From the National Interest (Oct 16):
Think Again: Myths and Myopia about the South China Sea (by Alexander Vuving)
The "chessboard metaphor" won’t help us understand the game China is playing.
As the world sets the spotlight on the South China Sea, myths about this issue also proliferate. Some myths exist because we lack knowledge. But many other myths persist because we use the wrong lens to look at things. The South China Sea conundrum is a challenging story to decipher because most of the common lenses we use do not get us to see the essence of this story.
For example, thinking in black-and-white terms is a useful way to simplify and highlight things, but this lens becomes useless for seeing what happens in the South China Sea, because things there mostly happen in gray zones. Another good way to understand human activities is to think of them as the search for resources. Much of what nations do is a struggle over resources, but if we focus on natural resources, we will lose sight of a key resource in the South China Sea: location.
We often use chess as a metaphor for the game nations play, and the chessboard is our common image of the arena where nations interact. But this metaphor won’t help us understand the game China is playing. As
David Lai and
Henry Kissinger have observed, Chinese strategy resembles not chess but a different Chinese board game named
weiqi (which literally translates as the “game of encirclement” and is known in English under its Japanese name “
go”). The underlying idea of
weiqi is the same as that of Sun Tzu’s
Art of War. Rather than concentrating on frontal battles with the enemy, the idea is to manipulate the propensity of things so that the situation will work for you. As I have shown in
the National Interest, what China has done in the South China Sea is a classic example of how to play
weiqi masterfully.
In a
recent article, Lyle Goldstein has taken up the laudable job of debunking some of the common myths about the South China Sea. He also invited fellow realists to join the discussion. As a South China Sea watcher and a realist myself, I am delighted to accept his invitation. I will present a different realist view, but my purpose is not to make a difference. What I want is to understand what really is going on and its implications for strategy.
Scarborough Shoal
Goldstein dismisses the idea that “
The Obama Administration made a grave mistake during the Scarborough Shoal incident of spring 2012, setting in motion further Chinese ‘aggression.’” His criticism, however, veers far away from the real target and, in the process, propagates two other myths. The first myth is a black-and-white situation where war was the only alternative to what the Obama Administration did. It is probably true, as widely reported, that the Philippine government sought Washington’s military backup under the U.S.-Philippine mutual defense treaty. But this does not mean that the United States had only two choices: going to war to defend its ally or remaining neutral in the conflict. As Bonnie Glaser comments in her
tweet, “[the] US had options other than going to war over Scarborough Shoal. [The] US inaction had consequences.” The cited target of Goldstein’s criticism, Ely Ratner’s article titled “
Learning the Lessons of Scarborough Reef,” also makes it clear that “the threat of large-scale conflict is remote. Instead, regional instability is more likely to derive from disputes and contestation occurring in a gray zone between war and peace.”
The biggest mistake that the Obama Administration made in handling the Scarborough standoff is its acceptance of the role of an honest broker. This is a lofty role, but Washington is structurally ill positioned to play it. The steep asymmetry of capability between China and the Philippines means that by acting as an honest broker, Washington will play into China’s hands and further isolate the Philippines. Indeed, Beijing at times refused to talk to Manila and used the United States to pressure the Philippines to back down. The asymmetry of trust (Manila trusted the mediator much more than Beijing did) also had consequences. Manila apparently interpreted a deal brokered by Washington (and a junior Philippine senator named Antonio Trillanes) as a reciprocal vacation of the area, but in reality Beijing removed only some of its ships while maintaining control of access to the area.
The second myth embraced by Goldstein is that the value of Scarborough Shoal lies in the marine resources of its surrounding area. If only because of the oil and fish there, a big country like China would not put its foreign relations and international reputation at risk. Instead of natural resources, what is worth Beijing’s effort to seize the reef is its location. Lying close to the main shipping routes linking the Malacca Strait in the south and the Taiwan and Luzon Straits in the north, Scarborough Shoal is an ideal place from which to watch and patrol the central eastern sector of the South China Sea. Although the reef is mostly submerged with only a few small rocks above water at high tide, it has the potential to bear an artificial island twice the size of Mischief Reef. China may not have built any structure on Scarborough to date, but this is not a reason for thinking that a man-made island there is a fanciful idea. After all, who had thought in 1995, when China started to occupy Mischief Reef, that 20 years later this submerged atoll would become the largest island in the Spratlys with a ground area of nearly 1,400 acres?
