Freedom of Navigation : Implication for Economic, Political and Military Security in South China Sea

[VCheng]

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21657807-tribunal-ponders-chinas-claims-see-u-court

The South China Sea
See U in court
A tribunal ponders China’s claims
From the print edition

IT IS hard to have an argument with only one person in the room, but the Philippines is having a go. On July 13th a tribunal in The Hague concluded a first week of hearings related to its bitter dispute with China over maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. China insists that its claim, which covers most of the vast and strategically vital sea, is not a matter for foreign judges, and was not represented.

Such has been China’s position ever since the Philippines lodged a case in 2013 at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, arguing that the U-shaped, nine-dashed line used by China to define its claim is illegal. But in its anxiety to dismiss the validity of the case, China may have blundered. The tribunal has ruled that documents issued by China to explain its objections “constitute, in effect, a plea”. The tribunal has sent all the relevant papers to the Chinese government and given it time to respond. China has become a participant in the case, despite its absence.

The most significant document noted by the tribunal is a lengthy “Position Paper” published by China’s foreign ministry last December. This repeated China’s frequent assertion that it has “indisputable sovereignty” over the islands of the South China Sea and “adjacent waters”. Chinese officials did not formally submit the paper, which would have risked implying acceptance of its arbitration. But the tribunal is considering it anyway.

The tribunal will not rule on ownership of the dozens of reefs and islands in the South China Sea and the waters around them. Instead, its ruling is sought on whether features in the sea that are claimed by China could be used as a basis for the claims it makes. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sets out how different maritime features generate claims to territorial waters and “exclusive economic zones” (EEZ). A reef submerged at high tide generates nothing, while a rock above water has a 12- nautical-mile (22km) territorial claim around it. A habitable island generates an additional EEZ of up to 200 nautical miles from its shore.

The Philippines argues that none of the features China occupies in the Spratly Islands is an island. At best, it says, each is entitled only to a 12-nautical-mile claim and none generates an EEZ. For almost the past two years China has been frantically reclaiming land around these features and expanding their size, adding buildings and, in some cases, new airstrips and harbours. But UNCLOS is clear: man-made structures do not count.

The Philippines hopes that if the tribunal accepts its argument, then China’s U-shaped line would look even more far-fetched than it does already. China would at best be able to claim a few small circles drawn around a few tiny features. Other claimants, including the Philippines, which also have claims to some or all of these features, would continue to dispute even these little dots.

The tribunal must first decide whether it has the jurisdiction to hear the case at all. If it concludes that it does, which may not be known until late this year, a verdict may take several more months. If the Philippines wins, China will almost certainly refuse to accept the decision. Even the hope that a moral defeat would have a chastening effect on China’s behaviour seems a little tenuous, given the gusto with which it is filling in the sea.

From the print edition: Asia

 

[Aepsilons]

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21657807-tribunal-ponders-chinas-claims-see-u-court

The South China Sea
See U in court
A tribunal ponders China’s claims
From the print edition

IT IS hard to have an argument with only one person in the room, but the Philippines is having a go. On July 13th a tribunal in The Hague concluded a first week of hearings related to its bitter dispute with China over maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. China insists that its claim, which covers most of the vast and strategically vital sea, is not a matter for foreign judges, and was not represented.

Such has been China’s position ever since the Philippines lodged a case in 2013 at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, arguing that the U-shaped, nine-dashed line used by China to define its claim is illegal. But in its anxiety to dismiss the validity of the case, China may have blundered. The tribunal has ruled that documents issued by China to explain its objections “constitute, in effect, a plea”. The tribunal has sent all the relevant papers to the Chinese government and given it time to respond. China has become a participant in the case, despite its absence.

The most significant document noted by the tribunal is a lengthy “Position Paper” published by China’s foreign ministry last December. This repeated China’s frequent assertion that it has “indisputable sovereignty” over the islands of the South China Sea and “adjacent waters”. Chinese officials did not formally submit the paper, which would have risked implying acceptance of its arbitration. But the tribunal is considering it anyway.

