (bbl) of oil reserves and 190 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas reserves in the South China Sea.” However, resource extraction and energy development is just one facet of the Spratly Islands conflict. According to the United Nation’s Environmental Program, the fisheries in the South China Sea account for roughly one tenth of the world’s global fish stocks. With a quarter of the world’s population living in the surrounding littoral states, the region is a crucial foodstuff resource. Proper management by local authorities is a crucial aspect to keeping those fisheries healthy, protecting the environment, and preventing over fishing from being depleted entirely. These protections and policies, however, cannot be developed much less enforced while territorial dispute persist.
Defining ‘Territorial Waters’
The 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defined territorial waters as extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km, 13.8 mi) from a state’s coastal shore, with an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles. The language of the Convention further stipulates that baseline island structures must be exposed above water at low tide to be considered a further extension of territorial and EEZ for the state. Now it is worth noting that the UNCLOS has been an evolving document since its establishment as new international norms and necessities arise, but claimants through international arbitration structures have been the accepted norm for the majority of expansion of continental shelf and EEZ claims.
South China Sea littoral states have been petitioning for rulings with regards to maritime territorial claims, most notably Malaysia and Vietnam in May 2009. However, seeking arbitration has been hampered by a variety of Chinese engagement strategies both in the South China Sea and in international forums. Greg Torode writingfor Reuters’ Hong Kong bureau sums up China’s respect for the structures:
“Some experts believe the speed of the Spratly reclamations shows China is trying to strengthen its legal claim to the area after the Philippines filed a case with the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, challenging China’s claim. China has refused to take part in the case, which has yet to be heard.”
China’s regard for its smaller neighbors’ claims in the South China Sea has historically vacillated between patronizing and antagonistic. Evidently, though, China is quite comfortable throwing its weight around the South China Sea. When the topic of China’s aggressive tactics against its neighbors in the South China Sea arose during the recent Fifth Philippines-U.S. Bilateral Strategic Dialogue, China’s foreign ministry responded:
“China always maintains that all countries, regardless of the size, are equal. We are against the bullying of small countries by big countries. At the same time, we also believe that small countries should not make unreasonable demands.”
It is worth noting that the Philippines was one of the foremost critics of its ASEAN partner states for breaking the united front of multilateral talks on maritime territorial claims with China, bilateral negotiations giving the larger and richer PRC considerable advantage. The last five years of exploration and development in the South China Sea have bred new security tensions between China and its neighbors. The tensions have prompted the Obama administration’s Asia rebalance, a sore spot for China, which has declared that the conflicts are themselves part of American interference and meddling. The argument is a familiar one to China watchers, it asserts that America and its allies are seeking to “box” China in and forestall its peaceful ascent.
Why China feels threatened by American engagement in the region is as important to dealing with the South China Sea as the methods with which China pursues its goals there?
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