As Regional Tensions Rise, China Lands Jet on First Carrier

China has landed a fighter jet on its first aircraft carrier, in a symbolic development watched warily by its Asian neighbours fretting about the military ambitions of the world’s most populous country.

A carrier-borne J-15 fighter jet on China’s first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning Photo: AP/XINHUA

The home-built J-15 fighter jet took off from and landed on the Liaoning, a reconditioned Soviet-era vessel from Ukraine which only came into service in September this year.

China ushered in a new generation of leaders this month at the 18th Communist Party Congress in Beijing, with outgoing President Hu Jintao making a pointed reference to strengthening China’s naval forces, protecting maritime interests and the need to “win local war”.

China is embroiled in disputes with the Philippines and Vietnam over South China Sea islands believed to be surrounded by waters rich in natural gas. It has a similar dispute with Japan over islands in the East China Sea.

It has also warned the United States, with President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia, not to get involved.

“We should make active planning for the use of military forces in peacetime, expand and intensify military preparedness, and enhance the capability to accomplish a wide range of military tasks, the most important of which is to win local war in an information age,” Mr Hu said.

China has advertised its long-term military ambitions with shows of new hardware, including its first test flight of a stealth fighter jet in early 2011, an elite helicopter unit and the launch of the aircraft carrier.

China is boosting military spending by 11.2 percent this year, bringing official outlays on the People’s Liberation Army to 670.3 billion yuan ($100 billion) for 2012, after a 12.7 percent increase last year and a near-unbroken string of double-digit rises across two decades.

Beijing’s public budget is widely thought by foreign experts to undercount its real spending on military modernisation, which has drawn repeated calls from the United States for China to share more about its intentions.

China’s state-run Xinhua news portal said the J-15 – which can carry multi-type anti-ship, air-to-air, and air-to-ground missiles – is comparable to the Russian Su-33 jet and the U.S. F-18. It did not say when the landing on the carrier took place.

China lands jet on first aircraft carrier

Reuters

War By Other Means: China’s Political Uses of Seapower

China’s development and use of naval and non-naval, non-military sea power has become a cause for concern – one that could alter the regional balance.

China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Seas is a harbinger of things to come.  Beijing’s seapower project and the enormous resources it has enjoyed have opened up new strategic vistas for Chinese leaders and military commanders.  With larger and more capable seagoing forces at its disposal, Beijing is well positioned to fashion sophisticated strategies that will be more effective and equally difficult to counter.  While such strategies do not—yet—portend the fundamental reordering of maritime Southeast Asia, they will likely yield incremental dividends that advance China’s larger aims at sea.

Comprehensive Chinese Seapower

China’s naval and maritime buildup is providing Beijing with the wherewithal to pursue its ambitions.  The rate and scale of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) modernization process have defied many predictions in the West, reversing sanguine and even condescending conclusions about China’s aptitude at sea.  But, seapower is more than just the navy.  Rather, it is a continuum that gives Beijing a range of options.  Non-naval and non-military platforms and systems account for a significant portion of Chinese seapower.

Long-range, precision-strike weaponry deployed on the mainland can influence events, perhaps decisively, at sea.  The anti-ship ballistic missile—a maneuverable ballistic missile capable of hitting moving targets at sea—is just one member of a large family of missiles in China’s arsenal that could perform maritime-strike missions.  Indeed, the PLA boasts large numbers of shore-based fighters, bombers, and cruise missile units that can launch salvos of anti-ship missiles.

The growth of China’s maritime surveillance and law-enforcement services has been equally impressive.  The civilian arm of Chinese seapower has enabled Beijing to dispatch nonmilitary ships to confront the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea.  Even civilian vessels could form maritime militias to serve China’s nautical aims.  In short, Beijing possesses diverse elements of seapower to defend its prerogatives in the nautical domain.

Political Uses of Military and Non-Military Forces

Beijing’s burgeoning seapower has positioned it to employ strategies that involve the political uses of military and non-military implements of seapower against weaker opponents in the South China Sea.  These strategies deftly combine warfighting capabilities with calibrated shows of force.  They enhance China’s leverage in protracted politico-military struggles by chipping away at the will of the opponent.

In the event of peacetime maritime crises between China and relatively weak Southeast Asian powers, innovative combinations of PLA forces could be used to compel the will of Beijing’s southern neighbors.  Consider the aforementioned anti-ship ballistic missile.  If it performs as advertised, the missile would help compensate for current shortcomings in China’s maritime inventory.  The reach of such shore fire support over the entire South China Sea would ease the burdens on the Chinese fleet while applying constant pressure on challengers to Beijing’s interests in peacetime.

Under the protective umbrella of anti-ship ballistic missiles, even lesser warships would be ideal for intimating weaker parties.  For example, small flotillas of missile-armed fast-attack craft operating in the Spratlys under missile cover could hold most Southeast Asian surface fleets at bay.  Occasional sorties of such units would signal Chinese resolve, compelling opponents to back down or acquiesce to Beijing’s wishes.  This type of gunboat diplomacy with Chinese characteristics is conceivable in future crises.

China’s ability to exercise the non-military elements of its seapower was on full display at Scarborough Shoal this past spring.  The standoff with the Philippines involved coast-guard-like noncombat vessels under the control of China Marine Surveillance (CMS), an agency entrusted with protecting Beijing’s exclusive economic zones.  In an unprecedented demonstration of resolve, CMS vessels entered Japanese territorial waters near the Senkakus following Tokyo’s decision to nationalize the disputed islands in September 2012.

Employing non-navy assets in clashes over territory reveals a sophisticated, methodical strategy for securing China’s maritime claims.  The use of non-military means eschews escalation while ensuring that disputes remain localized.  Specifically, it deprives the United States and other outside powers the rationales to step in on behalf of embattled capitals in the region.

At the same time, noncombat ships empower Beijing to exert low-grade but unremitting pressure on rival claimants to South China Sea islands and waters. Constant patrols can probe weaknesses in coastal states’ maritime-surveillance capacity while testing their political resolve. Keeping disputes at a low simmer, moreover, grants China the diplomatic initiative to turn up or down the heat as strategic circumstances warrant.

And if all else fails, Beijing can still employ its navy and shore-based assets as a backstop to the civilian agencies. That China—unlike its weaker rivals—has the option of climbing the escalation ladder only amplifies the intimidation factor in places like Scarborough Shoal or the Spratly Islands. As noted above, the mere possibility of naval coercion may induce an opponent to back down in a crisis.  Indeed, the larger the naval balance tilts in China’s favor, the more likely it becomes that a long shadow casts over Southeast Asian capitals as they contemplate their options.

