The Battle With China At Scarborough Shoal: Why Republican Senators Should Ratify UNCLOS

From Forbes (Jun 20): The Battle With China At Scarborough Shoal: Why Republican Senators Should Ratify UNCLOS (By Anders Corr)

I worked in military intelligence for five years, including on nuclear weapons, terrorism, cyber-security, border security, and counter-insurgency. I covered and visited Asia and Europe, and worked in Afghanistan for one and a half years. I have a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University, and a B.A. and M.A. in international relations from Yale University (Summa cum laude). My company, Corr Analytics, provides political risk analysis to commercial, non-profit, and media clients, and publishes the Journal of Political Risk. I am editing a series on the South China Sea conflict, and have covered and visited Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

• China’s four-year occupation of the shoal, since April 2012, is a smear on the U.S. as a reliable ally.
• The U.S. and our allies need to get tough to stop the remarkable 20th and 21st century loss of  land and maritime territory to China.

 

A mid-sized Chinese Coast Guard vessel guns its engines to create waves near our fishing boat at Scarborough Shoal on June 12, 2016 — Philippines Independence Day. This violently rocked our boat. Pictured on the Hannie John are a fisherman securing barrels of diesel, and an activist struggling to maintain his footing. Other activists are shown in the background. Anders Corr.

 

The South China Sea conflict is heating up again ahead of the July 7 ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague. The ruling will hopefully use the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to invalidate China’s expansive nine-dash line, end the China-led arms race in Asia, and stop environmentally destructive artificial island-building in the South China Sea .

Republican Senators are partly to blame for Asia’s current instability. China defends its maritime expansion, which violates UNCLOS, by pointing to the failure of the U.S. to ratify the convention. President Obama and Senate Democrats strongly support ratification, and would do it tomorrow if given the chance. Yet about 34 Republicans in the Senate — enough to block the ⅔ required for ratification — continue their short-sighted refusal to take this crucial step.

Partly as a result, China has built artificial islands in the Spratlys, stocked them with weaponry, and maintained a naval and coast guard presence at Scarborough Shoal, just 123 miles from the strategic naval port of Subic Bay in the Philippines. Scarborough Shoal is also called Bajo de Masinloc and Panatag Shoal by the Philippines. China has plans to dredge and build an artificial island on Scarborough, and build floating nuclear power plants to service the islands. Airstrips on China’s new islands are now being used by military jets that can as a result reach more deeply into the territories of our ASEAN allies.

I know about China’s aggressive occupation of Scarborough first-hand. I visited the largely submerged shoal for about four hours on June 12. Two Chinese cutters loaded with guns, and three other Chinese Coast Guard boats, threatened our 90′ Philippine wooden fishing boat as soon as we arrived, including through charges that brought us within a few yards of their much larger steel boats. At times the Chinese came so close to ramming us at high speed that our crew — 15 Philippine activists, 12 Philippine fishermen, and me — went scrambling for life jackets and hand-holds.   ”Maiwo Maiwo!” the Chinese yelled at us, which means “Halt! Halt!” And in English they yelled, “Go Home!” and, “This is China!”

Five Philippine activists — most in their 20s and all highly idealistic — tried to swim to the shoal and raise Philippine flags. Two made it past the Chinese speedboats that backed their spraying propellers towards the swimmers as close as 3′, threatening their lives. Had a swimmer moved erratically, or the Chinese pilot lost control of his speedboat for a split second, one of our swimmers could easily have died.

 

After we fished, swam, ate, danced, and raised the flag at the shoal, all under the scowls of Chinese sailors, it was time to go home and post the photos and video we had recorded of Chinese aggression against Philippine nationals in their own exclusive economic zone. We won some public sympathy on social media for the Philippines on June 12, Philippines Independence Day, but China’s boats continue to intimidate regular Filipino fishermen from Masinloc, Palauig, Iba, and Botolan who would hope to fish at Scarborough.

China’s four-year occupation of the shoal, since April 2012, is a smear on the U.S. as a reliable ally. Like our failure to protect Ukraine per the Budapest Agreement of 1994, our allies around the world have taken notice. We should live up to the Mutual Defense Treaty we signed with the Philippines in 1951 and immediately place U.S. naval forces at the shoal to stop China’s planned island building there.


The U.S. and our allies need to get tough to stop the remarkable 20th and 21st century loss of  land and maritime territory to China. Tibet, Xinjiang Province, and now Hong Kong and the South China Sea are being lost through conquest, slight of hand, ethnic and political assimilation, and gradualist salami tactics. India is straining to keep control of Arunachal Pradesh in the Himalayas, and Japan must constantly scramble jets and naval forces to defend the East China Sea and Senkaku Islands.

Every territorial conquest that China makes emboldens and strengthens them more. If the Republicans don’t ratify UNCLOS, and President Obama doesn’t get much tougher much faster on China, our allies could lose valuable and empowering territory, the U.S. could lose allies, and our nation could inexorably slip into second-place among superpowers.

I don’t think that is the Republican intention by continuing to refuse ratification of UNCLOS. But that is the effective tendency to which our failure to embrace a rules-based international order leads. While we are still ahead of China, let’s make the rules. Because if China takes the lead, their rules will not support our values of a diverse and rule-based international order of democratic states bound by human rights.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr/2016/06/20/the-battle-with-china-at-scarborough-shoal-why-republican-senators-should-ratify-unclos/#13e4b6b87b32