Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea in this still image from video taken by a P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft provided by the United States Navy May 21, 2015. REUTERS/U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters
The following interview with Alexander Vuving[1] was carried out in
The land reclamation activities by China China are happening on a different scale, they
still don’t add strategic value in a conflict scenario that includes the U.S. China China
We need to look at China ’s
land reclamation in the South China Sea from a
different perspective than the conventional one where you focus on military and
legal implications of these activities. China South
China Sea , which range from the land reclamation to the use of
People’s Liberation Army as well as non-military forces and lawfare, are all
elements of this “winning without fighting” strategy. It is misleading if you
look at what China is doing
in the South China Sea from the perspective of
military significance. It is similarly misleading to assess the land
reclamation from a legal perspective given that the rocks China is building up
are actually submerged rocks and not islands and therefore can not generate an
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).[4]
What China
is doing right now is setting up various positions in the South
China Sea and building them into robust points of control.
Starting from this, China
wants to create a situation that will lead people to look at the propensity of
things and think that China China China
The argument often made is that if China China China and China
is not preparing for the moment when you have real fighting across the ocean
between those islands and the mainland of Vietnam ,
the Philippines or Malaysia Vietnam ,
Malaysia or the Philippines China
to control the South China Sea, even though they don’t engage in a military
clash and it changes the calculus by other claimants due to China China China is
already the dominant force in the South China Sea .
Meanwhile, the U.S. is far
away, it does not have any bases there so when it comes to real clashes, China
Another aspect are the legal implications of the island
buildup. Obviously, if you look at Art. 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of
the Sea, it states that an island is a naturally formed area of land that is
above water at high tide.[6] If you want to have a 200 nm EEZ extending from
this feature, it has to classify as such an island. It further has to be able
to sustain human habitation on this island and an economic life of its own. Now
what China is doing is to transform those rocks, which were mostly submerged
decades ago, into islands. While a court may argue that these are not naturally
formed as they have been submerged, it is going to be a very complicated and
prolonged process. China is not preparing for that, it has from the very
beginning refused to go to the court.
Instead, it is creating facts on the ground so that it can
claim that these are islands and generate a 200 nm EEZ. There are previous
examples for that. The Japanese build-up of the Okinotori features is a
precedent for the transformation of rocks into islands and the claim of the 200
nm EEZ around that feature, even though China and South Korea see it just as a
rock.[7] I would not be surprised if China in the next few years would claim
that these features are islands and that they have their 200 nm EEZ. It is not
legal and other countries would be opposed to that and dispute it. However,
until you get to a court you don’t have a final judgment on whether it is a
rock or an island or whether they are entitled to the EEZ. So it is up to the
most powerful player in the region to unilaterally enforce its claims. China is
the most powerful nation and can theoretically do this.
This is very similar to the nine-dashed line.[8] The
nine-dashed line is perhaps the most ridiculous issue in international legal
affairs. But China says it is there, and it enforces it. The U.S. State
Department recently published a study on the nine-dashed line.[9] One reason I
see in that was to expose the inconsistency in China’s nine-dashed line as
there are different versions of it. The comparison of those differing versions
shows the world that this is even more ridiculous. But again it reflects a
perspective, which is strictly legalistic. What China is doing is different and
more practice and history oriented. It is also related to China’s argument
about its historical rights and the historical waters in the South China
Sea.[10]
In that context, for an outsider it is always
interesting to see what little role ASEAN actually plays, compared to what role
it could potentially play. Do you see any chance that the change of leadership
within ASEAN and the Chinese behavior in the South China Sea lead to a more
active ASEAN?
ASEAN is deeply divided over the issues of the South China
Sea. Recently Cambodia embraced the Chinese perspective on the South China Sea
saying that the dispute is a bilateral issue between the claimants, not
involving ASEAN.[11] If you have member states such as Cambodia, Laos and
Brunei that are increasingly influenced by China, then ASEAN is as a whole, as
an organization that operates on the principle on consensus, unable to move an
inch on these issue. With the increasing influence of China, ASEAN is going to
be less and less relevant to the South China Sea issues. I can imagine some
mini-ASEAN organized as a cooperation arrangement among some of the members of
ASEAN like Vietnam, the Philippines and probably in the far future Malaysia,
Indonesia and Singapore, which may have some impact on the disputes in the
South China Sea. But ASEAN as an organization is going to be less relevant
particularly because of this Division.
So the countries have two options: waiting for the
tactic of China to materialize or they have to come closer to the U.S.?