The tribunal will not rule on ownership of the dozens of reefs and islands in the South China Sea and the waters around them. Instead, its ruling is sought on whether features in the sea that are claimed by China could be used as a basis for the claims it makes. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) sets out how different maritime features generate claims to territorial waters and “exclusive economic zones” (EEZ). A reef submerged at high tide generates nothing, while a rock above water has a 12- nautical-mile (22km) territorial claim around it. A habitable island generates an additional EEZ of up to 200 nautical miles from its shore.

The Philippines argues that none of the features China occupies in the Spratly Islands is an island. At best, it says, each is entitled only to a 12-nautical-mile claim and none generates an EEZ. For almost the past two years China has been frantically reclaiming land around these features and expanding their size, adding buildings and, in some cases, new airstrips and harbours. But UNCLOS is clear: man-made structures do not count.

The Philippines hopes that if the tribunal accepts its argument, then China’s U-shaped line would look even more far-fetched than it does already. China would at best be able to claim a few small circles drawn around a few tiny features. Other claimants, including the Philippines, which also have claims to some or all of these features, would continue to dispute even these little dots.

The tribunal must first decide whether it has the jurisdiction to hear the case at all. If it concludes that it does, which may not be known until late this year, a verdict may take several more months. If the Philippines wins, China will almost certainly refuse to accept the decision. Even the hope that a moral defeat would have a chastening effect on China’s behaviour seems a little tenuous, given the gusto with which it is filling in the sea.

From the print edition: Asia

An excellent addition, @Syed.Ali.Haider . I will add another corresponding update this week.

 

[VCheng]

An excellent addition, @Syed.Ali.Haider . I will add another corresponding update this week.

This case will be important in determining how China's emergence changes the regional geopolitical dynamics with its neighbors. Your update will be eagerly awaited.

 

[Aepsilons]

Hegemonic Designs in the South China Sea: Interpreting Freedom of Navigation and the Chinese Position

By: Nihonjin1051​

There is a unique maritime and geopolitical interests within and without the South China Sea , which have led to the genesis of complex claims regarding concerning obligations, rights and jurisdiction over said sea. One may consider three revolving issues that entice different national agendas:

• National Pride / Strategic interests

• Natural Resources

• The potential for hydrocarbon resources

• Maritime Navigation

The South China Sea is a rich semi-enclosed sea that is rich in non living as well as living resources , home to an abundance of fishes, sand, and most importantly is the crossroads for much of Asia’s maritime merchant fleets to deliver goods abroad as well as to bring in valuable natural resources back to home ports.

One is thus brought to consider the historical basis of the Chinese claims. In the turn of the twentient century, both China as well as Franceh had claimed the islands and water body of the South China Sea up until the end of World War II. So a time period from 1902 till 1931 the region saw bitter diplomatic as well as military brinksmanship between the Chinese and the French in French Indochina, which includes present day Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

In 1946, the Republic of China occupied Taiping Island, the largest of the Spratly Islands, and placed a garrison there. Till now there have been a whole series of claims that have eventually been made by other nations which include Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, China, and Vietnam. Its important to note that there has been no established state control over the whole of the islands; sans individual nations laying claims to part of the region or almost the entire region.

China’s claim in the South China Sea is due in part to historical basis. According to the Chinese Government, it was China who was the first country to actually discover the islands and utilized the islands as actual resource. The Chinese side has argued that the discovery of the islands took place as early as the 2nd century BCE. Their side contest that the discovery of the islands can be found in present folk songs, old texts, as well as from official and unofficial Chinese accounts.


The Origins of China’s U-Shaped Claim


Back in 1935 the Republic of China actually tried to publish a map that laid claim to the Spratlys and Paracel Islands, in response to the military build up in said islands by the French. During the 2nd World War, both the French and Chinese sides lost control of the islands to the Japanese who effectively administered and ruled the islands as an overseas county of Japan’s Taiwan Colony. At the end of the 2nd World War, the Republic of China (Taiwan) was able to recover some of the islands, particularly Taiping, in 1946. The Republic of China (Taiwan) then published two maps one in 1947 and another in 1948, respectively, that depict the islands in their control, or at least claimed. These claims was in U-shaped. After the expulsion of the KMT Government from the Mainland and into Taiwan, the Communist Government in China later inherited the dotted lines after 1949.



