Unlike Bradley Taylor who argues for a hard-line military intervention against China, James Holmes argues for a more moderate response against China's assertiveness in the SCS.
Responding to China's Assertiveness in the South China Sea
Responding to
China's Assertiveness
in the South China Sea
BY James R. Holmes
In territorial disputes with the Philippines and
Vietnam, China has taken to deploying coast guard
vessels and other nonmilitary assets as its instruments
of choice to consolidate its claims to South China Sea
islands, atolls, rocks, and waters. Naval warships,
combat aircraft, and other weaponry have kept a low
profile or remained over the horizon—and out of
sight—altogether. This makes for a peculiar maritime
contest pitting fleets of unarmed or lightly armed
ships against each other.
U.S. leaders must discern the nature of the
imbroglio in the South China Sea, undertake some
soul-searching about how much they and American
society prize their aims, and allocate resources—
diplomatic effort, ships and aircraft, manpower,
and so forth—to bring about an acceptable result.
Having thought these things through, officials may
glimpse stratagems whereby they can manage events
in the-region.
THE NATURE OF THE STRATEGIC COMPETITION
How should we classify the struggle in the South
China Sea? It is shaping up to be a protracted
peacetime strategic competition among China,
rival Asian seafaring states, and the United States to
determine whether China can modify the U.S.-led
international order by unilateral fiat. If successful,
Beijing will set a precedent for occupying waters
assigned to fellow coastal states by the law of the
sea and for abridging freedom of the seas as it sees
fit. China will transmute the waters bounded by the
first island chain into a closed sea ruled by Chinese
domestic law. And it will loosen U.S. alliances in
the-process.
Why will the competition be protracted? To all
appearances, China defines not just land but the sea as
territory to be ruled. Chinese commentators depict the
waters within the "nine-dashed line" enclosing most
of the South China Sea as "blue national soil" where
Beijing rightfully exercises "indisputable sovereignty."
Having defined its policy in terms of sovereignty—
a concept that rouses elemental passions among
officialdom and ordinary people alike—the Chinese
leadership has staked out a public commitment that
would be exceedingly difficult to walk back. Although
Chinese leaders might postpone their plans if they
were to encounter effective pushback, it is tough to
envision China foreswearing its territorial claims
altogether for the sake of, for example, a maritime
code of conduct.
What is China attempting to accomplish? China
is prosecuting a sort of hub-and-spoke strategic
competition against both its Asian rivals and the
United States. Chinese diplomats try to keep each
competition separate, in hopes of overpowering
each opponent mano-a-mano while forestalling a
hostile coalition. With regard to the United States,
China is pursuing an access-denial strategy by
deploying aircraft, antiship missiles, and ships
capable of exacting a heavy toll from U.S. forces
operating in Asia in wartime. In short, Beijing wants
to dishearten Washington while discrediting U.S.
alliance commitments. With regard to Asian rivals,
China covets control of islands, seas, and skies. It
starts matter-of-factly policing disputed seas while
daring woefully outmatched antagonists to reverse
its efforts. Rather than reach for the big stick of naval
force, Beijing prefers to brandish the small stick
manifest in the China Coast Guard. This approach
has worked-to-date.
How determined is the United States? Faced
with this multifaceted strategy, the United States
must decide whether it treasures its alliances—and
its stewardship of freedom of the seas—enough to
mount an open-ended effort of major proportions
to defend them. The upfront expenses of halting
China's creeping expansionism threaten to be steep,
while confronting a major trading partner and fellow
nuclear-weapon state entails perils and uncertainty.
Many strategists would counsel against such a
venture unless U.S. leaders place a very high value
on the United States' strategic position in Asia and
its custodianship of the international system. It is
gut-check time, as sportscasters say.
POLICY OPTIONS
Suppose Washington proceeds. How does it beat a
strategy like China's?
First, refuse to be drawn into armed conflict over
the Spratlys and Paracels. Given that the claims and
counterclaims to these flyspecks are murky at best,
Washington should wage "lawfare" instead. The
regime of islands set forth in the UN Convention
on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) defines what
constitutes an island in legal terms. Few geographic
features at issue in the South China Sea qualify. An
island without its own freshwater, for example, cannot
sustain human life or economic activity, and thus is
not an island at all from a legal vantage point. Its
owner can claim only a 12-nautical-mile territorial
sea around it, not a 200-mile exclusive economic zone
(EEZ). Taiwan appears to control the only bona fide
island in the South China Sea. If so, the remainder
of that body of water is mostly high seas, open to
all. Seafaring states should exercise that freedom
to its maximum, flouting China's nine-dashed line.
Washington should encourage Asian governments
to seek a ruling from an international tribunal
confirming the status of islands, atolls, and rocks.
The United States will have prevailed if Asian
states can defend the waters washing against their
homeland-shores.
Second, wage the competition on Beijing's terms—
in one sense. Thinking about the South China Sea as
territory clarifies matters. Viewed this way, Chinese
fishermen operating within 200 nautical miles of
Palawan, for example, are poaching Philippine
natural resources as surely as if they had landed on
the island. China Coast Guard vessels accompanying
the fishing fleet equate to an invasion force protecting
poachers. Framing matters thus may help the United
States summon up some urgency for this endeavor
while putting China on the defensive.
Third, consider committing U.S. Navy and
Coast Guard forces to Asia in more than their
usual training capacity, creating combined naval
and law"‘enforcement fleets with Asian allies. U.S.
mariners would help police offshore waters the way
soldiers helped police NATO soil throughout the
Cold War. The Philippines, for instance, will never
be able to fend off Chinese encroachment on its EEZ.
Its maritime resources are too sparse. But a beefed-
up U.S. Coast Guard forward-deployed to Southeast
Asia—and backed by heavy U.S. Navy firepower—
could give regional states a fighting chance of
upholding their legal-rights.
Are these good alternatives? Hardly. They are just
the least awful ones available.
JAMES R. HOLMES is Professor of Strategy at the
U.S. Naval War College. He can be reached at
<
[email protected]>.
The NBR Analysis Brief provides commentary on the
Asia-Pacific from leading scholars and experts. The views
expressed are those of the author.