Tokyo lodged a series of
protests over the weekend regarding renewed Chinese activity in
the disputed East China Sea. Japan has claimed that China recently installed a
radar on a Chinese offshore gas platform.
Japan’s
protests occurred after
incursions by as many as 230 Chinese fishing vessels and six coast
guard ships in contiguous zones surrounding the Senkakus on Saturday, and
intrusions by two Chinese coast guard vessels into the territorial waters
around the islets on Sunday. On Friday, eight Chinese fishing and coast guard
vessels also reportedly entered territorial waters around the Senkakus. Tokyo,
which administers and claims ownership over three of the Senkaku
islets—Uotsuri, Kitakojima and Minamikojima—has been locked in a longstanding
dispute with Beijing over the area, which is also claimed by Taiwan.
Japan’s foreign ministry has also revealed
that China had installed an ocean radar system and surveillance cameras on one
of the sixteen gas-drilling platforms it currently operates in international waters
in the East China Sea. Tokyo has accused Beijing of breaking a bilateral
cooperation agreement on co-exploration of gas reserves in the East China Sea
by unilaterally developing the area. The foreign ministry said the radar, which
Japan claims is similar the type normally found on patrol vessels, was
discovered in June and called for the immediate removal of the equipment.
Beijing has refused to comment on the
matter.
If confirmed, the radar facility could
have military applications and echo similar moves by China in the South China
Sea, where civilian-purpose installations have gradually been militarized.
Multiple-front logic
While it may be tempting to question the
wisdom of Beijing’s constantly agitating on two separate fronts—four, if we
include the Taiwan Strait and China’s border with India—there is nothing
irrational about its behavior. It is in fact calculated, calibrated and
manageable, and so far it has been highly successful.
Although its recent actions in the South
and East China Seas have alarmed the region and encouraged the creation of a
countervailing regional security alliance hinging around the United States,
China has nevertheless calibrated its activities so as to avoid the kind of
destabilization that would cause military clashes with its neighbors or force a
U.S. military intervention beyond freedom of navigation patrols. Yes, China’s
militarization of the South China Sea and its intransigence in the territorial
dispute no doubt contributed to last month’s
ruling against it by the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the
Hague, ostensibly giving the Philippines a temporary victory, but even there
the reputational blow isn’t fatal, nor will it alter Beijing’s position on this
issue.
In fact, the regional and international
reactions to its territorial ambitions conceivably feed into, and perhaps are
even part of, Beijing’s two-pronged approach, one domestic and the
other external, to expansionism.
The first is the reinforcing of the
narrative which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been cultivating
domestically—foreign containment and China’s victimhood. Here, the advantages
of the two-front strategy become apparent. In order to maintain the
nationalistic-expansionist narrative that buttresses support for the CCP in
China, Beijing must be in a constant state of managed conflict. This
means that the conflict cannot escalate into armed conflict, which
isn’t in China’s interest, but at the same time it cannot de-escalate the
situation because doing so—as I argued
previously—would constitute a loss of face with the Chinese public.
The Chinese leadership is well aware that
waging war on two fronts can be disastrous for even the most
battle-hardened militaries. But war isn’t what it has in mind, and it will
likely go to great lengths to avoid such an outcome: permanent conflict,
is instead the current strategy.
With two (or four) different fronts that
can be activated almost at will, Beijing has therefore ensured it can satisfy
the demands of an increasingly nationalistic public by proving that it is
standing up for China’s interests and not backing down despite all the external
forces that are conspiring against it.
Beijing has alternated its escalatory
measures between the East and the South China Sea. When it looks like its
actions might prompt a muscular response from its adversaries, it pulls back
temporarily but renews its activities in the other theater of operations. This
oscillation, which has been going on for the past few years, could explain why
last week’s naval incursions near the Senkakus were described by Tokyo as
larger than usual, and why Japanese are now saying that Sino-Japanese relations
are
rapidly deteriorating. The PCA ruling did not, as some analysts had
expected, compel Beijing to abandon its territorial ambitions and become a
responsible stakeholder; instead, it only indicated that the time had come for
Beijing to shift its escalatory activities back to the East China Sea, where
the action will conceivably be for the next little while. The PCA squeezed the
water balloon in the South China Sea, and it filled up elsewhere. Rarely, if
ever, has China upped the ante on two fronts simultaneously.
Two steps forward, one step back
The second, external component of China’s
multiple-front (or water balloon) strategy involves incrementalism and osmosis.
By alternating between the two (or four) fronts whenever it reaches a point
when its actions risk prompting a devastating response (e.g., armed
intervention) from its competitors, Beijing has succeeded in whittling away at
the edges and creating facts on the ground. How else could China, in defiance
of international law and the U.S.’ rebalancing to Asia, have gotten away with
the virtual occupation—and militarization—of the South China Sea, or the
unilateral declaration, in November 2013, of an Air-Defense
Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea?
China’s expansionist strategy is in fact
brilliant and has been brilliantly executed. By creating two main fronts and
two secondary ones (Taiwan and Arunachal Pradesh), Beijing has four useful “crises”
at its disposal which it can elevate and de-escalate at will to satisfy the
demands of nationalism at home while exploiting ambitions whenever and wherever
it occurs. By juggling these four balls, China ensures it will always make
small gains somewhere, even when it faces temporary setbacks in another area,
as happened with last month’s PCA ruling. As long as it makes gains in the
aggregate, China’s strategy of permanent conflict will continue to pay
dividends. Opportunities will arise, chinks in its opponents’s armor will
appear and it will patiently wait for those. Just as importantly, it has
calibrated its approach so as to avoid any of those conflicts provoking more
serious countermeasures for which, for all its wanted prowess, the People’s
Liberation Army (PLA) isn’t prepared, all the more so if the pushback involved
a U.S.-led coalition.
For all its failings, the CCP isn’t
delusional, and it is well aware that it cannot resolve all the territorial
conflicts in its favor—at least not through the use of force, and certainly not
for the foreseeable future. Thus, despite its stated ambitions and purported
“core interests,” Beijing knows it cannot prevail upon all its adversaries in
the East and South China Sea, against Taiwan and against India, especially not
at a time of renewed U.S. engagement in the region. For the time being and
given the prevailing conditions, a state of permanent conflict in alternating
areas—not war—best suits Beijing’s interests.
J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based senior
nonresident fellow with the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute
and an associate researcher with the French Center for Research on Contemporary
China. He is currently editor in chief of The News Lens International
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