{"id":7213,"date":"2013-06-26T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T20:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=7213"},"modified":"2013-06-27T06:37:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T20:37:02","slug":"asian-gazing-10-deal-or-no-deal-in-the-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/asian-gazing-10-deal-or-no-deal-in-the-south-china-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Asian gazing (10): deal or no deal in the South China Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sunset<\/a><\/figure>\n

As the curtain comes down on this series of posts surveying the Asian strategic landscape, the final scene sets us up a lot more drama to come. Southeast Asia’s great fear is that it faces much more of the same pain in the future as it has had for the last five years from China over the South China Sea. ASEAN would love to get the offer Beijing is making Washington of a new strategic relationship. But in view for ASEAN, unfortunately, is the same-old-same-old, applied with renewed vigour by the new leadership team in China.<\/p>\n

Indeed, if the legal challenge the Philippines is mounting to China’s territorial claims<\/a> goes\u00a0well for Manila, ASEAN might face an even more excruciating version of what it has suffered in the past couple of\u00a0years. In that case the recent status quo might look more like a plateau of pain that’s about to be surpassed by even more pain.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s view of its sovereignty in the South China Sea rests on a view of history\u2014and of righting the wrongs of history\u2014rather than the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. If China\u2019s view of the right bestowed by history were to prevail, as one Jakarta wit observes, then suddenly Indonesia could start claiming quite a bit of northern Australian waters based on centuries of voyages by Bugis fishermen.<\/p>\n

The South China Sea narrative involves a lot of discussion about overlapping claims, the attempts at negotiation, the effort to build Codes and now the Manila resort to international law. The problem for ASEAN is that this narrative of negotiation, rules and law is a set of responses, not the driver of events.\u00a0For China, the South China Sea saga isn’t ultimately about law, it’s about power.\u00a0Beijing can never fully respond to ASEAN or US calls to explain the legal basis of its sovereignty claims because that would reveal how far it’s overreaching.<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t argue the law of the case and you can\u2019t win on the facts of the case, then bribes and threats are the way to triumph (and if you can\u2019t bribe the judge, then threaten the jury!). Thus, Beijing is leaning heavily on explicit mentions of cash and plenty of hints at power.<\/p>\n

In discussing Beijing\u2019s use of the military and economic cards in the South China Sea, Willy Lam argues<\/a> that the dispute is the most explicit example of \u2018China\u2019s newly assertive diplomacy\u2019. This is a game that has to be played bilaterally; if Beijing ever accepted a multilateral approach it would lose much of the power leverage it’s now deploying. The bilateral mantra Beijing uses and the pressure it applies mean the centrifugal forces within ASEAN are throbbing harder and faster.<\/p>\n

In thinking about this centrifugal image, come back to the quote from a senior Chinese diplomat cited in a previous column in this series<\/a>, offering a definition of the ASEAN dilemma that is both cute and acute:<\/p>\n

China will not support ASEAN to unite against China. And ASEAN is not going to agree to be against China. And the same is true if ASEAN is asked to be against the US\u2014ASEAN countries will be split. This is a group of small and medium-sized countries that does not want to be against anybody.<\/p>\n

ASEAN can never be unanimous in going against the big beasts and so will never form a completely united front to respond to the pressures being applied by China. Credit Beijing with doing a wonderful job of amplifying the fundamental centrifugal tensions ever-present within ASEAN.<\/p>\n

The IISS report on the South China Sea disputes<\/a> outlines the splits running through ASEAN by describing the different postures to be found in the ten member countries:<\/p>\n