South China Sea: US-led Southeast Asian strategy to contain Beijing would ‘complicate’ disputes, Chinese experts warn
- US think tanks and analysts urge Washington to set up joint regional maritime counter-insurgency strategy aimed at containing China’s expansionist moves
- Such a strategy risks making the South China Sea issue more complicated, and even escalating tensions in the region, Chinese expert warns
China has 300 ‘maritime militia’ in Spratlys at any time: US report
Beijing lays claim to nearly all of the strategically important waterway, but this is disputed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
“The US Coast Guard’s participation in the region will definitely make the South China Sea issue more complicated, and even escalate tensions in the region,” a Beijing-based international law expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity, noting that the Chinese maritime militia forces have a geopolitical advantage over their US counterpart.
Zhang Mingliang, specialist in South China Sea studies at Jinan University in Guangzhou, said such a US-led regional framework was likely to restrict Chinese coastguard and maritime militia’s operations in the area.
“Once the US-led regional maritime enforcing mechanism is built, it will post a great threat and challenge to Chinese maritime militia forces,” Zhang said.
“China’s coastguard and maritime militia forces are much stronger and more capable than their counterparts in Southeast Asian countries. But those weak and disorganised regional maritime forces can become a powerful and unified enforcing mechanism if the Americans come to lead them.”
The focus is on “sustained and creative collaboration … within the region and beyond” on advice, training, deployment and capacity-building, according to a Indo-Pacific Strategy fact sheet released by the White House in February.
In a series of recent USNI research articles, American naval experts expanded on the idea of what they called “maritime counter-insurgency”. Many suggested that US Sea Services – made up of its Navy, Marines and Coast Guard – and its Asian partners and allies jointly develop and deploy an actionable strategy, to counter “maritime insurgency operations” conducted by Chinese coastguards and maritime militia.
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Alleging “systematic maritime barbarism” by Chinese coastguard and militia forces to harass and subjugate fishermen in the region, the USNI reports cited Beijing’s moves to mobilise “little blue men” operating in “grey zones” where the US and other countries’ military rules of engagement prevent tough countermeasures.
Such coercive moves, aimed at avoiding costly and hazardous armed conflict over territorial disputes, work to subjugate the more than 3.7 million-strong civilian maritime population of Southeast Asia that depends “on access to the South China Sea for their daily livelihoods”, the reports said.
“[China’s] strategic objective is clear: to overturn the rule of international law that enshrines the long-standing principle of the freedom of the sea, a foundational US national interest,” wrote Hunter Stires, a maritime historical researcher at the US Naval War College.
“To realise this, China does not fight conventionally with the US Navy and its regional partners, but rather circumvents them in the ‘grey zone’ to impose its will directly on the civilians who dwell in places Beijing wishes to make its own.”
Collin Koh, a research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, said Chinese “grey zone” actions in the South China Sea had had direct and indirect impact on the regional fishing industry due to the claimant countries’ overlapping exclusive economic zones.
“Chinese fishers have long enjoyed consistent support from Beijing aimed at encouraging them to go out there to catch ‘patriotic fish’, especially in the form of such incentives as fuel subsidies,” Koh said.
He said the global energy crisis and spiralling fuel prices had caused at least part of the South China Sea fishing fleets of some Southeast Asian parties becoming non-operational, causing them to inevitably concede ground to China.
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Washington’s promotion of its Indo-Pacific Strategy would encourage weaker Southeast Asian countries to work together with the US Coast Guard to mount a “more robust pushback against what they perceive to be increasing Chinese aggression [in the region],” Koh said.
“That said, the extent to which they will cooperate with the US will be tempered by their prevailing national interests, which of course includes seeking to maintain buoyant, at least cordial and productive, broader ties with China,” he added.
The Beijing-based law expert said whether it was the USNI’s “maritime counter-insurgency project” or the White House’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, the Americans were clearly studying how semi-military countermeasures could effectively contain a rising and aggressive China, while looking to avoid all-out armed conflict between the two rival powers.
“As an external country, the most effective way for the US to link up with other claimant states in South China Sea disputes to counter China is by following Beijing’s semi-military operations in the ‘grey zone’,” said the expert, who requested anonymity as he is not authorised to discuss the issue in public.
“But China still has geographic advantage due to its close economic ties with regional countries, letting it take the initiative when dealing with other claimant states during one-on-one bilateral talks.”
Macau-based military observer Antony Wong Tong noted that Beijing’s muscle-flexing in the South China Sea was pushing regional neighbours to seek US protection. “China’s use of its powerful coastguard and maritime militia forces to escort Chinese ocean fishing flotillas has pushed South Korea, Japan and the Philippines to work with the US Coast Guard to protect their fishing boats,” he said.
Zhang said Beijing should offer so-called public goods at sea – infrastructure and facilities promised years ago – to help secure peace, stability and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
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“China should keep its promise and be responsible, letting its neighbours share the developing economic fruits. Otherwise, they are likely to seek support from great powers like the US if they feel insecure when dealing with Beijing,” Zhang warned.