SEA OF TROUBLES
Sea of troubles
A recent Democracy Forum debate invited panellists to explore the territorial disputes in the South China Sea from a legal, geopolitical and security perspective
China’s ‘nine-dash line’ emerged from a cartographic error, while Beijing’s shifting claims in the South China Sea are paired with the more risk-taking and aggressive nature of the Xi Jinping government. These were among views expressed by experts at The Democracy Forum’s latest panel discussion, ‘TDF President Lord Bruce introduced the event by outlining the importance of the South China Sea as a maritime trade route for many East- and Southeast Asian states and their trading partners in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Around 24% of global maritime trade is estimated to pass through the South China and East China Seas, a trade worth $7.4 trillion annually, he said, adding that the South China Sea may contain up to 9.2 billion barrels of untapped petroleum and other liquids and up to 216 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
China’s claim to around 90% of the South China Sea is delineated by a nine-dash line first recorded over 70 years ago, enclosing four uninhabited island groups together stretching for 1,800 km from north to south and 900 km in width. Despite ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1996, however, the legal criteria China employs to justify its territorial rights in the South China Sea is based on domestic rather than international law, said Lord Bruce; furthermore, its claim seems deliberately ambiguous, is not supported by coordinates and does not distinguish between terrestrial or maritime space, yet it arbitrarily cuts across the continental shelf of six neighbouring coastal states – Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Taiwan. In 2012 following several provocative incidents and naval incursions, China tested the writ of UNCLOS by seizing the Scarborough Shoal which lies within the Philippines 200 mile EEZ. Although China refused to participate in the subsequent proceedings at the Hague, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 found in favour of the Philippines, ruling that China does not exercise exclusive control over the waters contained within the nine-dash line and ‘has no legal basis to claim historic rights to the resources’ either. Importantly it ruled that EEZs in the South China Sea can only be calculated from the baseline of littoral states’ coastlines, not from isolated rocks and reefs, thus shrinking the area claimed by China from 90% to around 2.5%. Reflecting on the ruling and the consequences for the exercise of China’s regional hegemony, some analysts conclude that ‘China knows that claiming everything within the U-shaped line is fanciful’, while the Economist describes such an attempt at territorial appropriation as a ‘U-shaped tongue of passive cartographic aggression’. In other words, concluded Lord Bruce, the issue of legality has really never been paramount, but should be seen for what it is: an exercise of promoting and overselling domestically an unrealistic and indefensible understanding of China’s rights in the South China Sea.
Setting out the historical context of the South China Sea disputes, Dr Bill Hayton, Associate Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Programme, Chatham House, spoke of how China’s claims emerged – from a mistake, and the mistakes made in the early 20th century are still affecting international politics to this day. He cited discrepancies in Chinese sovereignty claims, as delineated in two editions of a Chinese publication in 1943, then 1947: within four years, China’s claims in the South China Sea had extended further south by 1000 extra kilometres. So, why was this? It was to do, said Hayton, with the u-shaped line, close to Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia – now called the famous ‘nine-dash line’. It was drawn by two people seconded to the Chinese government, to decide what China should claim at the end of the Second World War, and their work was based on a map drawn up by a geography professor who mistook underwater features such as the James Shoal and Vanguard Bank for actual islands. So the nine-dash line was born of bad map-making based on some bad translations of British maps, and the tragedy is that this error is the cause of so much friction in Southeast Asia, where the clashes are taking place over these non-existent islands,
US-China relations are about power distribution rather than a dispute over sovereignty or freedom of navigation
Hayton cited Singapore and Malaysia as examples of how an international court could help to resolve these disputes by ruling on who has the better claims, and the same thing could be done in the South China Sea. If each country were allowed to claim what it currently occupies, he argued, it would be a way of de facto recognition and taking heat out of the conflict. So, in theory, it should be fairly simple to resolve China’s claims and disputing claims in the South China Sea, and Hayton said it was a mystery to him why Beijing continues to insist on this u-shaped line which causes so much trouble between China and its neighbours in the South China Sea.
‘India is the only country that believes in both a multipolar Asia and a multipolar world’
Dr Nong Hong, Executive Director & Senior Fellow, Institute for China-America Studies (ICAS), considered how, over the past 20 years, discussion on the South China Sea primarily centred around the respective claimant states, ASEAN-China relations, and external users such as the US and some European countries who exercise freedom of navigation. However, today the dynamic of the narrative has shifted significantly, with most focus now on how the US and China interact with each other in the South China Sea. Also, in the past. the discourse included a wide range of issues, including territorial disputes, fishing conflicts, maritime cooperation, etc, involving all the claimant states. But today the focus has narrowed down to, for instance, arbitration and law enforcement, with attention disproportionately aimed at China. Hong also highlighted a secondary change is the legal development, with previous focus on the nine-dash line, military activities in foreign countries’ EEZs, etc now giving way to more talk about the 2016 arbitration between the Philippines and China. She saw this change as illustrating how international law is being increasingly used as a tool for diplomatic manoeuvring and strategy positioning, and also highlighted the strategic use of public diplomacy by smaller claimant states to gain international support.
