{"id":9879,"date":"2013-10-08T05:00:18","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T19:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=9879"},"modified":"2013-10-09T15:34:41","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T04:34:41","slug":"the-intractable-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-intractable-south-china-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"The intractable South China Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>The South China Sea is \u2018probably the world\u2019s single most complex, and intractable, international relations problem\u2019. Gareth Evans, in proclaiming the South China Sea as the biggest and most complex headache<\/a>, didn\u2019t mention any of the other contenders. Iran\u2019s nuclear program, North Korea and Syria jumped to my mind as I heard the\u00a0 line from Australia\u2019s longest serving Labor Foreign Minister and the President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n As a man who wields words with precision and force, Evans would have considered all of those and more before giving the South China Sea the dark honour of being the \u2018single most complex\u2019 issue confronting the globe. And he\u2019d enjoy arguing the merits of the various cases.<\/p>\n As Chancellor of the ANU, Evans was launching the National Security College paper<\/a>, \u2018The South China Sea and Australia\u2019s Regional Security Environment\u2019. He even injected some optimism into the proceedings which was notably at odds with the stance of many of the eleven authors in the paper.<\/p>\n Evans says \u2018senior Chinese are becoming more conscious of the soft power, reputational, implications of these issues\u2019 and he thinks China might respond to \u2018sustained and relentless international pressure\u2019. Some big unknowns shroud such hopes\u2014especially whether China would ever be prepared to define the extent and meaning of its South China Sea claims as the basis for serious negotiations.<\/p>\n Jian Zhang\u2019s chapter on China\u2019s growing assertiveness points to an intriguing mix of a strength and fear to explain this:<\/p>\n The \u2018consolidation\u2019 effort has become a scary expression of China\u2019s growing power. Leszek Buszynski says China is using assertion and harassment to intimidate ASEAN:<\/p>\n Prolonged Chinese harassment is intended to unnerve the ASEAN claimants and to induce them to settle bilaterally with China. The best interpretation of China\u2019s actions is that it seeks to hustle the ASEAN claimants into recognising China\u2019s historical claim to the area. However, China\u2019s actions have the potential to draw in external powers that are disturbed by what they understand to be China\u2019s threat to the strategic sea lanes of the area. The United States has reaffirmed its alliance ties with the Philippines and has sought a security relationship with Vietnam. India and Japan have also expressed their concerns. At the prospect of the involvement of external powers, China may draw back, as it has in the past, but a more confident and nationalistic China may continue to press its claim over the South China Sea, deciding that these external powers would avoid confrontation with it. This would be a reckless step that could result in unintended clashes and destabilising escalation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The harassment is working to the extent that ASEAN is, indeed, deeply unnerved<\/a>. ASEAN would love to get the offer Beijing is making Washington of a new strategic relationship, but fears that the pain and the pressure will just keep building.<\/p>\n The big change to the narrative this year was the brave decision by the Philippines in January to start proceedings against China under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It\u2019s a logical response by the Philippines to the reality that it has the weakest navy in the region. Giving a Manila perspective, Renator Cruz De Castro, writes that \u2018China\u2019s development of naval brinkmanship\u2019 has dramatised the painfully weak state of the armed forces of the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n