South China Sea

This summer, an increasing number of Chinese tech companies have been pulled into geopolitical incidents involving Beijing.

Huong Le Thu is a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. July 2020 marked a significant shift in developments regarding the South China Sea. The Trump administration announced a series of high-level statements that explicitly reject China’s maritime claims in the South China Sea as inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The U.S. statements further reaffirm the 2016 tribunal ruling, from The Hague, against China’s claims. The U.S. shift from being officially neutral and not taking the side of claimant states in the South China Sea to rejecting Beijing’s claims as unlawful and excessive are advantageous to the Southeast Asian claimant states. Yet, across Southeast Asian capitals, views on the United States’ new statements are divided. A few have publicly and directly referred to the statements, but many are worried that the United States’ seeming position change is less related to upholding international law and has more to do with Washington trying to escalate tensions with China. Marking the fourth anniversary of the 2016 tribunal ruling in the South China Sea case between the Philippines and China, on July 13 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared the “U.S. Position on Maritime Claims in the South China Sea.” The statement issued by Pompeo reiterated support for the 2016 ruling and for the 1982 UNCLOS but stood out from previous U.S. statements by explicitly saying, “[China] has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region” and that the “PRC’s maritime claims…have no basis in international law.” (Notably, the United States has never ratified UNCLOS.) The following day, the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, David Stillwell, opened the tenth annual South China Sea conference at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he doubled-down on the newly forceful U.S. approach to the South China Sea. He named instances in which Beijing reportedly has denied Southeast Asian neighbors’ access to resources in the Southeast Asian states’ claimed exclusive economic zones. A week later, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper spoke to an International Institute for Strategic Studies audience, in lieu of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, where he reaffirmed the United States’ intention to keep sending naval assets to the South China Sea to counter China’s increasingly assertive behavior. Australia also has become more assertive in pushing back regarding the South China Sea. Canberra issued a Note Verbale to the United Nations on July 23, the wording of which was very similar to the U.S. State Department’s statement. The timing of Australia’s note attracted attention; it preceded the 2020 Australia-United States Ministerial Consultation—the bilateral 2+2 meetings in Washington that included Pompeo, Esper, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Marise Payne and Australian Minister for Defense Linda Reynolds. The note also was publicized soon after Canberra launched a new Strategic Update 2020 and Force Structure Plan, which articulated Australia’s growing concerns about China and Australia’s planned stronger defense posture. The recent shifts in Washington and Canberra are neither novel nor surprising. They reiterate in a more decisive language the positions that both the United States and Australia have held regarding the 2016 ruling. Given the deteriorating trajectories of both countries’ relations with China, the statements are not sudden either. Nevertheless, they mark an important milestone regarding the South China Sea. They are clearer in their rejection of China’s claims and explicit support for the role international law. These developments have been welcomed by the Vietnamese government, even though Vietnam’s foreign affairs spokesperson has remained restrained in responding to the U.S. and Australian moves. There are many reasons for Vietnam to be enthusiastic about this shift in U.S. and Australian rhetoric regarding the South China Sea. With other Southeast Asian claimant states like the Philippines and Malaysia limiting their public critiques of China’s actions, Vietnam increasingly felt isolated regionally. Given global attention to COVID-19, and China’s influence over Southeast Asian states, Vietnam’s recent efforts to attract greater international attention to what it perceives as Chinese abuses and coercion in the South China Sea seemed futile to Hanoi, at least until recently. And without any limits on Beijing’s actions, Vietnam has suffered both strategically and economically. Meanwhile, the repercussions of Beijing’s continued economic pressure and the limits to Vietnam’s exploration of oil and gas within its claimed exclusive economic zones have cost the country, according to one estimate, roughly $1 billion. However, just because Hanoi welcomes tougher U.S. and Australian rhetorical approaches to the South China Sea does not necessarily mean Vietnam will use this moment to launch long-considered litigation against China or even fast-track a U.S.-Vietnam strategic partnership that would build on the existing U.S.-Vietnam comprehensive partnership. Hanoi will refrain from major decisions until the U.S. presidential election is decided, and still worries that Washington is taking this approach to the South China Sea to escalate tensions with Beijing. It hopes, however, that the new U.S. and Australian statements will mean a clear commitment by these two powers to a more forceful approach to the South China Sea. What follows now becomes a test for Vietnam’s diplomatic and strategic skills. Hanoi needs to embrace this potential shift in external actors’ approach to the South China Sea, but also avoid the pitfalls created by warring giants.