Reference:

Hossain, K. k. (2013). The UNCLOS and the US-China Hegemonic Competition over the South China Sea. Journal Of East Asia & International Law, 6(1), 107-133.

Zewei, Y. (2012). The Freedom of Navigation in the South China Sea: An Ideal or a Reality?. Beijing Law Review, (03), 137.

ZHU, L. (2011). Chinese Practice in Public International Law: 2010*. Chinese Journal Of International Law, 10(2), 427. doi:10.1093/chinesejil/jmr013

 

[VCheng]

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/...struggle-check-china-small-reefs-big-problems

Asian security
Small reefs, big problems
Asian coastguards are in the front line of the struggle to check China
From the print edition

EVERY ten or so days, and rarely at weekends, the Chinese coastguard arrives at eight in the morning, in time for the Japanese foreign ministry to deliver a formal complaint to its Chinese counterpart by lunchtime. It is something of a ritual these days. Chinese vessels breach the 12-mile territorial limit of Japan’s Senkaku islands, which China claims and calls the Diaoyu islands. Japanese coastguard cutters shadow them warily until the Chinese decide that national honour has been satisfied and sail away. Call this little dance an improvement: in 2012, with anti-Japan fervour at its height, aggressive incursions into Senkaku waters highlighted the risk that China might even provoke a war with its neighbour over the uninhabited rocks.

That the dance is carried out by coastguard vessels, white-painted and minimally armed, also allows both sides to disengage more easily. Yet gunmetal-grey warships lurk nearby. One reason China has backed off in recent months is the solid presence of the Japanese navy just over the horizon. And were the two countries ever to come to blows over the Senkakus, America has made it clear it would come to Japan’s aid. (It claims no view over the territorial dispute, which did not stop it using the Senkakus for bombing practice during its post-war occupation of Japan.)

Facing pushback in the East China Sea, China has turned to softer targets: the islands, reefs and atolls of the South China Sea. These have long been the subject of territorial disputes among littoral states, especially involving the Philippines and Vietnam. But China has increased the tensions sharply in the past year. First, without consultation it towed an oil rig into Vietnam’s claimed Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). More troubling is confirmation of China’s massive landfill work on disputed reefs and islands a very long way from China’s shores. In contrast with Japan, China’s neighbours to the south are poorer and weaker, and they lack cast-iron American security guarantees. A vacuum has existed in the South China Sea since American forces withdrew from the Philippines in 1992.

Game of shadows

China’s neighbours are unnerved by its rapid increase in defence spending, in particular its pursuit of a blue-water navy. They note a Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who is not shy about flexing Chinese muscle. He likes to talk of China’s “peaceful rise” and of a “new type of great-power relationship”—one that appears to leave little space for small countries.

In both Beijing and Washington, strategists have long liked to grapple with whether America and China are destined to fall into a “Thucydides trap”. In the original, the Spartans’ fear of the growing might of Athens made war inevitable. The modern parallel states that an existing power (America) is bound to clash with a rising one (China). In Japan the point is made differently: at sea modern China is behaving with the paranoid aggression of imperial Japan on land before the second world war. “They are making the same mistakes that we did,” says a Japanese official.

For now, it is a game of diplomacy, legal manoeuvre, positioning and the creation of facts on the ground (or, rather, on the water). It is played mainly by non-military forces: dredgers and barges; oceanographic and other survey ships; and, above all, coastguards. China insists that its landfill work is intended to provide public goods such as lighthouses, typhoon shelters for fishermen, weather stations and search-and-rescue facilities. But American defence officials are certain the purpose is, in fact, military. At Fiery Cross reef a new airstrip 3km (1.9 miles) long could take any of China’s military aircraft, and what look like hangars for fighters are being built. Artillery has been seen at another outpost. American planners say that these positions are vulnerable—“aircraft carriers that can’t move”, as one puts it—and would quickly be put out of action in any conflict. But short of war the artificial islands would serve as useful forward bases to project Chinese power.

China claims an ill-defined U-shape, the “nine-dashed line”, that encloses much of the South China Sea (see map) and clashes with the claims of several of its neighbours. Again, America affects to take no position on who owns what. Its priority, it says, is to preserve the right of free navigation by both air and sea. It periodically sends military reconnaissance aircraft near the newly built islands to make this point.