Innocuous in themselves, peacetime patrols carry significant weight when backed by real firepower.  The interplay between Chinese military and non-military forces thus augments Beijing’s strategic leverage.

A Strategy of Exhaustion at Sea?

Sporadic acts of coercion and intimidation may not produce outcomes as visible or decisive as a battlefield victory.  A series of showdowns may pass without an end in sight or any tangible gain for China.  But, the cumulative effects of a continuing stalemate could induce strategic fatigue that in turn advances China’s aims.  Short of a shooting war, Chinese provocations are too slight for the United States to intervene militarily.  Staying below the escalation threshold adds maneuver room to test U.S. steadfastness while solidifying its own claims.

As China pushes and probes, regional expectations that Washington should do something would inevitably mount even as weaker nations look for signs of wavering U.S. resolve.  The prospects of recurring confrontations with little hope of direct U.S. intervention could weigh heavily on Southeast Asian capitals.  Applied with patience and discipline, such a strategy of exhaustion could gradually erode regional confidence and undermine the political will to resist.

But this attritional approach is only a snapshot of Chinese seapower today.  It is possible that Beijing’s application of graduated pressure is merely a stopgap measure, buying China time to build up the capacity to dictate events at sea.  Recent trends suggest that both the military and non-military services will continue to bulk up on a steady diet of new hardware and manpower.

Twenty years of virtually uninterrupted double-digit hikes in the defense budget have afforded China the resources to develop options beyond those dedicated to a Taiwan contingency, an all-consuming preoccupation until recently.  Analysts have detected military buildups in staging areas assigned to the Southeast Asian theater of operations.  Beijing also appears to be pushing naval construction along multiple axes simultaneously, laying down hulls for warships of every type.

Similarly, the maritime-enforcement services are recruiting new manpower while taking delivery of decommissioned naval vessels. Furthermore, Chinese shipyards are turning out state-of-the-art cutters like sausages. Many are capable of sustained patrols in the farthest reaches of the China seas, assuring that Beijing can maintain a visible presence in waters where it asserts sovereign jurisdiction. Indeed, Haijian 84, one of China’s most modern law-enforcement vessels, occupied the epicenter of the Scarborough Shoal imbroglio.

To be sure, China still lacks adequate military means to make the South China Sea a Chinese lake. Sea control that more or less permanently excludes rival navies from these waters remains beyond its reach, if indeed that is the goal.

Nevertheless, even a modest increase in Chinese seapower could perceptibly tip the regional balance of power in Beijing’s favor in peacetime contingencies not involving the U.S. Navy.  Some local players, notably Vietnam, have embarked on naval modernization programs, but they are unlikely to keep pace with China.  Over time, left unopposed by powerful outsiders such as the United States, Japan, or Australia, even small-scale shows of Chinese maritime power over Southeast Asian fleets might start to win grudging acquiescence to Beijing’s foreign policy preferences.  Such consent, however reluctant, would deliver a severe blow to the foundations of regional order.

Implications for the U.S. “Rebalancing” to Asia

The foregoing analysis underscores the predicament of many Southeast Asian states if they faced China on their own.  Not surprisingly, many regional capitals look to the United States as a bulwark against Chinese advances.  They recognize that American primacy in maritime Asia will be the crucial arbiter of Chinese ambitions.  Washington, for its part, has delivered very public pronouncements about its own stake in Asian waters.  The Obama administration’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia sought to reassure audiences in the region that the United States will not abdicate the stabilizing role it has long played.

Fortunately, there is still time to maximize this convergence of interests and organize an effective response.  China is at least a decade away from amassing the type of preponderant seapower that can keep the United States out of the South China Sea while running roughshod over Southeast Asian states.  In the meantime, Washington can adopt measures to ensure that regional submission to China’s wishes is not a foregone conclusion.

First, Washington and its allies should actively help Southeast Asian states help themselves. Local actors must possess some indigenous capability to cope with Chinese encroachments at sea.  The U.S. transfer of 1960s’ vintage coast guard cutters to the Philippines is a modest step in the right direction.  The timing of the deliveries turned out to be fortuitous: the first Philippine vessel to respond off Scarborough Shoal was flagship BRP Gregorio del Pilar, the former USCGCHamilton. But, hand-me-downs are not enough to meet Manila’s needs.  More modern and capable platforms are necessary to match China’s vessels.  Japan’s recent offer of twelve brand new patrol boats to the Philippines is another encouraging sign that outside powers are seeking to right the regional balance of power.

Second, the United States should encourage the development of a region-wide effort to keep track of China’s maritime forces.  Unmanned aerial systems, for instance, could furnish a common picture of the nautical domain on a more-or-less permanent basis to coastal states surrounding the South China Sea.  By tapping into such technologies, an information sharing arrangement that make Asian waters both figuratively and literally more transparent would go a long way to shore up regional confidence and deterrence.  It is worth noting that Tokyo has been doing a signal service on behalf of the region by publicly reporting detailed accounts of Chinese naval transits through international straits and other activities near Japanese waters.

Third, the United States should draw up plans that would enable the U.S. military to rapidly deploy units armed with maritime-strike capability, such as anti-ship cruise missile batteries, on friendly or allied soil.  Possessing the option to surge defensive forces onto allied territory at short notice would reassure U.S. allies in peacetime while substantially bolstering the U.S. capacity to act effectively in times of crisis. American reinforcements would steady nerves while stiffening the resolve of local defenders.  The United States should also encourage allies and friends to develop or strengthen their own maritime-strike options.

Finally, the U.S. Navy should revisit prevailing assumptions about its ability to command the global commons.  Years of post-Cold War permissiveness induced an airy confidence that made it seductively easy to take sea control for granted.  Arguably, the last time that the U.S. Navy fought a serious foe was at Leyte Gulf in 1944.  As China marches to the seas, a far more lethal nautical environment lies in store.  For a service long accustomed to uncontested waters, coming to terms with risk to the fleet will be an ever urgent priority.

Networking the Region

These steps would help construct a layered and inter-connected defense posture that begins with the local actors themselves.  As frontline states, they must be empowered to perform as first responders to Chinese moves at sea.  Information sharing among the coastal states would underscore the shared stakes in the maritime commons while promoting collective action.  A network of players alert to Beijing’s maneuvers stands a far better chance of deterring, and, failing that, reacting more quickly to Chinese actions.  The United States, for its part, would provide a strategic backstop to Southeast Asian partners with low-profile, small-footprint military assets that pack a punch and serve as potent symbols of American commitment to the region.

Raising the costs of—and risks to—Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea would complicate Beijing’s calculus while inclining Chinese leaders to think twice before they act.  Inducing Chinese caution, moreover, would apply a brake to Beijing’s momentum at sea, brightening the prospects for restoring equilibrium to the region and for retaking the strategic initiative.