Another “myth” lambasted by Goldstein is that “China’s building projects in the Spratly’s [sic] amount to new ‘bases’ and are extensive enough to alter the regional balance of power.” He argues that the artificial islands there are too vulnerable to attacks in wartime and thus can only be “outposts of a merely symbolic nature.” I agree with the former part of this argument but disagree with the latter.
China’s outposts in the middle of the ocean may not be as vulnerable as some thought. If war breaks out, China can declare that it makes no difference between an attack on these islands and an attack on its mainland. This will cause everyone to think twice before launching an assault on the islands. Nevertheless, as I have noted in
the National Interest and
elsewhere, China does not prepare for an all-out war when building islands and facilities in the Spratlys. Its overall strategy in the South China Sea follows Sun Tzu’s dictum of “winning without fighting.” The artificial islands can serve as strong points of control, robust hubs of logistics, and effective bases of power projection in peacetime and in gray zones between war and peace.
Due to their strategic locations and logistic capacity, the islands in China’s hands will be large platforms from which a myriad of fishing boats, law enforcement vessels, warships and aircraft can dominate the waters and the skies of the South China Sea. For now, Beijing’s goal appears to be naval and air supremacy in times when the United States is not militarily involved. Vietnam’s ability to strike Chinese outposts is heavily limited by the possibility of China’s retaliation along their 1,450-kilometer land border. Four airfields at the Paracel and Spratly Islands will be able to add thirty to forty more to the number of fourth-generation aircraft that China can operate at the same time in the South China Sea. This will enable China to gain air superiority over Vietnam and Malaysia, the largest air forces among its Southeast Asian rivals. Vietnam enjoys a long coastline on the South China Sea but has only thirty-five fourth-generation aircraft for the entire country. Malaysia lies far to the south and has no more than forty-four fourth-generation aircraft for the entire country. Although China’s military assets on the South China Sea islands will be highly vulnerable in wartime, they can be very useful for peacetime patrolling and psychological intimidation.
Island Building
The popular phrase “land reclamation” does to convey the essence of China’s construction activities in the South China Sea. What Beijing is doing in the Spratly Islands is not merely land reclamation but changing geography. Ian Storey has called it “
terraforming.” Carl Thayer has argued that it’s not land reclamation but “
excising the maritime heart out of Southeast Asia.” The regional balance of power may not have changed very much, but the regional geography is being transformed. And the new geography will allow China to upset the regional balance.
Supporting Allies and Partners
I agree with Goldstein (and many others) that Washington’s support for the Southeast Asian claimants of territory in the South China Sea will create incentives for them to be more assertive and aggressive. But I disagree with the conclusion that the United States would better keep its hands out of the South China Sea.
First, the incentive coming from Washington’s support is only one of many incentives and disincentives that are faced by the Southeast Asian states in their struggle with China. A huge disincentive is the insurmountable asymmetry of capabilities that puts China in an extremely advantageous position vis-à-vis the Southeast Asian states. Without Washington’s support, the Philippines—militarily poorly equipped and politically loosely coherent—will easily succumb to Chinese domination, as it eventually did in the Scarborough crisis.
Second, the risk of a direct conflict between Washington and Beijing exists even without U.S. support for its allies and partners in the region. The territorial dispute in the South China Sea represents just the tip of the iceberg; buried under the surface is a more strategic competition for supremacy in the Western Pacific. China and the United States are the two major contestants in this competition, though other nations including Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and India also have significant roles to play.
Having no permanent presence in the South China Sea and with a home base far away, the United States has to rely on Vietnam, the Philippines and to a lesser extent Malaysia to keep the regional balance of power from tilting too far in favor of China. In this regard, American and Southeast Asian interests are complementary rather than conflicting. Helping allies and partners is also an economic way to serve U.S. interests in the region. The real question here is not whether, but how America should support its allies and partners in the South China Sea. There are multiple options to consider in addressing this question, and a direct Sino-American conflict is a risk to prevent, not a logical consequence of U.S. support for allies and partners in conflict with China.
