China is building new harbors and airstrips on various reefs and atolls
in the Spratly Islands — facilities that, Beijing confirms, will be used
for military as well as civil purposes. The United States and its allies
in the region need to weigh their response with care.
New images showing the extent of these land-reclamation
efforts in the South China Sea have aroused concern, and critics are accusing
the Barack Obama administration of fecklessness in the face of
provocation. The issue isn’t quite so clear-cut. Sharper thinking is needed
about when and how to challenge China’s growing assertiveness.
While claiming that
the construction was intended for “typhoon shelters, navigation aids,
search-and-rescue centers, marine meteorological forecasting stations” and the
like, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson admitted the new
installations would also be used for military purposes. They’ll enable Chinese
naval vessels to refuel, and jet fighters to patrol, far from the mainland.
They could help China impose a threatened air-defense identification zone over
the South China Sea. In January, even foreign ministers from the normally
reticent Association of Southeast Asian Nations expressed “concern” at the
scale of recent construction.
Yet this “great wall
of sand,” in the words of US Pacific Fleet Commander Harry Harris, is not
as brazen a move as one might think. Other claimants to the Spratlys have built
military facilities, including airstrips, on islands and atolls they control.
The reclaimed land doesn’t necessarily strengthen China’s legal claim to the
territory or surrounding waters. And the facilities probably wouldn’t be much
use if it came to a shooting war, given their vulnerability to bombs and
missile strikes.
The US cannot expect
to frustrate every manifestation of China’s rise and expanding ambitions. It
needs to pick its fights judiciously. Beijing is wrong to try to change the
status quo in a tense region, and the administration should say so — but
if the US hopes to do more than that, it must develop usable measures capable
of imposing real costs.
Unifying the various
other claimants in the region is crucial. China notices when Southeast Asian
nations speak with one voice. Arguably, President Xi Jinping launched his most
recent charm offensive in response to the backlash over last
summer’s deployment of a huge Chinese oil rig in waters claimed by
Vietnam. The idea of joint Asean patrols, perhaps including Japan, is still far
off. But if, in the meantime, smaller nations can resolve or at least suspend their
own territorial disputes, they’ll be able to apply more diplomatic pressure.
Beijing has been
dragging out negotiations with Asean over a binding code of conduct. If this
continues, members should work with the US to develop their own. That
would draw a bright line between regionally accepted norms and Chinese actions.
Similarly, the US should continue to press governments to follow the example
set by the Philippines and submit their claims to international
arbitration. The aim should be to entrench a rules-based order that China will
find harder with time to ignore.
The US should also do
more to bolster the defenses of nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines by
improving their maritime “domain awareness” and command-and-control systems.
While engaging with Beijing on codes to avoid accidental clashes in
the air and on the sea, the US must also be clearer about actions by China that
would cross a line. These should include any attempt to seize territory
occupied by another claimant, unilaterally declaring an air-defense
identification zone, and provoking incidents by aggressively deploying its
massive fleet of “white-hulled” paramilitary vessels and fishing boats. The US
should at least consider deploying “gray-hulled” naval vessels in response to
Chinese coercion, even at the risk of escalation.
The hope, it goes
without saying, is to lessen tensions, not worsen them. But Beijing must
understand that, if it goes too far, escalation is the risk it runs.
Bloomberg View
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