SURROUNDED

China is not the Aggressor in the South China Sea

Gavel and Globe: Our world's justice system

by William Paton, Beijing 2 June 2024

The United States has convinced the world that China is behaving aggressively in the South China Sea and must be countered, yet it is the USA which is behaving brazenly, courting disaster. Halfway across the world from home, it is openly preparing for war, surrounding China ever-more closely, opening ever more bases, and skirting China's coasts daily with its warships, submarines, airplanes and drones. When China improves its defenses, the US says: 'See what a threat they are?' How can the world not see this for what it is: A declining hegemon clinging to dominance, dancing on China's doorstep.

Defense officials are meeting presently at the annual Shangri-li-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia's premiere defense forum, where the American Secretary of Defense just accused China of 'bullying'. Lately, Western media were running photographs over and over, of China using a water cannon in a dispute with a Philippine supply ship. Meanwhile, US ships and planes daily skirt Chinese territory, unreported, often within a mile or less of the limit of its territorial waters (12 nautical miles). Hundreds of confrontations have occurred between Chinese planes or ships and their American counterparts, but only when USA forces have approached Chinese territorial waters or, as they frequently do, or entered the territorial waters of Chinese possessions, such as in the Paracels. The US military then routinely claims the Chinese behaved dangerously, omitting the location whenever they were flying embarrassingly close to China. Beijing reported nearly 2,000 sorties by American military aircraft near or in Chinese airspace from January to October, 2023. This is absurdly provocative -- far beyond any spraying with a fire hose, as regrettable as that is.

Map 1

Major American Military Bases Surrounding China

The United States maintains major military bases in: Wake Island, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, mainland Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, and Diego Garcia. An exhaustive list includes other smaller sites in the Indian or Pacific Oceans, most taken by force long ago, as was first Hawaii. The USA military also enjoys visiting other ports and airports with nuclear weapons-capable ships and aircraft, including in Brunei, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, and Taiwan.

Since 2020, the USA has undertaken aggressive expansion of its military alliances in the region, signing a deal to sell Australia at least eight nuclear-powered submarines and expanding it's bases there. It has also recently expanded its bases in the Philippines, including islands closest to Taiwan. In 2023, an American 'Ohio class' nuclear-submarine began mooring in Busan, South Korea, on a rotational basis, carrying more than 100 nuclear warheads on 16 ballistic missiles, and additional cruise missiles. Just 865 km from Shanghai and 1270 from Beijing, these boats can fire all their missiles in one salvo, taking just a few minutes to reach China's key cities. China reported 13 sightings of Ohios in the South China Sea last year alone, meaning these monsters of the apocalypse are constantly on the prowl near it's shores.

The USA already has China completely surrounded on all it's maritime borders, in addition to bases to China's west, in Kyrgyzstan (see Map 1), but it still continues to expand. Most recently, it added four more new bases in The Philippines, pointedly at locations closest to China (see Map 4). US military activities around China also include various secret deployments. For instance, in March this year, Taiwan revealed that US Green Berets and a Special Ops squad are permanently stationed on one of its islands, less than two kilometers from mainland China. (1)

China neither has the capability nor the intention to expel all these US boats and planes from the South China Sea. It merely seeks to attain a sufficient defensive posture to feel it's oil supply and trade are reasonably secure. While the Western media make constant hay how the number of Chinese navy ships now exceeds the USA's, they conveniently forget USA ships have far greater tonnage. In this charade, an American aircraft carrier counts for no more than a Chinese frigate. In truth, the United States and its close allies have a total of 36 aircraft carriers or helicopter carriers, compared to China's 5. They have a total of 26 submarines capable of carrying and launching ballistic (nuclear) missiles, compared to China's 7.

Over the years the USA has annexed Guam, conquered the Philippines, and annexed and built a military base on the atoll of Wake Island. It added 14 more Northern Mariana Islands to US territory after conquering them in the Second World War, when it also conquered the Marshall Islands, thereafter using them for nuclear weapons tests that left them poisoned with radiation. The UK seized Diego Garcia from Mauritius by force and then expelled its inhabitants between 1968 and 1973, so that a joint US/UK military base could be established. After the battle of Okinawa, a remote Japanese island territory, large swaths of farmland were seized from the surviving locals to build US military bases. Okinawa was only returned to Japan in 1972. The USA has also, of course, fought major wars in the Korean Peninsula, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, thus it has demonstrably not been a force for peace in the Region, as it often claims. Against this historical background, the USA today condemns China's building of defensive military installations on atolls in the South China Sea.

China genuinely fears that the USA will one day attack it. Since 2015, there has been much discussion of Thucydides Trap, a theory promoted by American political scientist Graham Allison about how an existing great power (the USA), is likely to attack a rising great power (China), before it becomes too strong to defeat. Many in China believe the USA will soon use 'the defense of democracy in Taiwan' as their excuse for war with China. Indeed, Taiwan may indeed be the nexus of the US/China conflict. The USA prevented China from re-taking Taiwan after 1949 by stationing troops there until 1979, and by supporting it militarily ever since, despite agreeing in writing it is part of China and not formally recognizing it, a staggering duplicity. The USA's chief motivation for 'supporting' (read sacrificing), Taiwan is to maintain strategic control of the 'First Island Chain' which surrounds the South China Sea and China. This is also the reason behind USA antipathy to China's defenses on atolls. It seeks every conceivable military advantage, without limits. Like it's expansion of NATO against the borders of Russia in Eastern Europe, it will never stop pushing, as far as it can go.