Freedom of Navigation and Regional Leadership
But why must the United States compete for supremacy in the Western Pacific? The near-standard answer is that America has a national interest in freedom of navigation and U.S. military supremacy in these waters is the best guarantee for that. I think this answer has flaws, but not for the reasons offered by Goldstein. First, although the United States has an important interest in the South China Sea, freedom of navigation is not the best term for this interest. Second, there is another reason for the United States to compete for supremacy in the Western Pacific. Let me explain.
The term “freedom of navigation” is a bad choice of words. Its meaning varies according to the legal position or the national perspective you take. What is at stake here is not so much freedom of navigation as an actual situation, but the right of free access to the waters and skies in this crowded area. There is a crucial difference between Chinese and U.S. commitments to “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. This difference stems from the fundamental fact that while the United States upholds the notion of the global commons, China cherishes the idea of the “nine-dash line.” With this idea, Beijing considers the domain indicated by the “nine-dash line” as something like a sovereign realm it has lost to others and it is entitled to get back. China and the United States may share the same view when it comes to nautical freedom in most maritime areas on earth, but the South China Sea is a special case because of the “nine-dash line.” While Washington acknowledges the right of everyone, even its enemies, to freely access the waters and skies in this region, Beijing reserves the right to itself. When China says it guarantees freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the tacit understanding is that as a benevolent power, it opens its gates to everybody, but others must respect its sovereignty.
China is far from being able to control all the “gates” along the “nine-dash line,” and even if it can do so, it will not close these “gates.” After all, China has an enormous vested interest in keeping the flow of commerce through the South China Sea unimpeded. The threat posed by China to freedom of navigation and overflight in this area affects the normative basis of this freedom more than the practical situation. If the Chinese Navy becomes the custodian of nautical freedom in these waters, most vessels, most of the time, can still sail through them unhindered, but that is not because nations enjoy the objective right of free access, but because they enjoy China’s subjective benevolence, which at times can be selective and arbitrary. This subtle detail may not be important for insurance and shipping companies, but it will have far-reaching consequences for world politics. It means that in the regional order underwritten by China international law must yield to Chinese policy.
Even if China will behave the same as the United States does, Chinese supremacy in the East and South China Seas will still pose a grave threat to U.S. leadership in the region. The concentration in this domain of Asia’s chief arteries means that, to paraphrase Harold Mackinder, he who controls the East and South China Seas, dominates Asia; and with the rise of Asia, he who dominates this region, commands the world. For seventy years since the last days of World War II, U.S. naval supremacy in the Western Pacific has enabled Washington to play a leadership role in Asia. For its part,
China has increasingly exhibited the conviction that its road to Asian primacy also runs through supremacy in these waters.
U.S.-China War
If a showdown between these two contenders cannot be avoided, who will defeat whom? I agree with Goldstein that the outcome of a U.S.-China war is highly uncertain. With all its advantages in technology, the United States suffers from enormous disadvantages in geography.
If the chance of a U.S. defeat is comparable to that of a Chinese defeat, Washington will have to rethink its grand strategy. Deterrence will be a very weak pillar in U.S. strategy. Washington must rely on balancing, not deterrence or mediation, as the primary ethos of its diplomacy and strategic planning. As war is both something that must be avoided and something that may not be won, U.S. strategic planning must shift focus from war to the gray zones between war and peace.
The United States may not need to use a lot of its high-tech gears either. What it needs to do more is to remedy its geographic disadvantages by playing the “game of encirclement” as skillfully as China does. It will need to help littoral states such as Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia to strengthen their defense capabilities, both military and nonmilitary, and to join forces in a strong coalition. Perhaps the biggest myth of all in relation to Asian security today is that the United States cannot and should not contain China.
[Alexander L. Vuving is a Professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies. The views expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect those of the DKI-APCSS, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. He tweets @Alex_Vuving.]
http://nationalinterest.org/profile/alexander-vuving