Toshi Yoshihara

China Aircraft Carrier Passes Landmark

BEIJING—China has passed a landmark in the development of its first fully functional aircraft carrier with the first successful landing of a jet fighter on the newly launched vessel while it was at sea, according to state media and the Defense Ministry.

State-run China Central Television showed a domestically produced J-15 “Flying Shark” fighter jet touching down on the deck, catching hold of a cable with a hook on its rear, and slowing to a standstill shortly before the other end of the runway.

CCTV also showed one of the twin-engine fighters taking off from the carrier—which is called the Liaoning—and the Defense Ministry’s website showed photographs of the aircraft landing on the vessel and taking off from it.

It was the first official confirmation that China has mastered the complex technology and technical skills needed to operate fighters from a carrier at sea—a capability it has been seeking for decades as part of its quest to become a global military power.

The Liaoning, which officially entered service in September, is a potent symbol of China’s long-term strategic ambition to project air power far from its shores and challenge U.S. military dominance of the Asia Pacific region.

China has said the vessel will be used only for training, but many military experts say that it could be deployed in a crisis near Chinese shores, such as a clash over disputed islands in the East China Sea or the South China Sea.

Military experts say it will take several more years of training before the vessel, based on a hull bought from Ukraine, is combat ready. China also has to develop all the support vessel and associated technologies before it can use a carrier group the way the U.S. does, to extend its military influence abroad.

Still, many of those experts had expected it to take longer for China to train its pilots to land on the carrier.

Last month, a state-run Chinese newspaper published photographs that appeared to show a J-15 fighter flying just above the deck of the carrier, suggesting that it was performing a “touch and go” maneuver in preparation for an attempted landing.

The state-run Xinhua news agency said the successful landing had been completed during a recent exercise, but didn’t specify precisely where or when.

“Capabilities of the carrier platform and the J-15 have been tested, meeting all requirements and achieving good compatibility,” Xinhua said.

Xinhua didn’t say how many fighters had landed, but a separate article on the Defense Ministry website said that four more pilots had successfully landed and taken off from the vessel.

Xinhua also said the successful landing marked the debut of the J-15 as “China’s first generation multipurpose carrier-borne fighter jet.”

Military aviation experts say the J-15 is closely modeled on Russia’s carrier-borne Su-33 fighter, and is still equipped with engines imported from Russia as Chinese engines, while improving, don’t have sufficient thrust or durability.

Xinhua said the J-15 was “designed by and made in” China, and was able to carry “multi-type antiship, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles, as well as precision-guided bombs.”

The J-15 had capabilities comparable to those of the Su-33 and the U.S. F-18, Xinhua said. The F-18, also known as the “Super Hornet,” is used on U.S. carriers.

An article posted on the Defense Ministry website quoted Sr. Col. Zhang Junshe, deputy director of the Naval Military Studies Research Institute, saying the J-15 had a range of about 3,000 kilometers without refueling.

Col. Zhang was also quoted as saying that China’s carrier-borne aircraft would be fully combat ready within about two years, and its first carrier group would be fully operational in four to five years.

In its annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments, the Pentagon said China might have already begun construction of components for its first fully indigenous aircraft carrier, although that vessel wasn’t likely to be completed until after 2015.

China’s military ambitions are now aided by the landing of its first fighter jet on an aircraft carrier. The WSJ’s Jeremy Page discusses what this means for the country’s defense strategy.

WSJ

Cooler Heads in the South China Sea

The United States is realizing that the escalating tensions in the Far East, especially between China and Japan, should no longer be viewed as an opportunity to contain China. Instead, our first priority should be to get everyone to calm down.

At issue are the territorial rights over some forty piles of rock, most uninhabited, some barely sticking out of the water. These conflicts already have led to large nationalist anti-Japanese demonstrations in China and similar anti-Chinese demonstrations in Japan; saber-rattling activists planting their nation’s flag on some of the islands; and clashes between vessels of several regional nations—all fueled by increasingly hot rhetoric by public leaders. These smaller clashes look increasingly like the type of incidents that can spin out of control and lead to more serious conflagrations.

The United States, which keeps veering between seeking to engage China and moves to “contain” it, had at first—at least indirectly—urged the nations of the area to band together and push back against Chinese claims to many of the islands at issue. However, most recently Secretary Panetta called on China and Japan “to move forward and not have this dispute get out of hand” and emphasized that all parties share a responsibility to resolve the conflicts peacefully. And—the ever industrious U.S. think tanks have taken off their shelves a whole host of proposals that could defuse the crisis.

Disputes over maritime territorial rights fall under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and should be settled in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). (The fact that the United States did not ratify the treaty involved seems immaterial because Washington typically operates as if it were committed to UNCLOS.) But such settlements take years.

In the short term, the think tankers are calling on China and Japan to establish a hotline so that their leaders will be better able to nip in the bud any unintended confrontations. Moreover, both nations are urged to declare unequivocally that “military force is not an option.” A more ambitious plan calls for a return to a derailed 2010 agreement for the joint development of gas fields in the South China Sea. The Economist suggests that the nations involved should do the environment a favor and turn the islands and surrounding seas into marine protected areas to combat overfishing, a problem that seriously threatens the economies and ecology of the region.

Douglas H. Paal of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out that to combat overfishing, China, Vietnam and Taiwan have already “initiated fishing seasons, periodic bans, and limits on sizes of catches to support sustainable harvesting, but these are not harmonized and often conflict.” Hence Paal calls “greater control of the fishing fleets, with effective sanctions on misbehavior under rules agreed upon in common, [an] achievable and responsible goal.”

One must acknowledge that islands are not fought over simply as real estate but because they serve as markers for determining maritime rights. According to a widely followed reading of international law, a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extends two hundred miles off its shores. Thus, if nations can populate and prove ownership over tiny islands in their near seas, they can expand their EEZ and gain access to the surrounding natural resources—not only fish but also coveted fuels and minerals that lie beneath the seabed. Hence, for nations such as China and Japan, whose economies are highly dependent on the secure access to and development of such resources, these islands are much more than “piles of rocks.”

In Sharing the Resources of the South China Sea, Mark Valencia, Jon Van Dyke and Noel Ludwig suggest establishing “regional sovereignty” over the islands in the South China Sea among the six claimants, allowing them to collectively manage the islands, territorial seas and airspace. Of course, this would require an agreement among the parties as how to share the spoils.

Another option, put forward by Peter Dutton of the Naval War College, would emulate the resolution of the dispute over Svalbard, an island located between Norway and Greenland. The Treaty of Spitsbergen, signed in 1920, awarded primary sovereignty over Svarlbard to Norway but assigned resource-related rights to all signatories. Applying this model to the South and East China Seas likely would entail giving sovereignty to China while permitting other countries to benefit from the resources. Though, at least in the near term, such a solution is unlikely to be accepted by the other claimants.

