THE PERFECT STORM ASEAN adrift in South China Sea
By David Brown
The dispute over sovereignty of the South China Sea that has flared up in
recent weeks has become more than a neighborhood spat - it's also shaping up
into a practical test of the notion that the United States and China can evolve
a relationship that is "positive, cooperative and comprehensive".
The territorial dispute has festered for years for the 10-member Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a chronic but not crippling disability. Now,
China's harassment of oil and gas survey ships in Vietnamese and Philippine
claimed waters has returned the South China Sea issues to a critical state. And
Beijing's brazen challenge to a code of conduct agreement concluded by ASEAN in
2002 tests the grouping's continued
relevance in regional security matters.
The interplay of these circumstances frames the agenda and underlines the
importance of pending multilateral meetings. On the near term horizon is the
Asian Regional Forum in Bali, Indonesia, which will bring together ASEAN and
other countries' foreign ministers from July 22-23. Indonesia will also host
regional and global leaders at the East Asia Summit in mid-November.
That's a dicey proposition, according to Indonesia researcher Maria Monica
Wihardja. "While the US wants nothing less than to bring hard security issues
to the table - including free navigation and the avoidance of hegemonic
dominance over the South China Sea - China will do anything to avoid this," she
wrote for the East Asia Forum website, noting that Chinese premier Wen Jiabao,
during a recent visit to Indonesia, reiterated that ASEAN should remain in the
East Asian Summit's "driver's seat".
Last year's Asian Regional Forum featured a dramatic clash between China and
the US. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reemphasized the US's strategic
interests in the South China Sea. Her statement was praised by six of the 10
ASEAN members; and Chinese minister Yang Jiechi correctly sensed that he had
been ambushed.
China has since seemed intent on demonstrating its growing capacity to
challenge oil and gas exploration by neighboring nations, both in waters
contested with Japan as well as in the South China Sea. On June 15, the day its
newest patrol ship, the 3,000 ton, helicopter-toting Haisun 31, left
Guangzhou on a high-profile visit to Singapore, Maritime Surveillance Force
(CMS) officials briefed plans to expand by another two-thirds from its current
260 vessels and nine aircraft by 2020.
In the recent clashes in the South China Sea, China contended that its forces
were the victims of Philippine and Vietnamese aggression, a claim refuted by
video of some incidents. Questioned about the incidents, Chinese naval officers
disclaimed responsibility; it was a police (CMS) matter, they said. Meanwhile,
central government spokesmen insisted that the CMS was engaged in "normal law
enforcement ... in China's jurisdictional sea area" and remained committed to
"work together with interested parties to seek a solution to related disputes".
The more charitable explanation of China's behavior came from analysts who said
they saw evidence of policy incoherence. No further clashes have been reported
since June 9. Chinese accounts of meetings on June 25 in Honolulu with senior
US diplomats and in Beijing with a special emissary from Hanoi suggested that
the crisis is over for the time being.
The US reportedly agreed that the one-day Honolulu consultation, an exchange on
policies and objectives looking toward the July 22-23 regional forum, the East
Asia Summit and other multilateral meetings, was "friendly, candid and
constructive". Meanwhile, Chinese state counselor Dai Bingguo and Vietnamese
deputy foreign minister Ho Xuan Son "agreed to speed up consultations over a
pact regarding fundamental principles to direct solving maritime disputes
between Vietnam and China," according to a joint press release.
The upbeat report from Honolulu is not surprising, notwithstanding blunt
warnings by Beijing before the meeting that - other than questions about
freedom of navigation - the US should leave South China Sea matters to claimant
states lest it "get burned by the fire".
Following sharp verbal clashes with China in 2010, including exchanges at the
regional forum in Hanoi, Washington has invested heavily in resetting the
bilateral relationship. President Hu Jintao's state visit in January capped the
reconciliation. Chinese participants declared that the Hu-Obama meetings opened
a new chapter in the bilateral relationship and that constructive relations
between the two powers are essential.
China's ambitions in the South China Sea were, the New York Times noted at the
time, "conspicuously absent" from Hu's agenda during his US state visit. The
Times concluded that Chinese leaders were "happy to let the issue quiet down,
perhaps for sake of smoothing over relations with the Obama administration".
However, China's muscle-flexing in the South China Sea beginning in March
challenged the assumptions on which the Sino-US detente was built.
The acts included harassment of Vietnamese fishermen (now a routine seasonal
occurrence), planting "no trespassing" markers on reefs near the Philippines
and harassment of oil and gas survey ships. These last incidents, involving
attempts to cut the tow cables of two vessels belonging to Vietnam's national
oil company and a third under contract to a Philippine firm, all well within
the 200-mile (321-kilometer) exclusive economic zones (EEZs) claimed by Hanoi
and Manila, were without precedent.