China's activities in the South China Sea have been considerably more reasonable than portrayed. Altogether, China occupies 28 possessions in the South China Sea, of which 20 are in the Paracel Islands, close to China's mainland and Hainan Province (see Map 2). The Paracels were seized from China by Japan during the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945, and China returned there immediately after the war, in 1946. They are closer to China's coast than to any other country's. Vietnam's navy attacked them half a century ago, towards the end of the Vietnam War -- attempting to expel China -- and lost.

Another 7 islands or features occupied by China are found are in the Spratlys, farther South, which are claimed in their entirety by Vietnam, the Philippines, China and Taiwan (separately). Vietnam occupies 21 of the Spratlys and was first to begin reclaiming land on and militarizing one, in the 1980s. Even the Philippines occupies more islands and atolls than China in the Spratlys (eleven).

China's huge mistake is an international public relations catastrophe, in that its 'ten-dash line' looks greedy (now ten dashes since an additional dash was added east of Taiwan). Nor has it ever explained clearly what it means by those dashes. While the ten-dash line looks unfair, it clashes today with the expansive claims in the Sea of others, including Vietnam, The Philippines and Taiwan acting separately. The original 'nine-dash line' was presented by today's government of Taiwan, the former Republic of China, to the United Nations in 1948, before they lost power in the mainland and fled to their island. They still had a permanent seat and veto in the United Nations Security Council at that time. Their nine-dash map drew no objections whatsoever, neither from the United States nor the Philippines, until more than half a century later. Taiwan, today, continues to separately claim the same nine-dash line area in the the South China Sea as its territory. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea only came into force only in 1994, when the 60th country signed it. For historical context, consider the UK's claim to the Falkland Islands and its waters, so far from London, which provoked Argentina to go to war.

China cannot guarantee protection of its supplies of oil, food and goods passing through the South China Sea. Beijing is reportedly considering Thailand's offer to build a 'land bridge', or port-to-port rail and road link, across the Malay Peninsula. This would provide an alternative to the choke point at the Straits of Malacca, tightly controlled by US naval and air bases in Singapore, where the Straits are narrowest (see Map 3). Just one of the US bases at Singapore, right beside the Straits, maintains 100 helicopters armed with anti-ship missiles, other weaponry and an unknown number of drones such as the 'Predator'. The continuing construction of such American military facilities surrounding China and the South China Sea have left Beijing feeling it must build defensive installations wherever it can, including on islands and reclaimed atolls. It is US aggressiveness that is driving the friction, not China's.

China's occupation of the Scarborough Shoal is the most controversial point, provoked in 2012 when the Philippines navy attempted to apprehend eight Chinese boats, fishing nearby. It is at that Shoal, again, that they are now famously spraying their water cannon.

Scarborough Shoal is closer to Manila than China and so China's position, at first glance, appears unreasonable. However, when seen together with the location of the USA's four additional new military bases in the Philippines, established in 2023 complete with launchers for nuclear cruise missiles1, it is more understandable (see Map 4). The USA is expanding its military posture far more aggressively than China. Imagine, too, how the map would look if the Shoal were instead under American control, through it's alliance with its former colony.

The United States also makes much of the fact that the International Court of Justice ruled against China's claims, including the dash line, in 2016, ruling they contravened the Law of the Sea. Of course it matters not to Washington that they themselves have refused to ratify either the Court or the Law, and that they themselves frequently reject the Court's other rulings, such as recently on Gaza. This author strongly supports the International Court of Justice but their ruling may have been flawed in this instance. China argued in a White Paper that their claim was a question of sovereignty and thus not subject to the Court's jurisdiction, which considers resource rights. China long ago offered to split those rights with The Philippines. They withdrew from arbitration, in writing, one year in advance, as required, and thus were not represented when the 'arbitration' took place. A panel of four our of five Western judges, one appointed by the Philippines (and none by China), ruled on the matter. This hardly seems fair.

To the USA's disappointment, China and The Philippines seem close, once again, to reaching a bilateral compromise on the issue and are meeting behind the scenes in Singapore during the Shangri-La Dialogue. The United States opposes peaceful settlement of the issue through bilateral negotiations, as its military allies in the region are less supportive of military expansionism if there is the prospect of lasting peace.

China can not be sure, either, of it's access to the Pacific Ocean from the South China Sea, exiting the Sea eastward through channels such as the Bashi Channel south of Taiwan, or the Miyako Strait north of Taiwan. The disputed Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands near Taipei, are key (see Map 5). The USA of course backs Tokyo's claim to the islands, which would give Japan, and thus themselves, yet another key military base even nearer Taiwan and China.

This is not all just some silly game. The USA is doing much the same thing it did to Russia, pressing closer and closer, surrounding China tighter and tighter, believing everything they do themselves to be right, that 'the enemy' is entirely in the wrong, and that compromise is unnecessary because they are strongest. Russia eventually drew a red line, in Ukraine, and the United States still pushed on, even sponsoring a coup in Ukraine to overthrow an elected President who favored neutrality. This behavior led to a Russian invasion of Ukraine soon after the coup, in 2014, and a war that continues today.

China too, has a red line, around Taiwan, a renegade Province it would long ago have reintegrated if not for US interference. With nuclear submarines now under construction for Australia, a nuclear submarine permanently parked across from Shanghai, more and more US bases, including newly installed nuclear-missile launchers, and new war pacts all tightening the noose, Beijing may very well conclude -- as Moscow did -- that they have to stand up for themselves, for their sovereignty and for their security, now, not later. This will be another senseless tragedy, another needless war provoked by ceaseless US military expansion. If it happens, like a child's tantrum (in this case a childish hegemon's), it will be scarily difficult to control.

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