Still others have suggested declaring a moratorium on any exploration until the tensions are defused and conflicts are worked out. And a troika of foreign ministers in the region, including nations not directly involved such as Indonesia and Australia, has been urged to help work out an evenhanded solution.

Those who hold that all these suggestions are naive should note that such settlements do take place. One case will have to stand for several others. In 2009, five years after the decades-old dispute was brought to court, the ICJ settled a dispute between Ukraine and Romania over the Black Sea, whose seabed holds an estimated ten million tons of oil. One key issue was whether the Serpent Island would be considered a cliff or an island. The Romanians claimed it was “a cliff” (hence irrelevant to territorial demarcation) while Ukraine held it was “an island” and thus that Ukraine’s maritime boundaries extended beyond Serpent Island’s shores. The ICJ ruled it a cliff and delivered a judgment that granted Romania about 80 percent of the disputed area (though the oil was more concentrated on the Ukrainian side). Both sides accepted the decision.

If cooler heads prevail and Washington continues to throw its weight in support of tensions reduction and conflict resolution by negotiation, some of these proposals or others like them may carry the day. All sides surely realize—given the fragile state of the global economy, the political transition in China, the rise of nationalism that threatens to spin out of control—that this is a particularly poor time to escalate tensions.

Resource allocation is a contentious issue, but raw materials have a virtue: they can be divided. Disputes over such assets do not have to be settled in a winner-takes-all fashion, allowing all the nations involved to gain some of the spoils and save face. In contrast, if the clashes spin out of control, the disputants and the bystanders will all be losers.

Amitai Etzioni 

China Mends Fences in Sea Dispute

It appears to be showing flexibility in efforts to devise a code of conduct for South China Sea claimants.

RFA

China’s territorial claim to the South China Sea includes two disputed island chains.

As Beijing flexes its muscles over its territorial dispute with Japan in the East China Sea, it is mending fences with Southeast Asian nations after a spate of tensions in the contested South China Sea.

Following much prodding and diplomacy, China appears to be showing some flexibility in its approach towards drawing up a code of conduct with the Southeast Asian nations aimed at avoiding clashes over competing territorial claims in the vast sea, diplomats in the region told RFA.

Although they are skeptical of any early breakthrough for a legally binding document between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to guide behavior in the sea, there is optimism that negotiations will occur on a sustained basis.

“We see some flexibility to discuss the COC with ASEAN,” one Southeast Asian diplomat said, referring to the elusive Code of Conduct or COC which ASEAN—comprising Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam—has been striving to devise with Beijing for a decade.

In an initial display of seriousness that it is prepared to come to the table, China sent its senior officials to Cambodia last week to informally discuss with their counterparts from ASEAN the prospects for drawing up a code, officials said.

This is the first meeting between the two sides specifically on the maritime dispute since ASEAN plunged into a crisis two months ago when foreign ministers of the 10-member bloc failed to issue their customary joint statement at the conclusion of their annual meeting hosted by Cambodia, China’s top ally in Southeast Asia.

Some ASEAN diplomats had charged that Cambodia had been influenced by China not to incorporate in the statement the views of ASEAN member states the Philippines and Vietnam, which had tiffs earlier this year with Beijing over islands and reefs in the South China Sea, causing an impasse at the meeting.

The ASEAN-China Senior Officials’ Informal Consultations on the Code of Conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, as last week’s meeting in Phnom Penh was officially called, was among a series of discussions in preparation for the ASEAN summit and the East Asia Summit in November.

“Compared to two months ago, when there was complete reluctance to come to the table, China appears willing to sit down and talk,” said one Southeast Asian official, who was briefed on the talks but spoke on condition of anonymity.

“Indirectly, they may be feeling the heat from the mounting criticism over what happened at the meeting in July which was a big blow to ASEAN,” the official said.

“But China has also asked the ASEAN states to do their part by reducing tensions and not conducting border incursions and creating a conducive environment for any future talks. They don’t want us to bring in third parties [the United States] over the conflict and want us to stick to the 2002 declaration,” the diplomat said.

Under a 2002 agreement for managing their overlapping territorial claims, ASEAN and China adopted a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, called DOC as a first step towards a binding code of conduct.

But in a reflection of the sensitivity over the issue, it was only last year—after 10 years—that they agreed on a set of guidelines to implement the declaration that was aimed at laying the groundwork for discussions on the regional code of conduct.

Ray of hope

The new ray of hope for achieving a COC comes after extensive diplomacy, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Southeast Asia and China, with a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Chinese leaders told Clinton—who has often emphasized that freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is a U.S. “national interest”—that they want to pursue the COC, U.S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke told a forum in Washington last week, saying the talks between the two sides were “very good.”

“I’ve also heard from many prominent Chinese academics that China would like somehow to return to the status quo, that they would like to lower the temperature,” Locke said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Yechi had also visited Indonesia as well as Malaysia and Brunei, giving reassurances that diplomacy was still on track.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, embarrassed by the failure by his country as 2012 ASEAN chairman to forge an agreement on the foreign ministers’ joint statement, also made a trip to China this month, meeting Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

Hun Sen won assurances from Wen that Beijing will “closely work” to make the upcoming East Asia Summit which Cambodia will host a success,” Chinese media reported.

Southeast Asian diplomats said a key objective is to get an initial ASEAN-China accord on the COC before the November East Asia Summit, to be attended by leaders of ASEAN as well as China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the United States.

Key elements of the COC have been agreed upon by ASEAN member states whose foreign ministers will meet to consider a full draft document on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this coming week, the diplomats said.

“We are now in the process of spelling out the draft [of the code] and we hope to be able to share it with my ASEAN foreign minister colleagues when I meet them in New York,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said, according to the Jakarta Globe newspaper.

“The development of the South China Sea [issues] reminds us how we desperately need the code of conduct, [so] I’m trying to use the momentum,” Marty said, as Indonesia asserts a leadership role in ASEAN to deal with the South China Sea issue, Asia’s biggest potential military flashpoint.

Cambodia or Thailand, which is the ASEAN coordinator for China issues, could host another round of informal talks between senior officials from ASEAN and China on the COC before the East Asia Summit.

“Both sides might also issue a joint statement to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the DOC at Summit,” an official involved in the planning of the summit told RFA, referring to the declaration adopted in 2002 in Cambodia to set the stage for the regional code of conduct.

Beijing has maintained all this while that it wants to resolve the South China Sea territorial conflicts on a bilateral basis with ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, which have competing claims with China.

