The South China Sea

“We all know that the Philippines is China’s inherent territory and the Philippines belongs to Chinese sovereignty, this is an indisputable fact”

Whose words are these? Do they belong to a miscellaneous Chinese blogger? Guess again. These are the words of the anchor of arguably China’s largest television news channel, CCTV (1). This is a telling gaffe, and more so is the refusal of CCTV to apologise and publicly disown the notion and the sentiment. Those of the politburo and in high places best beware that if a media professional can utter such a statement, what are various Chinese internet communities and street demonstrators capable of? If Chinese street demonstrations and internet communities demanded a military strike on the Philippines would the powers that be in China reign them in (could they reign them in)?

(Chinese Journalist in May 2012 planting a flag on an island [technically a ‘shoal’] disputed with the Philippines known as the Scarborough Shoal)

(The South China Sea. China’s claim in red, and the UN Convention of the Law on the Sea in blue, that only grants the right to exploit all resources and doesn’t technically grant sovereignty)

‘In terms of the number and complexity of overlapping jurisdictional and sovereignty claims made to it, the South China Sea is one of the world’s most disputed areas’ is a standard (and good) description of the South China Sea (2). China’s increasing assertiveness around mid-2012 regarding the South China Sea must be understood as a chapter in the long history of disputes over the South China Sea. There are issues of ‘territorial integrity’ (sovereignty), natural resources (largely oil) and strategic/military concerns at play in the South China Sea. And despite claims from countries like China that they wish for the South China Sea to be a sea of peace, friendship and cooperation it is clear that interests between countries clash, and efforts will be required so that countries can settle their differences, so that the very real possibility for conflict is assuaged (3).

It must be noted that China is being assertive in 2012, a year of leadership transition. The oblique statements that China was prepared to respond to ‘any escalation’ and that the Philippines is making ‘serious mistakes’ with regards to the South China Sea could well be an effort to rally the people of China against a perceived foe, getting the Chinese Communist Party onside with the people during this pivotal year (4).

Oil and gas loom large vis-a-vis the importance of the South China Sea. Estimates go as high as 28 billion barrels of oil residing below the waters, with there being even greater reserves of gas (5). The Chinese state owned oil company CNOOC has began the first fully Chinese deep-water drilling operation   in the South China Sea in May 2012 (6). The chairman of the company declared ‘Large deep-water drilling rigs are our mobile national territory and strategic weapon for promoting the development of the country’s offshore oil industry’, highlighting the sense of national importance oil and this particular drilling project contains (7). With China having to import over half of the oil it requires to meet consumption, and with demand tipped to double in around 20 years, securing stables supplies of hydrocabons will likely continue to increase in importance as time wears on.

China’s strategic interests in the South China Sea overlap with China’s naval expansion and the three objectives of that expansion. The three objectives, as identified by Buszynski, include: first, the ability to prevent Taiwan from declaring independence alongside the ability to prevent the United States from sheltering Taiwan with navy deployments, second, protection of China’s trade routes and energy supply routes that extend through the Indian ocean and the Strait of Malacca (a waterway that has 80% of China’s imported oil pass through it), and lastly the ability to deploy a second-strike nuclear capability that would run through the Western pacific, so as to deter the United States (8). The South China Sea moreover is important strategically for China as control of the sea would provide ‘zonal defense’ where China would have a buffer zone to protect it’s interests. Unlike, say, the United States, India and Britain, which all have large waterways around them with uncontested access, China’s coast that lies down the country’s east has South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines that rather effectively limit China’s access to the seas. If China had strategic control over the South China Sea it would provide vastly more breathing space. China’s sphere of influence around the South China Sea largely resides in economic power, so it would gain another significant dimension of power that would buttress it’s economic strength if China could enlarge it’s strategic muscle around the South China Sea.

 

The question for China is: what are the costs of increasing influence around the South China Sea? China would be stepping on the toes of many countries if it moved to shake things up in the South China Sea, with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and probably India, effectively all of South East Asia, likely to become questioning of China’s rise if it sought to gain increased control over the South China Sea. It is quite possible that these countries would seek to balance China to some degree, whilst the temptation of  bandwagoning with the United States would increase. Further, the sentiments of many societies around the region could sour and China might have to exist with significant resentment region-wide, and not a mere few hundred protestors demonstrating against Chinese actions. Whether economic relations could continue to prosper with countries around the South China Sea would become seriously questionable. If economic relations did seriously deteriorate between China and South East Asia the very rise of China may become seriously threatened. It seems that the interests of parties relevant to the South China Sea are that the sea become, to quote the Chinese. a ‘sea of cooperation’ and a ‘sea of friendship’.