Chinese fishing vessels near the disputed Meiji reef in the South China Sea in July 2012. Photo: AP
Fierce rivalry between Chinese civilian, paramilitary and military agencies has created a "genuine risk" of conflict in the South China Sea, says a new report.
Reopening one of the great debates of Chinese foreign policy, analyst Linda Jakobson argues that President Xi Jinping is not a dominating leader and there is no "grand plan" of tailored territorial coercion.
Rather, she says, local governments, state oil companies, fishermen and as many as five maritime surveillance agencies are furiously competing to expand bureaucratic turf under the "pretext" of general nationalist policy directions from above.
A February 2014 photo taken by surveillance planes for the Philippines government shows Chinese construction work on Johnson Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands. Photo: Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs
And her model of bureaucratic competition could be even more dangerous than any grand territorial plan.
"A 'grand plan' would in fact be less threatening than the uncertainty caused by a situation in which various Chinese actors are pursuing ad hoc measures in their own Interests," says Dr Jakobson in her report, China's Unpredictable Maritime Security Actors, to be released by the Lowy Institute today.
"Consequently, there is a genuine risk of an incident at sea (or in the air) spiralling out of control."
Confrontation: Philippine Marines and a television reporter gesture defiantly to a Chinese Coast Guard vessel after the Philippines successfully resupplied its base on Second Thomas Shoal in the disputed Spratly Islands in March. Photo: Reuters
Dr Jakobson's views are likely to spark renewed debate about the nature of politics and policymaking in China.
Many defence officials in the region believe China is engaging in a systematic program of "salami slicing" to swallow bite-sized pieces of territory that are too incremental to trigger war.
A fortnight ago a military magazine, IHS Jane's, obtained satellite imagery that showed Chinese land reclamation work to build a large runway-and-port-shaped structure on what was a fully-submerged atoll.
The three-kilometre-long man-made island on the Fiery Cross Reef was by far the largest of four reclamation projects that China has undertaken in the Spratly Islands in the past 18 months.
These developments, combined with "stunning" advances in military technology, could enable China to project air power thousands of kilometres from the mainland, say defence officials.
One defence official told Fairfax that the South China Sea was rapidly turning into "a Chinese lake".
Experts agree that territorial disputes in the South China Sea will remain "volatile" despite recent moves by Mr Xi to re-emphasise economic diplomacy.
But they differ widely on the underlying causes, thanks largely to the extreme opacity of the Chinese policymaking process.
Andrew Chubb, an expert on Chinese military propaganda and the South China Sea, said Chinese agencies often acted without coordination but they rarely acted without direction at times when they were being territorially "assertive".
"The most assertive actions usually seem to be the most coordinated," said Mr Chubb, a PhD candidate at the University of Western Australia, citing land reclamation, legal amendments and the movement of a billion-dollar oil rig into highly disputed waters earlier this year.
Bonnie Glaser, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said she saw "considerable evidence of a strategy to bolster Chinese claims and assert greater control".
"The recent reports and satellite imagery of China's land reclamation activities in the Spratlys, for example, suggest to me a grand strategy to strengthen China's sovereignty claims and to exert greater control over the southern reaches of the South China Sea."
http://www.watoday.com.au/world/lowy-report-chinese-rivalries-risk-spiralling-conflict-in-south-china-sea-20141210-124dkr.html
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