China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the resource-rich South China Sea, which is also home to important shipping lanes. It is also locked in a territorial tussle with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

Bloc

Southeast Asian officials say ASEAN would negotiate the COC with China as a bloc but not in the specific delineation or settlement of the claims between the claimant states.

ASEAN’s role “is not to deal with the claims themselves but in the broader setting up of the framework which would allow for a peaceful resolution of these claims,” Singapore Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam said, according to the island state’s media.

Beijing has stressed that ASEAN should have no role in negotiating on behalf of the four members who were claimant states.

“For China, the COC is only a tool to promote mutual trust over the South China Sea and not to resolve disputes. They stressed this again at the Phnom Penh meeting last week,” a Southeast Asian diplomat said.

Still, as the COC is being drafted, China has to grapple with various basic questions—which it has brushed off previously—over its claim to the South China Sea.

While officials have to first pin down the South China Sea area to be governed by the code, there is much uncertainty over the territory China claims—represented by the nine-dashed, U-shaped line encircling most of the sea on Chinese official maps.

The location of those dashes has never been pinpointed as China has not supplied the coordinates for them. The nature of the Chinese claim has also not been clearly defined.

In addition, there is the question of the Paracel islands’ inclusion in the code’s area of application. Vietnam still maintains its claim to the islands although China seized them from its fellow communist neighbor in 1974.

Uncertainty

Former ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino said the uncertainty over where a “binding code of conduct” would apply was one of the factors cited for downgrading the 2002 ASEAN-China agreement from a legal code to a political declaration.

“Is the uncertainty of its area of application still a factor in and an obstacle to its adoption,” he asked.

“If these [outstanding] issues were fudged in the proposed document, as seems most likely to be the case at this time, how would the problem be overcome? What would the formulation be?”

Severino said one fundamental reason why the problems arising from the conflicting claims in the South China Sea are so difficult and intractable is not only the size and strategic location of that body of water but also that all the claimants feel that their footholds in the sea are essential to what they consider as their national interests.

“Therefore, the disputes in the South China Sea cannot be resolved any time soon, if at all. The most that can be done is to prevent those disputes from developing into armed conflict. This could be the overarching aim of any code of conduct that ASEAN and China might produce.”

Parameswaran Ponnudurai

War By Other Means: China’s Political Uses of Seapower

China’s development and use of naval and non-naval, non-military sea power has become a cause for concern – one that could alter the regional balance.

China’s recent assertiveness in the South China Seas is a harbinger of things to come.  Beijing’s seapower project and the enormous resources it has enjoyed have opened up new strategic vistas for Chinese leaders and military commanders.  With larger and more capable seagoing forces at its disposal, Beijing is well positioned to fashion sophisticated strategies that will be more effective and equally difficult to counter.  While such strategies do not—yet—portend the fundamental reordering of maritime Southeast Asia, they will likely yield incremental dividends that advance China’s larger aims at sea.

Comprehensive Chinese Seapower

China’s naval and maritime buildup is providing Beijing with the wherewithal to pursue its ambitions.  The rate and scale of the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) modernization process have defied many predictions in the West, reversing sanguine and even condescending conclusions about China’s aptitude at sea.  But, seapower is more than just the navy.  Rather, it is a continuum that gives Beijing a range of options.  Non-naval and non-military platforms and systems account for a significant portion of Chinese seapower.

Long-range, precision-strike weaponry deployed on the mainland can influence events, perhaps decisively, at sea.  The anti-ship ballistic missile—a maneuverable ballistic missile capable of hitting moving targets at sea—is just one member of a large family of missiles in China’s arsenal that could perform maritime-strike missions.  Indeed, the PLA boasts large numbers of shore-based fighters, bombers, and cruise missile units that can launch salvos of anti-ship missiles.

The growth of China’s maritime surveillance and law-enforcement services has been equally impressive.  The civilian arm of Chinese seapower has enabled Beijing to dispatch nonmilitary ships to confront the Philippines in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea.  Even civilian vessels could form maritime militias to serve China’s nautical aims.  In short, Beijing possesses diverse elements of seapower to defend its prerogatives in the nautical domain.

Political Uses of Military and Non-Military Forces

Beijing’s burgeoning seapower has positioned it to employ strategies that involve the political uses of military and non-military implements of seapower against weaker opponents in the South China Sea.  These strategies deftly combine warfighting capabilities with calibrated shows of force.  They enhance China’s leverage in protracted politico-military struggles by chipping away at the will of the opponent.

In the event of peacetime maritime crises between China and relatively weak Southeast Asian powers, innovative combinations of PLA forces could be used to compel the will of Beijing’s southern neighbors.  Consider the aforementioned anti-ship ballistic missile.  If it performs as advertised, the missile would help compensate for current shortcomings in China’s maritime inventory.  The reach of such shore fire support over the entire South China Sea would ease the burdens on the Chinese fleet while applying constant pressure on challengers to Beijing’s interests in peacetime.

Under the protective umbrella of anti-ship ballistic missiles, even lesser warships would be ideal for intimating weaker parties.  For example, small flotillas of missile-armed fast-attack craft operating in the Spratlys under missile cover could hold most Southeast Asian surface fleets at bay.  Occasional sorties of such units would signal Chinese resolve, compelling opponents to back down or acquiesce to Beijing’s wishes.  This type of gunboat diplomacy with Chinese characteristics is conceivable in future crises.

China’s ability to exercise the non-military elements of its seapower was on full display at Scarborough Shoal this past spring.  The standoff with the Philippines involved coast-guard-like noncombat vessels under the control of China Marine Surveillance (CMS), an agency entrusted with protecting Beijing’s exclusive economic zones.  In an unprecedented demonstration of resolve, CMS vessels entered Japanese territorial waters near the Senkakus following Tokyo’s decision to nationalize the disputed islands in September 2012.

Employing non-navy assets in clashes over territory reveals a sophisticated, methodical strategy for securing China’s maritime claims.  The use of non-military means eschews escalation while ensuring that disputes remain localized.  Specifically, it deprives the United States and other outside powers the rationales to step in on behalf of embattled capitals in the region.

At the same time, noncombat ships empower Beijing to exert low-grade but unremitting pressure on rival claimants to South China Sea islands and waters. Constant patrols can probe weaknesses in coastal states’ maritime-surveillance capacity while testing their political resolve. Keeping disputes at a low simmer, moreover, grants China the diplomatic initiative to turn up or down the heat as strategic circumstances warrant.

And if all else fails, Beijing can still employ its navy and shore-based assets as a backstop to the civilian agencies. That China—unlike its weaker rivals—has the option of climbing the escalation ladder only amplifies the intimidation factor in places like Scarborough Shoal or the Spratly Islands. As noted above, the mere possibility of naval coercion may induce an opponent to back down in a crisis.  Indeed, the larger the naval balance tilts in China’s favor, the more likely it becomes that a long shadow casts over Southeast Asian capitals as they contemplate their options.

