For a long time, the US has avoided intervening and taking sides in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Instead, it has limited itself to calling for restraint among the concerned parties and insisting they find a peaceful solution. At the heart of US thinking lies the view that the territorial disputes, or indeed open conflict, must not be allowed to affect US navigation rights in the region.
The US, a big maritime nation, still has not signed the UN’s Convention on the Law of the Sea, a clear indication that it is not willing to submit to its restrictions. As countries bordering on the South China Sea have claimed the right to territorial waters extending 12 nautical miles (22.2km) and to an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles, the US has done nothing, and as a consequence we now face competing interpretations of international law.
Because the US does not agree with the UN convention, it does not recognize the territorial water and EEZ claims by the countries in the region. On March 9 last year, as the USNS Impeccable was engaged in ocean surveillance in the South China Sea, 120 nautical miles south of Hainan Island, it was shadowed and harassed by five Chinese vessels. The US Navy was forced to use water cannons in an attempt to repel the vessels. The main cause of this incident was the differing US and Chinese interpretations of the EEZ. China insists the US ship was not allowed to carry out ocean surveys in China’s EEZ, while the US claims that the incident took place in international waters.
Then in June of the same year, a Chinese submarine collided with an underwater sonar dragged by a US Navy vessel in waters close to Subic Bay in the northern Philippines.
There are also less recent examples of incidents resulting from diverging interpretations of international law. In August 1964, two US gunboats were attacked and chased by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin because North Vietnam claimed that the boats had entered the 12 nautical mile zone of North Vietnamese territorial waters, while the US only recognized that territorial waters extend for 3 nautical miles, not 12. The US then used the incident as an excuse to bomb major North Vietnamese cities and military bases and facilities in what became a prelude to the Vietnam War.
US Navy ships in the South China Sea are sent from the Japanese mainland, the Ryukyu Islands or Singapore, mainly to engage in reconnaissance, prevention and investigation. In particular, US activities in the region are aimed at monitoring the movements of Chinese submarines since China in recent years has been building a naval base for nuclear submarines on Hainan Island.
Once US reconnaissance patrols in the South China Sea were blocked by Beijing, the US knew it would no longer be able to stop Beijing from entering the South China Sea, and it therefore had to start cooperating with other countries in the region.
At the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Hanoi last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said solving the territorial disputes over the islands in the South China Sea was in line with US national interests, and that these disputes hindered commercial maritime traffic and blocked other countries from entering what it sees as the international waters in the region. Clinton even went so far as to say that solving the South China Sea disputes was a leading diplomatic priority pivotal to regional security.
She also said the US “does not take sides on the competing territorial disputes over land features in the South China Sea,” and that the US “supports a collaborative diplomatic process by all claimants for resolving the various territorial disputes without coercion.”
The commander of the US 7th Fleet said on Aug. 4 that China should tread carefully in the South China Sea to avoid creating political and security problems. Then on Aug. 18, the US Pacific Command chief, Admiral Robert Willard, said the US would adhere to international precedent in relation to the South China Sea disputes, that it would not side with any party, and that its goal is to maintain security in the strategically important sea.
This series of statements on the South China Sea situation by the US government and military is a reflection of US concern over the region and a willingness to act as a mediator.
Unfortunately, US enthusiasm was met by buckets of cold water from China and the Philippines. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi (楊潔箎) rejected the US statements, saying that sovereignty over the South China Sea belonged to Beijing and that it was one of China’s core interests. Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto Romero said on Aug. 9 that East Asian nations did not need US assistance to solve the South China Sea disputes with Beijing, and that negotiations should only involve ASEAN member states and China, without the participation of the US or any other party.
Last month, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns paid a two-day visit to Cambodia to offer US military aid to the Cambodian army. With US assistance, Cambodia held a military exercise named “Angkor Sentinel.” On Aug. 10, the guided missile destroyer USS John S. McCain stopped in Danang, Vietnam, to take part in a joint US-Vietnamese military exercise. The aircraft carrier USS George Washington and three destroyers took part in the exercise, and the US is currently setting up a military liaison network on the Indochinese peninsula.
The US has already evacuated all its combat troops from Iraq and will also gradually extract itself from Afghanistan. It is now refocusing on East Asia. The US has recently held joint military exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea and with Vietnam in the South China Sea.
This is an indirect reflection of US strategy to “contain” China and North Korea. However, the new containment network differs from the one in place during the Cold War, in that Vietnam no longer functions as a buffer zone, which means the southern Chinese border will directly take the brunt of the US challenge, making it difficult to avoid a clash between the two.
Chen Hurng-yu is a professor in the Graduate Institute of Asian Studies at Tamkang University.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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