China is not the first country to build in the South China Sea, but it is now by far the most energetic. By shredding trust with South-East Asian claimants, China’s actions make a long-promised code of conduct for dealing with territorial disputes ever more elusive. Its assertiveness has pushed several South-East Asian countries closer to America, lending justification for the American “pivot” to Asia. Countries alarmed at Chinese assertiveness have rushed to buy military equipment.

In the face of strong domestic opposition, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is pushing new security bills through parliament that would loosen the constraints on Japan helping its American ally. He would, for instance, like Japan to join the American navy in South China Sea patrols. Japan is also financing the construction of ten new coastguard vessels for the Philippines and six for Vietnam. It is all part of a concerted “anti-coercion strategy”, says Narushige Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s relations with America go from strength to strength (while it increases arms purchases from Russia). The Philippines has signed a new defence pact that would allow America to return to its former base in Subic Bay as well as other bases. And it plans to beef up its neglected armed forces. The shopping list includes new fighters, frigates and maritime reconnaissance aircraft. But, given the scale of the country’s corruption, some wonder how much of a punch the extra pesos will deliver.

Many are now closely watching the proceedings of a UN-sponsored arbitration panel at The Hague, where the Philippines is seeking a ruling on whether China’s building on submerged reefs confers the right to territorial waters and EEZs under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The panel cannot settle the question of ownership, but the Philippines is hoping for a moral victory that will undermine China’s vague but sweeping claims. China has refused to take part in the process, but is being drawn willy-nilly into the legal argument.

One China, one claim

At the junction of the East China Sea and the South China Sea lies Taiwan, which China claims. Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have greatly eased in recent years, as the Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, and his Kuomintang (KMT) have sought reconciliation with the mainland Communists. But a test of relations is on the horizon with a presidential election that is likely to see Mr Ma replaced by Tsai Ing-wen of the more independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). She has tried to assuage American worries of cross-strait crisis by speaking of her desire to maintain stable, predictable relations with the mainland. But China does not trust her party.

Besides, the South China Sea disputes have the potential to become a new bone of contention between Taiwan and China. Taiwan shares identical claims to China’s in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Indeed the nine-dashed line was first drawn up by the KMT in 1946 (it had 11 dashes then) when it still ruled China and set out to retake islands following Japan’s surrender. Identical claims actually suit China, since they reinforce the pretence that there is just “one China” (with China and Taiwan disagreeing over precisely what it is). But America recently pressured Mr Ma to clarify Taiwan’s claim as a means of undermining the absurdly sweeping nature of China’s.

Mr Ma, a Harvard-trained lawyer who is keen that his country is seen to be upholding international law, said that under UNCLOS Taiwan claims only the 12-mile limit around its islands, not all the seas within the nine-dashed line. A DPP government might adopt a still narrower position. Ms Tsai insists that Taiwan will defend Taiping or Itu Aba, the largest island in the Spratlys, which it holds, but is vaguer about other features.

Diplomatic nuance will not change the inexorable shift that is taking place in Asia’s balance of power. Military experts offer the following rough reckoning: Taiwan lost the ability to halt a Chinese invasion on its own several years ago; Japan may be able to keep protecting its farthest-flung islands only for another 10-15 years. So the longer-term questions are: can either country inflict enough damage on China to deter it from attacking and, more importantly, how far is America still willing or able to tip the scales? Two decades after a cross-strait crisis in which China fired missiles close to Taiwan, would America again deploy aircraft-carriers nearby as a warning? Few offer an unqualified “yes”.

Military thinking is changing markedly. America is seeking new weapons to try to break through China’s growing “anti-access/area denial” (A2/AD) capability. This involves, for example, anti-ship missiles designed to hold back the Americans, perhaps at the “first island chain” (which runs from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia). Such is the mismatch that neighbours are now planning their own A2/AD strategies to fend off China.

Toshi Yoshihara of the US Naval War College thinks that Japan should focus on things like shore-based anti-ship missiles, submarines, “guerrilla warfare at sea” with fast missile boats and mine warfare. America is quietly pushing Taiwan to adopt similar tactics. And Japanese officials privately admit that Taiwan’s security is essential to Japan’s. Andrew Krepinevich of the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think-tank in Washington, DC, suggests that America should help extend what he calls “archipelagic defence” to the Philippines.