Innocuous in themselves, peacetime patrols carry significant weight when backed by real firepower.  The interplay between Chinese military and non-military forces thus augments Beijing’s strategic leverage.

A Strategy of Exhaustion at Sea?

Sporadic acts of coercion and intimidation may not produce outcomes as visible or decisive as a battlefield victory.  A series of showdowns may pass without an end in sight or any tangible gain for China.  But, the cumulative effects of a continuing stalemate could induce strategic fatigue that in turn advances China’s aims.  Short of a shooting war, Chinese provocations are too slight for the United States to intervene militarily.  Staying below the escalation threshold adds maneuver room to test U.S. steadfastness while solidifying its own claims.

As China pushes and probes, regional expectations that Washington should do something would inevitably mount even as weaker nations look for signs of wavering U.S. resolve.  The prospects of recurring confrontations with little hope of direct U.S. intervention could weigh heavily on Southeast Asian capitals.  Applied with patience and discipline, such a strategy of exhaustion could gradually erode regional confidence and undermine the political will to resist.

But this attritional approach is only a snapshot of Chinese seapower today.  It is possible that Beijing’s application of graduated pressure is merely a stopgap measure, buying China time to build up the capacity to dictate events at sea.  Recent trends suggest that both the military and non-military services will continue to bulk up on a steady diet of new hardware and manpower.

Twenty years of virtually uninterrupted double-digit hikes in the defense budget have afforded China the resources to develop options beyond those dedicated to a Taiwan contingency, an all-consuming preoccupation until recently.  Analysts have detected military buildups in staging areas assigned to the Southeast Asian theater of operations.  Beijing also appears to be pushing naval construction along multiple axes simultaneously, laying down hulls for warships of every type.

Similarly, the maritime-enforcement services are recruiting new manpower while taking delivery of decommissioned naval vessels. Furthermore, Chinese shipyards are turning out state-of-the-art cutters like sausages. Many are capable of sustained patrols in the farthest reaches of the China seas, assuring that Beijing can maintain a visible presence in waters where it asserts sovereign jurisdiction. Indeed, Haijian 84, one of China’s most modern law-enforcement vessels, occupied the epicenter of the Scarborough Shoal imbroglio.

To be sure, China still lacks adequate military means to make the South China Sea a Chinese lake. Sea control that more or less permanently excludes rival navies from these waters remains beyond its reach, if indeed that is the goal.

Nevertheless, even a modest increase in Chinese seapower could perceptibly tip the regional balance of power in Beijing’s favor in peacetime contingencies not involving the U.S. Navy.  Some local players, notably Vietnam, have embarked on naval modernization programs, but they are unlikely to keep pace with China.  Over time, left unopposed by powerful outsiders such as the United States, Japan, or Australia, even small-scale shows of Chinese maritime power over Southeast Asian fleets might start to win grudging acquiescence to Beijing’s foreign policy preferences.  Such consent, however reluctant, would deliver a severe blow to the foundations of regional order.

Implications for the U.S. “Rebalancing” to Asia

The foregoing analysis underscores the predicament of many Southeast Asian states if they faced China on their own.  Not surprisingly, many regional capitals look to the United States as a bulwark against Chinese advances.  They recognize that American primacy in maritime Asia will be the crucial arbiter of Chinese ambitions.  Washington, for its part, has delivered very public pronouncements about its own stake in Asian waters.  The Obama administration’s “pivot” or “rebalancing” to Asia sought to reassure audiences in the region that the United States will not abdicate the stabilizing role it has long played.

Fortunately, there is still time to maximize this convergence of interests and organize an effective response.  China is at least a decade away from amassing the type of preponderant seapower that can keep the United States out of the South China Sea while running roughshod over Southeast Asian states.  In the meantime, Washington can adopt measures to ensure that regional submission to China’s wishes is not a foregone conclusion.

First, Washington and its allies should actively help Southeast Asian states help themselves. Local actors must possess some indigenous capability to cope with Chinese encroachments at sea.  The U.S. transfer of 1960s’ vintage coast guard cutters to the Philippines is a modest step in the right direction.  The timing of the deliveries turned out to be fortuitous: the first Philippine vessel to respond off Scarborough Shoal was flagship BRP Gregorio del Pilar, the former USCGC Hamilton. But, hand-me-downs are not enough to meet Manila’s needs.  More modern and capable platforms are necessary to match China’s vessels.  Japan’s recent offer of twelve brand new patrol boats to the Philippines is another encouraging sign that outside powers are seeking to right the regional balance of power.

Second, the United States should encourage the development of a region-wide effort to keep track of China’s maritime forces.  Unmanned aerial systems, for instance, could furnish a common picture of the nautical domain on a more-or-less permanent basis to coastal states surrounding the South China Sea.  By tapping into such technologies, an information sharing arrangement that make Asian waters both figuratively and literally more transparent would go a long way to shore up regional confidence and deterrence.  It is worth noting that Tokyo has been doing a signal service on behalf of the region by publicly reporting detailed accounts of Chinese naval transits through international straits and other activities near Japanese waters.

Third, the United States should draw up plans that would enable the U.S. military to rapidly deploy units armed with maritime-strike capability, such as anti-ship cruise missile batteries, on friendly or allied soil.  Possessing the option to surge defensive forces onto allied territory at short notice would reassure U.S. allies in peacetime while substantially bolstering the U.S. capacity to act effectively in times of crisis. American reinforcements would steady nerves while stiffening the resolve of local defenders.  The United States should also encourage allies and friends to develop or strengthen their own maritime-strike options.

Finally, the U.S. Navy should revisit prevailing assumptions about its ability to command the global commons.  Years of post-Cold War permissiveness induced an airy confidence that made it seductively easy to take sea control for granted.  Arguably, the last time that the U.S. Navy fought a serious foe was at Leyte Gulf in 1944.  As China marches to the seas, a far more lethal nautical environment lies in store.  For a service long accustomed to uncontested waters, coming to terms with risk to the fleet will be an ever urgent priority.

Networking the Region

These steps would help construct a layered and inter-connected defense posture that begins with the local actors themselves.  As frontline states, they must be empowered to perform as first responders to Chinese moves at sea.  Information sharing among the coastal states would underscore the shared stakes in the maritime commons while promoting collective action.  A network of players alert to Beijing’s maneuvers stands a far better chance of deterring, and, failing that, reacting more quickly to Chinese actions.  The United States, for its part, would provide a strategic backstop to Southeast Asian partners with low-profile, small-footprint military assets that pack a punch and serve as potent symbols of American commitment to the region.

