America and China are at odds over the South China Sea May 31st 2015 | SINGAPORE | Asia
LAST year’s session of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, a shindig in Singapore for Asia-Pacific defence chiefs, was better for journalists than for diplomats. A vitriolic public row over China’s behaviour in the East and South China Seas made for good headlines. But it did little to advance peaceful compromise. So at this year’s dialogue, which took place from May 29th to 31st, both America, in the person of the secretary of defence, Ash Carter, and China were at pains to keep their tempers, and to couch their disagreements in as positive a way as possible. Alarmingly, however, those disagreements seem even more profound and irreconcilable than a year ago.
The particular bone of contention is an extraordinary building boom in the South China Sea, where China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have overlapping and competing territorial claims. All claimants apart from Brunei have built on one or more of the tiny rocks and islands over which they claim sovereignty. China, however, has taken this to unprecedented lengths.
In his speech at the dialogue, Mr Carter reported that China has filled in over 2,000 acres (810 hectares), "more than all other claimants combined...and more than in the entire history of the region." The construction wave has occurred in remarkably short time, over the past 18 months. In addition to new buildings, China has added harbours and airstrips, increasing their utility as military outposts. Mr Carter said it was unclear how much farther China would go. "That is why this stretch of water has become the source of tension in the region and front-page news around the world."
Just before the dialogue, American officials reported that satellite pictures showed that China introduced two mobile-artillery batteries to the man-made islands. Mr Carter expressed concern about the "militarisation" of the sea. China's delegates countered that the building work was for the international common good: to contribute to maritime search and rescue; disaster prevention and mitigation; meteorological observation; ecological conservation; navigation safety and fishery services.
America says it takes no position on the sovereignty disputes. But it is concerned about the "freedom of navigation"; a huge chunk of global trade traverses the sea. Responding to what American officials took as evidence that freedom of navigation and overflight was under threat, an American surveillance plane in late May flew close to the expanding islands, with a television-news crew on board. The Chinese navy sent the plane a message, warning it to go away as it had entered a “military-alert zone”. American forces often sail and fly through areas of tension, to prove that they have the freedom to do so. They are now stepping up these activities in the South China Sea, infuriating China.
So a potentially alarming confrontation looms. Mr Carter demanded that China and the other claimants implement an “immediate and lasting halt” to land-reclamation projects. China shows no sign of doing this. And America is under pressure to go further in testing the “freedom of navigation”. Also at the dialogue was a delegation of senators, led by John McCain, an Arizonan and chair of the senate’s Armed Forces Committee. At a press conference, Mr McCain dismissed Chinese territorial claims to the sea around the man-made islands and encouraged American forces to continue their activities.
The issue is a complicated one. China’s claims are unclear. Its maps show a “nine-dash line” encompassing most of the sea, and giving it ownership over all the land features within it (and perhaps the surrounding waters, as well; China has never clarified that particular point).
Under the international law of the sea, countries can claim territorial sea out to 12 nautical miles (22km) and a further 200km of “exclusive economic zone” (EEZ) off the coast of their mainland and habitable islands. Uninhabitable “rocks” get the territorial waters, but no EEZ; rocks that are submerged at high tide have no waters at all. The status of the places where China is building has not been determined. It is clear they are not "islands". But some may be rocks with territorial waters and some "low-tide elevations" with none. Only "natural" features count: a low-tide elevation cannot become a rock, nor a rock an island, merely by building on it.
America has sailed clear of the 12-mile zones—not, it says, because it accepts Chinese sovereignty over the land feature, or that China is entitled to territorial waters. It merely, as one American naval officer put it, recognises that “we are pretty sure it’s not ours”, and that it might once have included a "rock" with territorial waters. Despite this care, dangers are growing. America may eventually probe China’s tolerance by intruding into claimed territorial waters and airspace. An accidental collision there could have serious and unpredictable consequences. And while America's involvement is now welcomed by China's neighbours, any dangerous escalation that is seen as being America's fault will shake its support in the region. That would be just fine, as far as China is concerned.
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