The countries that are faced with the challenge of China in
the South China Sea are not sitting idly by. Parallel with the Chinese
salami-slicing in the South China Sea, we are also witnessing a similar
incremental creeping rapprochement and coalition building among the states that
are facing a similar Chinese challenge: Vietnam, the Philippines in Southeast
Asia and the U.S., Japan and India outside of the region. But also countries
such as Indonesia, Singapore and Australia, which share some interest with the
core group in counteracting China’s expansion in the South China Sea and the
East China Sea, are coming closer together. There is a general process of
rapprochement among those countries, particularly the Philippines, Vietnam, the
U.S., Japan and India.
Would you argue that there is any hope for the legal
claims by the Philippines and Vietnam against China to have an impact or is it
a more symbolic protest given that China is opposed to arbitration on these
issues?
It will have some impact. Any legal challenge to China’s
position in the South China Sea will have an impact, although we are not sure
about the degree and timing of it. It is not just a symbolic gesture because it
will influence the mainstream opinion in the world. It is important to count
world opinion, meaning the mainstream opinion of the majority of people in the
international media. If China is faced with a very unfavorable opinion, then
that is putting pressure on China to react. As an example, in the legal process
the Philippines has initiated, the court will decide on whether to make a
verdict or not.[12] Even though a potential verdict of the court would not be
implemented by China on the ground, it would have an impact on world opinion.
Whatever the court would say would be regarded as the truth or at least as the
most authoritative judgment of the situation. If the court says that the
nine-dashed line is illegal, China will face heightened pressure from world
opinion. So even though China does not accept the court’s verdict and
criticizes the court, for the rest of the world, China is on the wrong side of
history. The same goes for any legal actions other countries could initiate
against China in the South China Sea.
When looking at the region and what the claims are
about, things come to mind such as fisheries, sea lanes of communication and
fossil fuels. What do you think is the driver for the main claimants Vietnam,
the Philippines and China?
This is very complicated. The prevalent narrative in the
international press is that it is all about oil or resources.[13] But I think
this issue is highly complex because of the long history of dispute and because
of the complexity of interests by the claimant states. Initially, the
Philippines got interested in the Spratly Islands during the 1960s and 1970s.
The initial primary interest of the Philippines was resource related, it was
about oil. The story is similar for Malaysia, which also started to claim the
Spratly Islands in the 1970s and 1980s after UNCLOS was signed and when the
prospect for oil was good from Malaysia’s perspective.
But for China and Vietnam the story is much more complex.
Vietnam for example can look back several centuries on their interests in the
South China Sea. If you look at the documents of the Vietnamese Nguyễn dynasty
of the 19th century, which addresses issues related to the Paracel islands,
then you can see that their primary interest is security. They considered the
Paracel islands as critical in the defense of the coastline back in the 19th
century. In the early 20th century, when China turned to the South China Sea
and developed primary interests in the small islands there and dispatched
vessels to survey them, it was also primarily for security reasons. It was back
then when Japan was sailing south through the South China Sea, expanding
territories along the way. So China felt it should take control of those areas
to feel more secure vis-à-vis Japanese expansionism in the Western Pacific. For
both China and Vietnam the initial issue was security.
Then you have the age of oil, the discovery of resources,
technologies that can explore the seabed and UNCLOS which gives you 200 nm off
your coast that you own economically and where you can explore the resources.
That area is in some cases bigger than the mainland of the littoral states.
Therefore, they developed an interest in the resources. Oil also is a factor in
there, but for China in terms of resources something different than oil and gas
is much more interesting: ice crystals containing gas.[14] With the current
technology it cannot yet be commercially extracted, but in China there is the
belief that methane hydrate can be the fuel source of the 21st century and the
Chinese have discovered some areas in the South China Sea where they can mine
this type of methane.[15] The picture becomes more complicated with the
discovery of new hydrocarbons and the development of technology.
Another factor that also fuels regional tensions is
nationalism. When the South China Sea becomes a hot spot for conflict, it
arouses patriotic sentiments, and indeed even for nations like the Philippines
that don’t have nationalism as strong as the Vietnamese and the Chinese, they
also developed some patriotic sentiments related to the South China Sea. The
Philippines for example renamed the South China Sea into West Philippine
Sea[16] and for some Filipinos the Sea has become a symbol of their nation’s
ability to stand up to China. It was already a symbol for the Vietnamese
resistance to China. When you look at Vietnam’s long history of living with
China, any kind of conflict with its neighbor easily became a symbol of
nationalism and national identity, whereby the Vietnamese are very proud of
being able to resist China. For China itself it is about territorial integrity,
their ability to stand up to Western powers, to readdress the century of
humiliation. So we have patriotic sentiments and symbolism that are being
fueled by the South China Sea issue.
A fourth factor that is more pronounced for China is the
strategic location of the South China Sea. There is a concentration of sea
lanes of communication (SLOC) between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.
80% of the oil supplies to Japan and about the same to China, Taiwan and South
Korea pass through the South China Sea, as does half of Asia’s commodity trade.
