Power play in S.China Sea stirs up tension

Ian Storey, For The Straits Times

AT LAST week's Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in Hanoi, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced a major shift in White House policy on the South China Sea dispute. Describing the sea as 'pivotal' to regional security, and freedom of navigation as a US national interest, Mrs Clinton announced that Washington was prepared to play a more proactive role in helping implement confidence-building measures that Asean and China have failed to reach agreement on since 2002.

While some Asean governments will welcome greater US involvement on this issue, China, which has all along opposed the 'internationalisation' of the dispute, definitely will not. As such, the territorial dispute will join the long list of contentious issues in Sino-US relations.

Tensions in the South China Sea over competing sovereignty claims in the Paracel and Spratlys islands have been rising since 2007. One reason has been the adoption by China of a more hard-line stance. In particular, the rapid modernisation of the Chinese Navy has allowed Beijing to increase its military presence in the area, enforce a unilateral fishing ban this summer and escort Chinese fishing trawlers. China's growing assertiveness, and the shifting balance of military power in its favour, has raised concern in South-east Asia and in the United States.

South-east Asian countries had signalled their disquiet even before the ARF meeting. A communique issued by Asean foreign ministers stressed the importance of peace and stability in the South China Sea and highlighted the need to maintain freedom of navigation in an area of vital importance to global maritime trade.

The US expressed its concerns more explicitly. Last week, America's most senior military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, warned that 'China seems to be asserting itself more and more with respect to... territorial claims in islands like the Spratlys', and criticised Beijing's 'more aggressive approach' to the issue.

Until recently, the US had adopted a hands-off approach to the dispute. In the 1990s, Washington declared that it had a vital interest in the maintenance of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, but did not take sides on competing sovereignty claims, opposed the use of force and supported a peaceful resolution in accordance with international law.

Since 2008, however, the US has viewed developments in the South China Sea as undermining its strategic and commercial interests. In January, the top US military officer in the Pacific, Admiral Robert Willard, stated that China's 'aggressive' programme of military modernisation appeared designed to 'challenge US freedom of action in the region, and, if necessary, enforce China's influence over its neighbours'. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last month, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described the dispute as an 'area of growing concern' for America. He said Washington opposed 'any effort to intimidate US corporations or those of any other nation engaged in legitimate economic activity', a reference to attempts by Beijing to put pressure on US energy giant ExxonMobil to suspend development projects off Vietnam's coast in waters claimed by China.

Discussion of the South China Sea at the ARF came as something of a surprise as China has always managed to keep the dispute off the agenda. At last Friday's meeting, however, the US and 11 other countries - including claimants Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei - raised the issue.

Mrs Clinton offered support for the 2002 Asean-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DoC), an agreement designed to promote cooperative confidence building measures. Eight years after the DoC was inked, however, the two sides have yet to reach agreement on how to implement it, partly because China prefers to discuss the issue bilaterally with each of the claimants than with Asean as a group, an approach Asean has rejected as 'divide and rule' tactics.

In a surprise move, Mrs Clinton said the US was prepared to facilitate talks on implementing the DoC. According to press reports, China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi was taken aback that the issue had been raised, and later went on to describe Mrs Clinton's comments as an 'attack' on his country.

Regional anxiety has been animated in part by reports that China has elevated the South China Sea to a 'core' interest on par with Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang. According to The New York Times, senior Chinese officials told their US counterparts in March that the South China Sea was China's 'core interest' - the implication being that the US should not get involved in the dispute.

Two implications flow from this change of policy, if indeed there has been a change: first, that China regards the South China Sea as non-negotiable; and second, that Beijing reserves the right to use force to uphold its claims. Both go against the spirit and letter of the DoC.

China's ambiguity over precisely what it claims in the South China Sea and whether it regards the issue as a core national interest have fuelled concern in Asia and the US. To allay these concerns, Beijing should explain its policy in the South China Sea dispute and how best the problem can be managed and eventually resolved.

China's defence minister will have an opportunity to do so at the inaugural Asean Defence Ministers Meeting Plus in October. He should take it.

The writer is a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.