If you can’t beat them, contain them

Such advice may be a counsel of despair, an admission that the East China Sea and South China Sea are bound to become Chinese lakes, and that the best that can be done is to contain China within them. Nobody wants to test such notions, not least because of the risk tensions pose to global prosperity. The aim in the coming years must be to draw a rising China into co-operative relationships with its neighbours, while deterring bad behaviour.

China is hardly without internal problems, or indifferent to external pressure. Some experts in Beijing think their country has been too assertive at sea of late. China has said its land reclamation in the South China Sea is coming to an end. Mr Xi will want to avoid too many controversies ahead of his visit to America in September.

For now, whether competition in Asia can be prevented from turning into conflict may come down to whether the crews on lightly armed coastguard ships in the waters around China can keep their heads.

From the print edition: Asia

 

[Aepsilons]

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/...struggle-check-china-small-reefs-big-problems

Asian security
Small reefs, big problems
Asian coastguards are in the front line of the struggle to check China
From the print edition

EVERY ten or so days, and rarely at weekends, the Chinese coastguard arrives at eight in the morning, in time for the Japanese foreign ministry to deliver a formal complaint to its Chinese counterpart by lunchtime. It is something of a ritual these days. Chinese vessels breach the 12-mile territorial limit of Japan’s Senkaku islands, which China claims and calls the Diaoyu islands. Japanese coastguard cutters shadow them warily until the Chinese decide that national honour has been satisfied and sail away. Call this little dance an improvement: in 2012, with anti-Japan fervour at its height, aggressive incursions into Senkaku waters highlighted the risk that China might even provoke a war with its neighbour over the uninhabited rocks.

That the dance is carried out by coastguard vessels, white-painted and minimally armed, also allows both sides to disengage more easily. Yet gunmetal-grey warships lurk nearby. One reason China has backed off in recent months is the solid presence of the Japanese navy just over the horizon. And were the two countries ever to come to blows over the Senkakus, America has made it clear it would come to Japan’s aid. (It claims no view over the territorial dispute, which did not stop it using the Senkakus for bombing practice during its post-war occupation of Japan.)

Facing pushback in the East China Sea, China has turned to softer targets: the islands, reefs and atolls of the South China Sea. These have long been the subject of territorial disputes among littoral states, especially involving the Philippines and Vietnam. But China has increased the tensions sharply in the past year. First, without consultation it towed an oil rig into Vietnam’s claimed Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). More troubling is confirmation of China’s massive landfill work on disputed reefs and islands a very long way from China’s shores. In contrast with Japan, China’s neighbours to the south are poorer and weaker, and they lack cast-iron American security guarantees. A vacuum has existed in the South China Sea since American forces withdrew from the Philippines in 1992.

Game of shadows

China’s neighbours are unnerved by its rapid increase in defence spending, in particular its pursuit of a blue-water navy. They note a Chinese president, Xi Jinping, who is not shy about flexing Chinese muscle. He likes to talk of China’s “peaceful rise” and of a “new type of great-power relationship”—one that appears to leave little space for small countries.

In both Beijing and Washington, strategists have long liked to grapple with whether America and China are destined to fall into a “Thucydides trap”. In the original, the Spartans’ fear of the growing might of Athens made war inevitable. The modern parallel states that an existing power (America) is bound to clash with a rising one (China). In Japan the point is made differently: at sea modern China is behaving with the paranoid aggression of imperial Japan on land before the second world war. “They are making the same mistakes that we did,” says a Japanese official.

For now, it is a game of diplomacy, legal manoeuvre, positioning and the creation of facts on the ground (or, rather, on the water). It is played mainly by non-military forces: dredgers and barges; oceanographic and other survey ships; and, above all, coastguards. China insists that its landfill work is intended to provide public goods such as lighthouses, typhoon shelters for fishermen, weather stations and search-and-rescue facilities. But American defence officials are certain the purpose is, in fact, military. At Fiery Cross reef a new airstrip 3km (1.9 miles) long could take any of China’s military aircraft, and what look like hangars for fighters are being built. Artillery has been seen at another outpost. American planners say that these positions are vulnerable—“aircraft carriers that can’t move”, as one puts it—and would quickly be put out of action in any conflict. But short of war the artificial islands would serve as useful forward bases to project Chinese power.