Soft language, hard agenda
With their gaze fixed on the bigger picture, US officials in Washington have
not exactly backed away from the robust principles voiced by Clinton at last
year's Asian Regional Forum, including US readiness to facilitate negotiations
towards a peaceful resolution to the conflicting claims.
Still, the tone of official American comment has been distinctly low-key.
Chinese moves have been characterized as "troubling" when dozens of stronger
adjectives - "egregious" or "provocative" - would have better served.
Washington has taken pains to emphasize that the US "doesn't take sides" in the
territorial dispute. The "take no sides" point is disingenuous provided the US
continues to hold that the competing national claims must be reconciled with
reference to "customary international law".
By this, Washington means the rules for fixing the boundaries of an exclusive
economic zone (EEZ) and a territorial sea that are laid down in UNCLOS, the
United Nations' Law of the Sea Treaty that came into force in 1994 and has been
ratified by 161 nations.
Application of UNCLOS rules to the sea area claimed by China, a vast expanse
stretching 1,000 kilometers south from Hainan Island, would by most
calculations leave it with the northeastern two-thirds of the waters around the
Paracels - the group of islets and reefs in the northern half of the South
China Sea - and none of the waters around the Spratly Islands to the south.
Nor would UNCLOS rules likely allow China to use baselines drawn from Paracels
islets to expand its EEZ. China grounds its claim on evidence of historic
exploitation, implicitly backed up by the fast-growing capabilities of its
naval and maritime security forces.
In the current context, what US diplomats are saying to reporters is not
particularly important if backstage they are busy stiffening ASEAN backbones
and dissuading China from giving in to its worst impulses. Meanwhile, Vietnam
and China have agreed to restart negotiations of a bilateral "agreement on
basic principles guiding the settlement of sea issues", despite the fact
Hanoi's oft-expressed preference is for a multilateral framework.
There is a great deal of institutionalized contact between Chinese and
Vietnamese elites - party to party, ministry to ministry, mass organization to
mass organization, province to adjacent province - and a fair number of leaders
on both sides who have invested in a healthy and stable relationship.
Since early 2010, working level officials have held six rounds of talks aimed
at clarifying positions on sea jurisdiction in the Paracels area, the part of
the South China Sea where only China and Vietnam claim ownership. These talks -
which seem so far to have made little substantive progress - were interrupted
by the current crisis, a coincidence that lends some support to the theory that
the incidents show Beijing's true objectives being undercut by a cabal of
Chinese super-patriots.
True or not, it is unlikely that Beijing will repudiate incidents perpetrated
by its maritime security forces after the fact. Indeed, Chinese spokesmen have
been at pains to portray the recent clashes as justified reactions to
provocations by Vietnam or the Philippines. Thus China has de facto moved
toward a doctrine of intervention to ensure a monopoly right to exploit the
South China Sea's resources anywhere within its notorious "nine dash line"
encompassing the area.
So what can be done to put the tangled claims on a track toward an equitable
resolution grounded in international law? It's up to Indonesia to prove ASEAN's
continued relevance to the disputes by managing the coming Asian Regional Forum
and East Asia Summit meetings to bring about a result, if not a consensus.
Beyond November, ASEAN's chairmanship passes to Cambodia, then to Myanmar and
after that Laos - all perceived as China client states which would be unlikely
to stand up to Beijing's pressure.
A recent editorial in the Jakarta Post suggested a new direction. It argued
that after 10 years of straining to find a lowest common denominator consensus,
ASEAN members ought first come to a common platform on a code of conduct, thus
placing pressure on China to act responsibly as a regional superpower.
As long as ASEAN members cannot agree among themselves, China will find it hard
to resist the temptation to pick off rival claimants one by one. Once the
Philippines and Vietnam have been brought to heel, in divide and rule fashion,
Malaysia and Brunei will be easier to press. Conversely, if the four ASEAN
claimants can settle territorial claims amongst themselves, they will be in a
considerably stronger negotiating position vis-a-vis China. Nor, except for
foot-dragging by China's clients within ASEAN, should dividing up the portion
of the South China Sea that includes the sprawling Spratly archipelago prove so
difficult. All four ASEAN claimants have indicated their willingness to apply
UNCLOS rules; China continues to resist.
David Brown is a retired American diplomat who writes on contemporary
Vietnam. He may be reached at nworbd@gmail.com.
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