China’s President Xi Jinping has committed himself to the country’s development as a maritime power and to protecting its sovereignty. One can reasonably assume that China’s long-term objective in the South China Sea is the establishment of strategic pre-eminence. That ambition probably extends within the entirety of the so-called ‘”first island chain,” which includes the Taiwan Strait as well as the East China Sea, where a parallel set of maritime tensions with Japan simmer and sometimes threaten to boil over.
But the South China Sea commands a strategic premium as the largest and deepest body of water among China’s “near seas.”
As such, it is the most strategically important sea for China’s navy, a refuge for its nuclear missile submarines to patrol in relative safety, and a buffer against the U.S. and other foreign navies. This essentially defensive objective is what the U.S. military has termed an “anti-access and area denial” strategy.
But the South China Sea also offers a strategically centered location from which China’s naval and air forces are projecting their reach into both the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans. That is why the Peoples Liberation Army’s (PLA) most important naval base faces onto the South China Sea from Hainan Island, and its southern fleet is equipped with the newest and most capable ships, subs, and aircraft.
The South China Sea has direct economic importance to China as a coastal state because of its fisheries and hydrocarbon seabed resources. Chinese state-owned energy companies and fishermen are being encouraged to press farther out, thickening China’s presence across areas of the South China Sea where, despite official assertions of “historical rights,” it has not traditionally operated. This is crowding out competition, irrespective of the suspect legality of Beijing’s claims to island territory and surrounding waters.
The South China Sea matters greatly to all major trading nations, including China, as a globally important route for merchant shipping. All would suffer if commercial access was disrupted – China more than most. That is one reason why Beijing presses its sovereignty claims using tactics that, as much as possible, avoid risking armed conflict or upsetting markets.
China’s creation of several artificial islands, equipped with military-grade runways and other defence-capable infrastructure, is at the heart of its current strategy. Vulnerable in a war with the United States, they can still be used effectively to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian rival claimants, testing their resolve and willingness to contest China’s primacy. These manmade structures add concrete permanence to China’s sketchy “dashed-line” cartographical claims. They channel the Great Wall mentality of old, along with a distinctly post-1949 preference for mega-engineered solutions. The islands convey a power message to all-comers, including Philippine “upstarts” determined to drag China off to the international courts, that “This is ours. We’re not going anywhere. Deal with it.”
China’s “smile diplomacy” towards Southeast Asia in the first decade of this century has been replaced by a rictus grin. China’s confidence in the allure of its economic statecraft, through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and One Belt One Road initiative for example, is now such that Beijing feels much less compunction about pressing its maritime claims, even to the extent of aggressive paramilitary actions at sea level and diplomatic strong-arming. However, an abiding desire “not to fire the first shot” and to “win without fighting” remain important constraints on China’s military modus operandi in the South China Sea. China’s Navy hovers on the horizon, still a “fleet in being.”
While President Xi has told Washington that China has no intention to militarize its artificial islands in the Spratlys, the project is highly strategic in concept. From Woody Island in the Paracels, to Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratlys, China has the potential to extend its air power over much of the South China Sea.
Attention is now turning to the potential apex of that strategic triangle, Scarborough Shoal, a small outcrop of rocks just 120 miles from the Philippines, which China muscled bloodlessly from Manila in 2012. Large-scale landfill and an airstrip here would extend the range of Chinese air power much further, including to Luzon and Subic Bay, where the U.S. Navy plans to operate on a scale not seen since it left the Philippines almost 25 years ago. It would be a bold chess move indeed, which is why the Pentagon and U.S. Pacific Command are currently focused on ways to dissuade, deter and, if necessary, to respond to China.
It is important to recognize that China’s strategic interest in the South China Sea is longstanding, preceding even the current communist regime in Beijing. What has changed is China’s impressive maritime capability, not only naval but also paramilitary and commercial. There is a concern that this rapid development is now manifesting in over-confidence and a short-term drive to lock in gains as far as possible in 2016. This is part riposte to the Philippines’ legal challenge against China’s maritime claims, but also with an eye on acting before new political administrations can start to assert themselves, in the Philippines starting in July, and more importantly, in Washington next January.