China claims an ill-defined U-shape, the “nine-dashed line”, that encloses much of the South China Sea (see map) and clashes with the claims of several of its neighbours. Again, America affects to take no position on who owns what. Its priority, it says, is to preserve the right of free navigation by both air and sea. It periodically sends military reconnaissance aircraft near the newly built islands to make this point.

China is not the first country to build in the South China Sea, but it is now by far the most energetic. By shredding trust with South-East Asian claimants, China’s actions make a long-promised code of conduct for dealing with territorial disputes ever more elusive. Its assertiveness has pushed several South-East Asian countries closer to America, lending justification for the American “pivot” to Asia. Countries alarmed at Chinese assertiveness have rushed to buy military equipment.

In the face of strong domestic opposition, Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is pushing new security bills through parliament that would loosen the constraints on Japan helping its American ally. He would, for instance, like Japan to join the American navy in South China Sea patrols. Japan is also financing the construction of ten new coastguard vessels for the Philippines and six for Vietnam. It is all part of a concerted “anti-coercion strategy”, says Narushige Michishita of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Vietnam’s relations with America go from strength to strength (while it increases arms purchases from Russia). The Philippines has signed a new defence pact that would allow America to return to its former base in Subic Bay as well as other bases. And it plans to beef up its neglected armed forces. The shopping list includes new fighters, frigates and maritime reconnaissance aircraft. But, given the scale of the country’s corruption, some wonder how much of a punch the extra pesos will deliver.

Many are now closely watching the proceedings of a UN-sponsored arbitration panel at The Hague, where the Philippines is seeking a ruling on whether China’s building on submerged reefs confers the right to territorial waters and EEZs under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The panel cannot settle the question of ownership, but the Philippines is hoping for a moral victory that will undermine China’s vague but sweeping claims. China has refused to take part in the process, but is being drawn willy-nilly into the legal argument.

One China, one claim

At the junction of the East China Sea and the South China Sea lies Taiwan, which China claims. Tensions across the Taiwan Strait have greatly eased in recent years, as the Taiwanese president, Ma Ying-jeou, and his Kuomintang (KMT) have sought reconciliation with the mainland Communists. But a test of relations is on the horizon with a presidential election that is likely to see Mr Ma replaced by Tsai Ing-wen of the more independence-minded Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). She has tried to assuage American worries of cross-strait crisis by speaking of her desire to maintain stable, predictable relations with the mainland. But China does not trust her party.

Besides, the South China Sea disputes have the potential to become a new bone of contention between Taiwan and China. Taiwan shares identical claims to China’s in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Indeed the nine-dashed line was first drawn up by the KMT in 1946 (it had 11 dashes then) when it still ruled China and set out to retake islands following Japan’s surrender. Identical claims actually suit China, since they reinforce the pretence that there is just “one China” (with China and Taiwan disagreeing over precisely what it is). But America recently pressured Mr Ma to clarify Taiwan’s claim as a means of undermining the absurdly sweeping nature of China’s.

Mr Ma, a Harvard-trained lawyer who is keen that his country is seen to be upholding international law, said that under UNCLOS Taiwan claims only the 12-mile limit around its islands, not all the seas within the nine-dashed line. A DPP government might adopt a still narrower position. Ms Tsai insists that Taiwan will defend Taiping or Itu Aba, the largest island in the Spratlys, which it holds, but is vaguer about other features.

Diplomatic nuance will not change the inexorable shift that is taking place in Asia’s balance of power. Military experts offer the following rough reckoning: Taiwan lost the ability to halt a Chinese invasion on its own several years ago; Japan may be able to keep protecting its farthest-flung islands only for another 10-15 years. So the longer-term questions are: can either country inflict enough damage on China to deter it from attacking and, more importantly, how far is America still willing or able to tip the scales? Two decades after a cross-strait crisis in which China fired missiles close to Taiwan, would America again deploy aircraft-carriers nearby as a warning? Few offer an unqualified “yes”.