For a global power such as the U.S., the South China Sea sits in the middle of
the most critical SLOC between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is
therefore not just about resources, nationalism and security or defense of the
mainland. The South China Sea is very important for any country that aspires to
become the main power in Asia. To paraphrase Mackinder, the father of
geopolitics, whoever controls the South China Sea, will dominate East Asia.[17]
With the rise of Asia and the concentration of wealth, manufacturing and
economic power in East Asia, whoever dominates this region will rule the world
during the 21st century.
U.S.-China Relations
Analyzing China-U.S. relations, how do you assess the
new type of great power relations[18] that has been highlighted a lot in China?
I think this is a Chinese device to deceive the U.S.
Initially it was proposed by China to reset and redefine the relationship with
the U.S., to build an unprecedented relationship between the two most important
powers in the world, different from the typical relationship between great
powers during the past. The U.S. was lured to that device initially, but after
a while it realized that this is just a trap. What China wants with this is not
a new type of relationship, it is about the U.S. acknowledgement of China’s
core interest. That is the idea behind the Chinese proposal. Obviously, China’s
core interests as defined by China are something the U.S. cannot fully accept.
The U.S. can accept some of it, but not all. Today, the U.S. no longer resorts
to that narrative. You can hear Chinese leaders talk about it, but not any U.S.
interrogators.
Thank you very much for the interview.
This article was originally published by IR.ASIA at
http://www.international-relations.asia/alexander-vuving-apcss/#_ftn5.
_______________________________________________
[1] More about Dr. Alexander Vuving at:
http://www.apcss.org/college/faculty/vuving/.
[2] Additionally, one can look to the game weiqi as
a means to understand China’s grand strategy behind this island building, as
Dr. Vuving further pointed out in his article “China’s Grand-Strategy
Challenge: Creating Its Own Islands in the South China Sea” in The National
Interest of December 8, 2014. The article is available here:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/chinas-grand-strategy-challenge-creating-its-own-islands-the-11807.
[3] Much of The Art of War is about how to outsmart the
opponent without having to actually engage in war. To read more about this
military strategy and how it is used today by China’s officials:
http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/sun-tzu-and-the-art-of-soft-power/.
[4] The definition of an island and the resulting right to
an EEZ according to Art. 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea will be
the subject later on in this interview.
[5] More about the land reclamation on Fiery Cross Reef and
an assessment of the situation at:
http://www.janes.com/article/46083/china-building-airstrip-capable-island-on-fiery-cross-reef.
[6] Art. 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea can
be accessed here: http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part8.htm.
[7] An overview over the current state of the Okinotori
Islands and the corresponding claims is given at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/business/energy-environment/growing-coral-to-keep-a-sea-claim-above-water.html?_r=0
.
[8] A first overview over the nine-dash line is given by the
CFR here: http://www.cfr.org/china/south-china-sea-tensions/p29790.
[9] The U.S. State Department publication on Limits in the
Seas (No. 143) “China: Maritime Claims in the South China Sea” can be accessed
here http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/234936.pdf.
[10] The issue of historic waters is also discussed in the
previously mentioned State Department publication.
[11] More on Cambodia’s endorsement of China’s position that
the South China Sea disputes cannot be solved through ASEAN:
http://www.voanews.com/content/cambodia-publicly-endorses-china-position-on-south-china-sea/2694301.html.
[12] More on the arbitration case of the Philippines against
China in this article: http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/philippines-counters-china-in-new-south-china-sea-case-submission/.
[13] For an overview over the natural resource potential
expected in the South China Sea, refer to the website of the Energy Information
Administration: http://www.eia.gov/countries/regions-topics.cfm?fips=scs.
[14] Methane hydrate presents as ice crystals with natural
methane gas locked inside. They are found primarily on the edge of continental
shelves where the seabed drops sharply into the ocean floor. For a map of
potential reserves and additional information on this hydrocarbon, please go
to: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27021610.
[15] More about the methane hydrate potential in the South
China Sea:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/8925cbb4-7157-11e3-8f92-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3XuwZ5c4F.
[16] After a standoff with China in the South China Sea, the
Philippines renamed the waters off its coast into West Philippine Sea. More
about this story:
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1035119/philippines-tags-coast-west-philippine-sea.
[17] Halfort Mackinder wrote in his book “Democratic Ideals
and Reality: A Study in the Politics of Reconstruction”: “Who rules East Europe
commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who
rules the World Island commands the World.”
[18] The new type of great power relations (新型大国关系) was the issue of many
discussions including:
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142178/andrew-s-erickson-and-adam-p-liff/not-so-empty-talk
and http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2014/12/05-chinese-pessimism-american-cynicism-great-power-li-xu.
http://www.thanhniennews.com/commentaries/chinass-sun-tzus-strategy-preparing-for-winning-without-fighting-46787.html
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