Raising the costs of—and risks to—Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea would complicate Beijing’s calculus while inclining Chinese leaders to think twice before they act.  Inducing Chinese caution, moreover, would apply a brake to Beijing’s momentum at sea, brightening the prospects for restoring equilibrium to the region and for retaking the strategic initiative.

Toshi Yoshihara 

False targets and the rise of fascism

BEIJING - The very first sign of fascism in Europe was the capture of Fiume in 1919 by a bunch of Italian World War I veterans led by poet-warrior Gabriele D'Annunzio. Italy had won the war but lost the peace, as many right-wing propagandists were fond of saying, and the symbol of the loss was embodied in Fiume, a city of mixed nationalities that had well represented the multi-ethnicity of the Habsburg Empire.

But after the war redrew European borders, by respecting national lines rather than loyalties to a crown, Fiume was caught in the middle. Half-Slav, half-Italian, with a sprinkling of German blood, Fiume was pulled between the newborn union of southern Slavs (Yugoslavia) and infant Italy. Despite its young age (it had proclaimed unification just 58 years earlier, in 1861, and had wrested Rome, its capital, from the pope 49 years before, in 1870), the latter came swaggering on to the international scene like a grand power.

The reasons Fiume was given to Yugoslavia and not Italy were indeed debatable. There was the possibility that the victorious allies, London and Paris, wanted to contain the power and swagger of then-boastful Italy, which had managed to win the 1918 Piave Offensive almost on its own. Yet for D'Annunzio to lead a band of ragtag veterans to invade Fiume and thus destroy on the ground the agreement the powers had just reached in Paris was an entirely different matter.

D'Annunzio and the Italians, who then supported his action, vanquished not only the weak Yugoslavs, but also any prospect of a lasting peace in Europe. They opened the doors to fascism and World War II. (Fiume is now the Croatian city of Rijeka.)

Borders are in fact always disputable and never certain. One can contest them with discussions and arguments or by using force and threats. The first method is more manageable; the latter breaks the existing order with consequences that are hard to predict, especially in a volatile international context.

In Europe, even a defeated country used that method of contesting the terms of peace, when again a group of veterans led by an artist - a failed painter sporting a small mustache, Adolf Hitler - accused generals of having betrayed the German people and argued that Germany had indeed won World War I but was stabbed in the back by the Jews and communist defeatists. Then Hitler disputed Germany's borders and tried to expand the country at the cost of its neighbors.

As was made clear by the results of World War II, the generals who in World War I surrendered without waiting for Allied forces to pillage Berlin had done their best to save the country, but Hitler did the worst for Germany.

Is there a lesson for China in this? In recent days, thousands of Chinese have taken to the streets to protest against Japanese "occupation" of "Chinese" islands called Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan. This is legitimate. What is illegitimate and very dangerous for China, as Hitler proved in Germany, is shouting slogans that call for dropping nuclear bombs on Japan or singing songs advocating that Tokyo be stamped down. There have been violent anti-Japanese protests in the past, but the violence of these present slogans is unprecedented.

Moreover, the past demonstrations were against alleged sleights for Japanese actions that had already been done and had to be amended. Now, protests are over an open wound that can't be fixed overnight; maybe it can't be fixed at all. It is hard to think that Japan tomorrow will decide to give the Senkakus to China, and even if this were to happen, it would send a frightening message to the world. Japan would be seen to have buckled under China's arrogance and threats, almost like France and Britain tried to appease Hitler's Germany and gave in to his requests over Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia in 1937. This gesture is now widely regarded in Europe as having accelerated the onset of World War II.

Japan may well be wrong in claiming to own the contested islands, but waging war against it to redress this alleged wrong suggests fascism. Moreover, similarly to what happened in Italy, this new breed of Chinese "fascists" use Japan as a false target. Their real goal is to put on the spot the present Chinese leadership, considered too weak with foreigners and thus undeserving to rule.

China has a long tradition of using foreigners to protest against its leaders. In 1919, after World War I, young Chinese students protested the peace terms accepted by republican China and started a movement that eventually led to breaking up the country and the arrival to power of the Communists. The Communists in the 1930s accused the Nationalists (Kuomintang) of betraying the country because they were not fighting the Japanese. Today, again some youngsters shout anti-Japanese slogans, burn Japanese cars, and don old-fashioned Mao jackets, a statement, like the black shirts in Italy or brown shirts in Germany, against the present post-Maoist Chinese leadership.

Chinese nationalism then helps to breed Japanese nationalism, never quite off the mainstream of Tokyo politics, and the two rightist movements de facto support each other, like images reflected in parallel mirrors in their respective countries. The louder the Chinese nationalists become, the stronger also Japanese nationalists can be. This also does not mean that the Japanese position on the islands is right and the Chinese is wrong or vice versa. There are also Japanese mistakes in handling the issues. Yet this is beyond the point.

It's hard to overstate the danger this movement poses for China and the world. Many considered China a threat simply for its peaceful economic and political development, without hearing Chinese people shouting any war cries. Now these slogans hint to countries steeped in the European historical tradition that a fascist and aggressive China is indeed a possibility. Then, in a nutshell, either Beijing takes care of its fascists or the world will take care of China, much to its chagrin.

Stamping down the roots of this new Chinese fascism may not be easy. Certainly, it might not be too difficult to forbid violent slogans or songs and arrest warmongers, but it is a different thing to root out the suffering of the people who are venting their many frustrations for what is ultimately the fast pace of change. This will naturally take decades.

In the meantime, people have to be allowed to vent their anger in a manner that is both peaceful and does not compromise the government, and the government needs any legitimacy it can muster to crack down on excesses. Governments mandated by a popular election have greater legitimacy in putting down protests they deem excessive: I can take this down because the majority is with me; you are a minority, you are free to express your opinions but can't act to endanger the majority.

Governments without the legitimization of a popular election have a harder time doing that because protesters can claim they represent the majority, and thus its best interests. How can a non-elected government disprove that?

Therefore, China needs political reforms to make it better able to crack down on the dangerous sprouting of fascism. Of course, these reforms have to be carefully crafted and should not become the very springboard for full-fledged fascism. Both in Italy and Germany, fascists came to power through democratic elections.

Navigating this narrow and subtle road is perhaps the biggest challenge for the next Communist Party congress this autumn.

Francesco Sisci

How the US and oil majors should view China-Japan tensions

Television pictures of rioting Chinese citizens are a startling demonstration of the seemingly spontaneous civic anger over Japan’s territorial claims to five uninhabited islands and three rocks known to Japanese as the Senkaku Islands and to the Chinese as the Diaoyu Islands.