Military thinking is changing markedly. America is seeking new weapons to try to break through China’s growing “anti-access/area denial” (A2/AD) capability. This involves, for example, anti-ship missiles designed to hold back the Americans, perhaps at the “first island chain” (which runs from Japan to Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia). Such is the mismatch that neighbours are now planning their own A2/AD strategies to fend off China.

Toshi Yoshihara of the US Naval War College thinks that Japan should focus on things like shore-based anti-ship missiles, submarines, “guerrilla warfare at sea” with fast missile boats and mine warfare. America is quietly pushing Taiwan to adopt similar tactics. And Japanese officials privately admit that Taiwan’s security is essential to Japan’s. Andrew Krepinevich of the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think-tank in Washington, DC, suggests that America should help extend what he calls “archipelagic defence” to the Philippines.

If you can’t beat them, contain them

Such advice may be a counsel of despair, an admission that the East China Sea and South China Sea are bound to become Chinese lakes, and that the best that can be done is to contain China within them. Nobody wants to test such notions, not least because of the risk tensions pose to global prosperity. The aim in the coming years must be to draw a rising China into co-operative relationships with its neighbours, while deterring bad behaviour.

China is hardly without internal problems, or indifferent to external pressure. Some experts in Beijing think their country has been too assertive at sea of late. China has said its land reclamation in the South China Sea is coming to an end. Mr Xi will want to avoid too many controversies ahead of his visit to America in September.

For now, whether competition in Asia can be prevented from turning into conflict may come down to whether the crews on lightly armed coastguard ships in the waters around China can keep their heads.

From the print edition: Asia

Excellent. I'll be posting another update to this thread; will be focusing on current strategies and tactics on the goals and strategies of the different maritime agencies of different nations. Special focus will be on Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea.

Thanks for this article link, Sir !

 

[VCheng]

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/...wants-its-neighbours-not-talk-about-big-issue

Asian maritime security
All latest updates
China wants everyone to tiptoe around the biggest issue
Don’t mention the sea
http://www.economist.com/sections/asia

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), an annual talking-shop, was set up to cover issues of regional security and brings together the parties (except Taiwan) with the biggest stakes in the territorial disputes in the sea. With its 27 members convening in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow, the forum might be expected to discuss tensions such as those caused by China’s massive recent construction work on disputed reefs and rocks in the South China Sea. But that is not the way everyone in the ARF sees it.

Besides the foreign ministers of the ten members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (the eponymous ASEAN), four of which have territorial claims in the sea, the ARF brings together both Wang Yi of China, which claims nearly all of it, and America’s secretary of state, John Kerry. America has called for an immediate halt to the building, and declared for itself a “national interest” in the freedom of navigation in the busy trading routes of the sea.

Other countries—Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam—have also reclaimed land around islands, rocks and reefs that they claim and occupy. But China’s building has been unprecedented in its scale and speed. The largest island in the sea now, with a 3km-long airstrip, is one China built on some rocks. China stands accused of militarising the sea; the littoral states are alarmed.

China, however, sees this all as a series of bilateral disputes and does not want to hear them discussed at ARF at all. Certainly not by America, which it accuses of stirring up trouble by emboldening smaller countries, such as the Philippines and Vietnam, to defy China. The Philippines has challenged China’s claims in the sea under the international law of the sea. China’s tack is to ignore the proceedings.

In 2002 China and ASEAN signed a “declaration”, committing them to a “code of conduct” for the sea, which would presumably include a moratorium in the building boom. But China seems in no hurry to complete the process, and in the meantime is flouting the spirit and arguably the letter of the declaration: “The Parties undertake to exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability including, among others, refraining from action of inhabiting on the presently uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays, and other features and to handle their differences in a constructive manner.” Unless, of course, China has its own creative and radically literal interpretation of “constructive”.

ASEAN’s members are glad America backs them up, but will be nervous if it confronts China aggressively. A particular dilemma for America is how far to go in asserting the right to freedom of navigation—in particular the freedom of its naval ships and military aircraft to intrude into the waters directly around China’s new islands. To do so might be seen as provocative not just by China, but even by some of America’s friends in the region. Not to do so, however, might be seen as tacit acceptance of the permanence of China’s new facts on the water.