ASEAN faces difficulties in forming a unified stance due to internal disagreements and economic dependencies on China
On how to move forward, Dr Hong underscored two pairs of relationships that are very important to maintain. One is US-China relations, which are about power distribution rather than a dispute over sovereignty or freedom of navigation, and both states must work towards a mutually recognised set of rules, a maritime order that is recognised not only by China and the US but also by the broader international community. The second is the relationship among claimant states, all of which Hong believed are trying hard to maintain international order and have a willingness to co-operate. Strengthening ASEAN mechanisms, ensuring bilateral, multilateral negotiation, and advancing cooperation initiatives in a lot of areas, including fishing management, environment protection, etc, should help to mitigate tensions.
Addressing the strategy aspects of the South China Sea claims was Dr Pooja Bhatt, Associate Professor, Jindal School of International Affairs, Jindal Global University (JGU); South Asia Program Visiting Fellow, Stimson Center. Two crucial questions she raised were: why is the South China Sea important for China, and what will be the regional and global ramifications of Chinese military aggressiveness there? She spoke of different verticals vis-à-vis China’s approach to the South China Sea – legal, military, environmental, political and economic – and tried to see how in each of the verticals, the idea of the South China Sea plays a crucial role for China’s development. It has always been China’s aspiration to be a global power, and Bhatt spoke of the ‘century of humiliation’, a history China doesnot want to repeat, believing its military presence in the South China Sea will ‘protect its backyard’. US presence in the region has ignited tensions and threatened China. In short, the South China Sea is at the heart of China’s quest for power, and therefore, we will not see any let-up in these kind of efforts from Chinas.
India’s position has been affected by what has happened in the past few years and as an implication of the South China Sea dispute. Despite once believing the South China Sea has little implication for them, India now has growing trade in that region and thus whatever happens in those waters has a direct implication on the Indian Ocean region. While commercial trade has not hampered, there are tensons over military vessels trying to cross any of the islands which China tries to claim as its own. Whatever is happening in the South China Sea, said Dr Bhatt, we will not see any letting go of claims from China, because it’s so crucial for its own rise to power concept, which is now deeply entrenched in the Chinese constitution. It will remain problematic for stakeholders like India, and the South China Sea will continue to be a difficult region for the rest of the world, not only for China and its neighbours, as the continuing issues will have global ramifications.
For Dr Collin Koh Swee Lean, Senior Fellow, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an important angle was ASEAN’s role in addressing the South China Sea disputes, and he noted that some ASEAN states have competing claims. He highlighted the 2022 agreement between Indonesia and Vietnam as an example of successful maritime boundary delimitation, but also pointed out the difficulties ASEAN faces in forming a unified stance due to internal disagreements and economic dependencies on China. He commented, too, on China’s economic influence, particularly its use of trade restrictions against Vietnam in order to exert pressure for compliance, and noted that while some ASEAN nations watch the Philippines’ legal approach with interest, they are hesitant to adopt similar strategies due to political and economic considerations.
Why has the US has been so engaged in the South China Sea, particularly over the last decade? wondered Gregory Poling, Director & Senior Fellow, Southeast Asia Program & Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In the South China Sea, the US is an interested party. This is the busiest shipping lane on Earth, available for passage by all states, and it touches directly on core US national interests in a couple of ways. And these have been very consistent. If we go back and look at the US government statements about the South China Sea, at least since the mid-90s, when China really became more assertive in the area, the talking points had been extremely consistent. The United States cares about freedom of the seas, meaning that not only is the US Navy able to operate freely in the South China Sea, but that rules are observed, whether those are customary international law or the rules embedded in UNCLOS. Second, the US cares that disputes are resolved peacefully, which particularly means no use of force towards the Philippines, the oldest US treaty Ally in Asia. So the US has a very immediate stake in deterring Chinese aggression towards the Philippines and responding on behalf of the Philippines if there was aggression. Finally, the US remains neutral on issues of territorial sovereignty and this has become a point of contention with China, which will often say the US is not in fact neutral because it backs the Philippines and, to a degree, other SE Asian claimants over China.The US argument, said Poling, is that it was never neutral about the rules, never neutral on whether or not trying to command 1000 miles of water when every other country on Earth only gets 200. The US is neutral on who ultimately has sovereignty over the islands, but it has a very clear position on the nature of the maritime claims within international law.
What has elevated the issue in the US? One, Chinese claims have very much changed over the last 30 years; they started as a claim to rocks and have now become a claim to ill-defined historic rights; and two, China’s military modernisation has allowed it to actually operate in these waters, and this is paired with the more risk-taking and aggressive nature of the Xi Jinping government in its pursuit of its plan, using coercion and threats of force against its neighbours in ways that previous Chinese governments never did.
The discussion ended on a cautionary note from Poling. While the weight of the US within the international system means waves will be caused when America has a leader like Trump, who does not necessarily agree with the rules of the system, he is far more constrained by political checks and balances than any leader of China ever will be.
MJ Akbar is the author of several books, including Doolally Sahib and the Black Zamindar: Racism and Revenge in the British Raj, and Gandhi: A Life in Three Campaigns
To watch the full discussion, tune in to