Island Voices
Tension increasing in South China Sea
By Mark J. Valencia
Senior fellow at the East-West Center
The collision between a U.S. Navy surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet near the Chinese-claimed Paracel Islands is only the tip of an iceberg of mounting tension in the South China Sea.
This tension is being fueled by U.S. plans for a theater missile defense system, China's extreme jurisdictional claims and its naval modernization. The incident should be seen in this broader context.
A recent report by the U.S. Defense Department concluded that a sea-based component will be critical to the success of the theater missile defense (TMD) system. The United States is considering building TMD to defend itself, its overseas troops and its allies in the Asia-Pacific region from ballistic missile attack. This sea-based component would include upgraded versions of the U.S. Navy's existing Aegis air defense system already aboard 84 cruisers and destroyers, coupled with new, faster ship-launched missiles.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Taiwan has requested four state-of-the-art Aegis radar-equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyers from the Bush administration. China has vehemently protested the possible sale, arguing that such destroyers would provide Taiwan with the beginnings of a TMD system and thus destroy China-U.S. relations. China is particularly concerned that the United States might transfer a sea-based system that is inter-operable and linked with U.S. military forces.
In fact, some analysts in and outside of China think TMD is aimed at China, not North Korea, as is officially stated. Indeed, some U.S. strategists think conflict with China is inevitable and that the United States has to be prepared for it with TMD. Others even see TMD as a strategic ploy intended to draw China into an arms race it can't win, hoping it will bankrupt itself and, like the Soviet Union, disintegrate.
Japan is also considering participating in the TMD system, ostensibly to protect itself against a missile threat from North Korea. But linking Japan to TMD could tip the balance of power in Asia by giving it a powerful deterrent or even a bargaining chip vis a vis China in future arms-reduction talks.
That possibility raises difficult issues. First, Tokyo needs to be very careful not to make China think it is being encircled by American allies. Second, although the United States would clearly find it easier to deploy a limited TMD protecting American troops in Japan that complements a Japanese TMD, who will be authorized to launch a counterattack? Tokyo would not want to cede control to the United States over a response from Japanese ships. But any fully independent Japanese TMD system is sure to make its Asian neighbors apprehensive.
Why is a sea-based component needed for TMD? Missiles launched from sea-based systems would complement a land-based system by destroying some enemy missiles and their warheads in their boost phase, shortly after liftoff, before they can release decoys. But to do so, the surface ships and submarines carrying the anti-ballistic missiles would have to be rather close to the launch site — within a few hundred miles. The advantages of a sea-based system is its mobility and its relative political invisibility, particularly for Japan. One of its weaknesses, however, is that it cannot defend against a missile launched from a site deep inland. An enemy would also probably attack a sea-based system. Another problem is cost. A recent Navy estimate reckoned a first-step 12-ship, sea-based missile defense would cost about $15 billion.
A sea-based component's mobility and need for proximity to a country's coast may help explain the U.S. Navy's growing concern with freedom-of-navigation issues in the South China Sea. Official Chinese maps include a dashed line that encloses much of the South China Sea. In response to repeated U.S. inquiries about this line, Beijing has stated that it will not interfere with freedom of navigation. But it will not clarify exactly what it claims in the South China Sea, and why.
What may concern U.S. naval strategists is that some of China's actions — such as its claim to part of Vietnam's continental shelf and its occupation of the submerged Mischief Reef in waters claimed by the Philippines — indicate that it is asserting sovereignty over virtually the entire sea as "historic waters." Freedom of navigation and overflight principles do not apply in historic waters.
Moreover, China has drawn enclosing baselines around the Paracel Islands, thus removing the enclosed waters from the freedom-of-navigation regime and overflight regime. And it has indicated that it may do the same with the Spratly Islands to the south, which it contests with Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. This would be highly provocative.
China has also declared 12-nautical-mile territorial seas from the enclosing baselines of the Paracel Islands and insists that foreign warships or military aircraft cannot enter such waters without permission. Setting an ominous precedent, China banned planes at certain heights from October 1979 to February 1980 over four "danger" zones south and east of Hainan Island. This forced the temporary closure of a major commercial air corridor.
The upshot is that Beijing could be intent on transferring large areas of the South China Sea from a regime in which warships have immunity from its jurisdiction, to one in which permission is required for entry. Of course, China cannot now enforce such a regime. But when it is strong enough, it may try to do so.
The United States will not acquiesce to such extreme claims. It has protested both China's insistence on prior permission to enter its territorial seas as well as the lines enclosing the Paracels. And under the U.S. Navy's Freedom of Navigation program, U.S. naval ships and aircraft may test any extreme claim that the United States feels violates international laws governing freedom of navigation.
In fact, the recent U.S. joint exercises with the Philippines in the South China Sea technically challenged China's "historic" waters claim there. And China strongly protested those exercises held near the Spratly area.
China's long-term military strategy is to modernize its naval, air and amphibious forces so that it can extend its defense perimeter to the Spratlys and beyond. In particular, it wants to be able to pose a credible risk to the U.S. Navy in case Washington backs Taiwan in a conflict.
But Beijing is also taking immediate steps to give military backing to its claims in the South China Sea. This involves an increased Chinese presence and capability in the area.
Last April, China successfully carried out mid-flight refueling of fighter jets, thus expanding its ability to project power, and it has deployed Russian-made Sunburn missiles in its coastal fleet. Such missiles can destroy an aircraft carrier.
Clearly, the converging trends of a U.S. sea-based TMD component, the abiding U.S. interest in unfettered freedom of navigation, China's extreme jurisdictional claims and its naval modernization point to the possibility of more such incidents in the South China Sea.
