In July 2016, an international tribunal rejected China’s claims of sovereignty over the territory within a vaguely-defined nine-dash line in the South China Sea, concluding that Beijing’s claim violated international law.
While the United States takes no position on the competing claims in the South China Sea, Washington does reject Beijing’s claim and has deployed two carrier strike groups in dual-carrier operations through the contested waters. Punctuating this position is US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent announcement that China’s claims are “completely unlawful”.
Likewise, Australia has rejected the Chinese claims. It declared in late July that Beijing’s consolidation of the Spratly Islands and the Parcel Islands was invalid as it was “inconsistent” with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
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These actions not only challenge China’s claims, they are escalatory measures to signal that the United States, Australia and other countries will not back away from the right to freely navigate the South China Sea.
To understand the tensions in the South China Sea, one needs to see the broader geopolitical struggle taking place beyond simply access to the rich fishing grounds and energy reserves. The evolving Sino-American tensions also have a significant impact on regional and global stability.
China’s aggressive reclamation and militarisation of the Spratly and Paracel Islands in 2014 should have immediately made clear that Beijing’s objectives were not just about fish, gas and oil, for three reasons.
First, it is true that access to resources is part of the competing claims in the South China Sea. According to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the South China Sea accounted for 12 per cent of the fish caught globally in 2015. More than 50 per cent of fishing vessels in the world are believed to operate in the sea.
Second, China’s aggressive claims over the South China Sea would allow it to virtually seal off the body of water by interdicting strategic resources coming through the Malacca Strait. Chinese sovereignty over the sea would allow Beijing to exercise coercive diplomacy by controlling strategic resource flows with every country in the region.
Third, the most important issue relating to China’s resolve over the South China Sea is that it offers a glimpse into Beijing’s objective of seizing Taiwan and using it as a platform to expel Western influences from the region. With military assets already in place in the Spratly and Paracel Islands, Chinese sovereignty over the South China Sea would allow its military to establish tactical and operational control as well as unopposed freedom in its approaches to Taiwan.
Additionally, it would enable China to address some unfinished business with Japan from its colonial era. As far back as 1951, the US Central Intelligence Agency concluded in a now-declassified report that Taiwan was “the last stronghold of the Nationalist regime” and that the Chinese were resolute in “capturing Taiwan in order to complete the conquest of Chinese territory”.
Pompeo said in a speech on July 23 that, “maybe it’s time for a new grouping of like-minded nations, a new alliance of democracies”. The US is in good company as Britain, France and Australia have all transited the South China Sea in recent years in rejection of China’s claims. Germany, as a global trading partner, needs to play a participatory role in Asian security as well.
India, while remaining non-aligned, is being nudged towards the Western alliance, especially after its recent confrontation with China in the Galwan Valley in which at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed. Significantly, India recently held a major exercise off the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal – the entry point into the critical Malacca Strait. New Delhi is also looking into expediting the reinforcement of military forces in the Andaman and Nicobar Command.
As the Quad – the US-led military grouping with Australia, India and Japan – begins its trilater…