A “must watch” for foreign and national security types is this CNN footage of a P8-A Poseidon surveillance flight over Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef, both part of the Spratly islands in the South China Sea (SCS). The remarkable video enables viewers to get a much better sense of the intensifying competition in these critical waters.
The South China Sea is arguably the world’s most crucial waterway, with $5 trillion in goods passing though it annually. The seas may have enormous oil and gas reserves and are home to abundant fishing grounds as well. Multiple nations have laid claim to the reefs and islets within the area – China, Taiwan, and Vietnam claim the Spratly islands in their entirety, while the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei claim parts of the island chain.
To strengthen its territorial claims, China has built over 2,000 acres of landmass on reefs in the South China Sea, with dredger ships working around the clock to expand the man-made islands. Land reclamation serves two purposes. First, China can claim, however tenuously, under international law that since it has land features on these islands, they are Chinese territory. That means that Chinese maritime territory would “restart” at every point where there is a land feature. It is a way of expanding Chinese territorial waters which could extend to about 90 percent of the South China Sea. China would claim that most of the SCS is Chinese territorial waters or its exclusive economic zone. Beijing has a rather unique interpretation of what can be done in EEZs – contrary to international law it claims the right to regulate foreign military presence inside its EEZs. All this amounts to slow and steady territorial aggrandizement, a cleverer way to expand territory than Putin’s approach in Ukraine.
Second, China is also militarizing the islands — that much is clear from the CNN video. As naval officer Captain Mike Parker points out in the video, the P8 was being tracked by military assets on the ground, including advanced radar. The Chinese have constructed barracks, radar control towers, airstrips, docks and helipads with the intention of forward deploying forces deep into the South China Sea.
It is probable that the US would not have had to escalate its military surveillance had the Chinese taken us more seriously after Secretaries Clinton and Gates in 2010 made stern statements about US vital interests in the South China Sea. As is so common in international politics, it is better to take a serious and hardline approach early in a potential conflict of interests, to avoid having to be reactive and escalatory later. Eventually a challenger such as China will push too hard. In this case, Beijing finally hit a US “red line.” But now the US is left with fewer options than it might have had when China was beginning its aggressive push into the South China Sea. Once we stated that our ability to operate freely in the seas was a vital interest, we should have done everything possible to back up that interest.
Now the US is being challenged in arguably the central front of our competition with China. At stake is our ability to operate freely in key waterways, our ability to protect our friends from coercion, and our ability to deter and dissuade Chinese aggression. The US military is doing the right thing. Flying over China’s specious claims of territory is a demonstration that the US will not recognize China’s unilateral moves.
But more must be done. The US is more than willing to spend countless hours in conference and shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. It is time for a major diplomatic effort in Southeast Asia. The US should take the lead in first getting the key Southeast Asian claimants to agree on what belongs to whom. It can then be clear on exactly what it is ready to back up with military power. China should lose out diplomatically for its aggression. It can be allowed to join the diplomacy only if it is ready to peacefully settle these disputes through political negotiations.
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