At stake in the East China Sea (and in a separate row in the South China Sea) are not the barren rocks themselves but the oil and gas that might be found under surrounding waters. Oil majors contemplating investment need a primer in international law as well as an appreciation of the historical and political background before they venture into this region.

The Spratly Archipelago and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea
The South China Sea dispute, faintly grumbling along for some thirty years, appeared to mainstream media to suddenly rise in tempo for political and economic reasons in 2009. In fact, it grew noisier for a very concrete legal reason: 13 May 2009 was the deadline for States to make claims to extend the stretch of their rights to exploit seabed for hydrocarbons under article 76(8) of the 1982 UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (“UNCLOS”).

In very broad brush terms, what needs to be understood about the UNCLOS regime to appreciate the background to these events is as follows:-

1) Standard issue for coastal states is 12 nautical miles (“nm”) of territorial water projecting from their low tide baselines, stretching out to 200 nm of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in which they must permit some international activities – such as laying submarine cables, maritime passage and over-flight – but can bag the hydrocarbon and mineral wealth, as well as fisheries.

2) If you can lay claim to an island (naturally-formed and above water at high tide ), you get twelve miles around that and, if it can sustain habitation, you get the 200 nm EEZ around it, too (Article 121 UNCLOS).

3) If you can persuade the UN’s Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) that your continental shelf goes out beyond 200 nm into undisputed seabed, you could get some extra EEZ. If there is a dispute between states, the Commission lacks jurisdiction, and nor can it rule on Article 121 issues.

4) If States do not like what they see in submissions to the CLCS and want to beef about it, they put in to the UN Secretary General a document known by the somewhat oxymoronic French title “Note Verbale.”

5) States can opt out of binding UNCLOS dispute resolution, and China did.

6) If it is a sovereignty dispute over land, then UNCLOS is the wrong set of rules anyway; one is into customary international law and the heavy hand of history.

The UNCLOS template significantly favours Japan’s archipelagic geography over China’s continental coastline – because more islands generate more EEZs. Also UNCLOS requires states to be noisy in asserting their claims in a way that sits ill with Deng Xiaoping’s famous approach “Keep a cool head and maintain a low profile. Never take the lead – but aim to do something big.”

The states with a dog in the fight over a cluster of a hundred-odd geographic features scattered over 400,000 plus sq km of the central South China Sea are Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, China and Taiwan.

When Malaysia and Vietnam put in their continental shelf submissions in 2009, what particularly exercised world opinion as evidencing expansionist territorial ambitions of China in the resulting flurry of exchanges of Notes Verbales (which continued into 2011), was what has become known as China’s nine dash (or dot as some prefer) map, appended to one Note Verbale.

This was taken by some as implying that China (encompassing Taiwan) may claim sovereignty of the whole of the South China Seas. China has managed to maintain a suitably inscrutable ambiguity (sometimes by resort to Latin maxims) in clarifying/obfuscating what the nine dots or dashes should be taken to mean in legal Morse Code.

The Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea
Japan formally annexed the islands in 1895. After the Second World War, they were administered by the US until 1972, when they were returned to Japan. Around this time oil was discovered in the region and China advanced its claim to the islands. It deployed historical arguments going back to the 15th century and used Taiwan’s separate claim to the territory by subsuming it into the ‘One China’ argument.

A striking contrast between the South China Sea and the East China Sea disputes is that the former (in which the potential for hydrocarbon producton is believed to be much greater) has not generated the political heat sparked by the latter.

The North East Asian dispute is laced with the lingering resentment of South Korea and China towards Japan as their former coloniser and wartime master.

The recent re-engagement of the USA with East Asia after a decade of obsession with the Middle East somewhat brings to mind the couple who nearly had their colour TV stolen while they were upstairs watching the jewellery.

What underlies America’s reawakening to the region is a growing concern with the massively increased economic gravitational pull of China, which has played a canny diplomatic game in ASEAN while Japan has tended to default to isolationist arrogance.

The worry then becomes whether China’s growing confidence and economic power, with the west hobbled by the depredations of its Great Recession, may lead it to greater aggression. The hope must be that Deng Xiaoping’s axiom that what China needs is stability at home and peace in the world will not be destabilised by some combination of US tub-thumping and miscalculation and resurgent Japanese militarism.

A 2010 survey by the Pew Research Centre placed China top (at 91 per cent) in a satisfaction survey of 22 diverse nations polled on their governments’ handling of the economy. Ranked bottom (at 15 per cent) was the notoriously-obedient Japanese citizenry’s satisfaction with their democratically-elected government.

One front-runner in Japanese politics, as elections loom, is Nobu Ishihara. His father Shintaro Ishihara (described in the Economist as a “crusty China-baiting nationalist”) led a campaign for the Tokyo metropolitan government to purchase the Senkakus from their private Japanese owners. The national government has intervened and disclosed that it is itself close to buying them.

A second emerging force is the populist mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, who is reinvigorating Japanese politics with the launch of the Japan Restoration Party (JRP) and wants to rewrite Japan’s pacifist constitution.

While China’s president Hu Jintao and prime minister Wen Jiabao (and their anticipated successors Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang) are not subject to any type of Western-style democracy, they do need the acclamation of their population for what pre-communist dynasties saw as the Mandate of Heaven.

Being sensitive to their people’s enduring wish to redeem the shame of Japanese domination may be equivalent in the perception of China’s leaders to the impulse to grandstand to American voters, which causes Mitt Romney and his running mate to bray about what they will do to punish China as a currency manipulator if they get elected.

The right response from Washington
A sage US president would do well to bear in mind three things.

First, do not underestimate the importance and legitimacy that China accords to history and the unity of the Han Chinese civilisation. This is why the sovereignty of Taiwan and return of Hong Kong were always non-negotiable, and why Beijing cleaves to historical arguments to support territorial claims based on ancient dominion rather than following formal laws.

Secondly, recognise the high degree of pragmatism which has allowed China to take the one country, two systems approach in Hong Kong and makes it keen to adopt the joint development approach without prejudice to territorial and sovereignty claims that can be parked indefinitely if a workable solution can be found.

Thirdly, appreciate that the Confucian argument that rejects binding dispute resolution as a disharmonious way to go is virtually bound to win in these cases, where there is no compulsory dispute resolution mechanism and the question of whose legal arguments are right is theoretical.

Faced with reasonable pragmatic alternatives, which US leader in his right mind would risk testing his military muscle as the ultimate disharmonious form of practical dispute resolution? Hopefully, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney.

What business should do
On the other hand the astute chief executive of an oil and gas major should get his legal department to seek some creative advice on how to structure investments through special purpose vehicles able to take advantage of Bilateral Investment Treaties engaged by China and Japan that may give some leverage to seek compensation from an international arbitration tribunal if investments become expropriated through state action contrary to international law.

Tim Taylor