The risk of a military confrontation between the United States and China in the South China Sea is growing. In a new Center for Preventive Action report, Oriana Skylar Mastro details how the United States could prevent a clash, or take steps to de-escalate if one should occur.

The risk of a military confrontation between the United States and China in the South China Sea is growing. In a new Center for Preventive Action report, Oriana Skylar Mastro details how the United States could prevent a clash, or take steps to de-escalate if one should occur.

Responses to China’s post-COVID overtures are largely falling along pre-existing political fault lines.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in Southeast Asia, where the pandemic recently has hit Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines (as well as other regional states like Singapore) hard, has not stopped jockeying over the South China Sea. In fact, while handing out COVID-19 aid to Southeast Asian states—and many other countries—Beijing reportedly has upped its pressure on other claimant states in the South China Sea. It has sailed the survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 off the Malaysian coast, to closely shadow a Malaysian ship exploring for state oil giant Petronas, in waters near areas claimed by both Malaysia and Vietnam. The actions by the Haiyang Dizhi 8, which previously shadowed Vietnamese ships in waters claimed by Vietnam, are hardly China’s only sign that it is stepping up its pressure in the South China Sea. The New York Times reports that last weekend Beijing “announced that it had formally established two new districts in the South China Sea that include dozens of contested islets and reefs.” In recent months, Chinese vessels and forces also have conducted new exercises in the Sea, made incursions into waters claimed by Indonesia and near the Natuna Islands, and, according to Hanoi, rammed and sunk a Vietnamese ship, among other steps. To some extent, Beijing may be trying to gain advantage at a time when the locus of the pandemic has shifted to other countries and away from China. It is doing so even if this attempt undercuts China’s efforts to gain regional and global goodwill through aid to neighboring states and promoting China’s cooperation with other countries in the fight against COVID-19.   At the least, Beijing may be wanting to demonstrate that COVID-19 has not incapacitated its increasingly powerful naval, coast guard, and air forces. Outside of the South China Sea, Beijing is appearing to demonstrate force too: In recent months, Chinese military aircraft also have flown close enough to Taiwan to lead Taiwanese forces to intercept them. As Richard Heydarian notes, many Southeast Asian civilian and military leaders are basically incapacitated, sick themselves or in self-isolation, leaving countries like the Philippines—which already was tilting toward Beijing and has little ability to protect its South China Sea claims anyway—with even less ability to defend itself. (Philippine army chief Felimon Santos Jr. has been diagnosed with COVID-19.) Even if Southeast Asian leaders themselves are not isolating, many of their senior military staff are, and civilian leaders are focused on the pandemic, creating a distraction that has become a potential opportunity for China. Or, the continued assertiveness in the South China Sea shows the bottom line, indeed, is that no crisis, no matter how large, will stop Beijing from advancing its regional agenda. Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines—all increasingly dependent on Chinese investment and infrastructural aid—have mostly tried to stay mum about China’s assertive actions, even as some military leaders in these countries want to push back harder. At this point, it seems unlikely that U.S. forces can deter Beijing, despite the Trump administration’s intensive pushback in the South China Sea, which recently has included sending the U.S. ships America and Bunker Hill (along with Australian vessels) into waters near Malaysia.

Singapore, one of the world’s wealthiest and most trade-dependent countries, punches above its weight in regional and global affairs.

The People’s Liberation Army is aiming to become the dominant force in the Asia-Pacific, strengthening China’s hand toward Taiwan and international disputes in the South China Sea.

This year, an armed confrontation over disputed maritime areas in the South China Sea was included as a top tier priority in the Center for Preventive Action’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey.

Indonesia’s high-stakes vote for president is likely to result in more political stagnation for the world’s third-largest democracy.

Developments in conflicts across the world that you might have missed this week.

This year, an armed confrontation over disputed maritime areas in the South China Sea was included as a top tier priority in the Center for Preventive Action’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey.