East Asian Flashpoint: The South China Sea

Gary J. Sampson
M986020022
Cross-Strait Relations and Asia – Pacific Security
Spring 2010
National Sun Yat-sen University
Prof. Lin Wen-cheng
Introduction

The South China Sea has been a controversial region for

decades. The area contains disputed territorial claims
from no less than 7 nations, including China, Vietnam,
Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the
Philippines.1 (see Figure 1)

While the United States has no direct territorial claims in

the South China Sea, it does have interests, those
primarily being freedom of navigation and maintenance
of peace and stability in the area. Other non-littoral
nations to the dispute in the South China Sea also are
interested in access to fisheries, shipping lane security,
oil and gas deposits, and coral reefs and carbon.2

In this paper I will briefly discuss the history of the South

China Sea dispute, talk about the area’s significance
(mainly to China, but also to other nations who wish to Figure 1: South China Sea claims. Taiwan's claims
use the areas), the controversy over the basis of the essentially mirror those of China. (US DoD)
various claims, and then, in the main portion of the paper,
discuss various military developments in the area from the 1980s to the present.

History

Vietnam is the country with the longest claim to portions of the South China Sea. China also maintains
historical claims to most of the area in dispute. Taiwan’s claims are a virtual mirror image of China’s.
Taiwan also holds the relatively large island of Itu Aba and maintains a military garrison there, which
during the fair weather season boasts a military airfield.

Significance

In general, the South China Sea’s main significance is as an important part of the worldwide maritime
transportation network. The South China Sea is adjacent to one of the world’s great maritime
chokepoints, the Straits of Malacca, and all the major economies of East Asia who are oil importers
receive their fulfillment via the South China Sea, including Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Some
parties also feel that there are large gas and oil fields ripe for exploitation in the South China Sea, and
competition for exploration rights in disputed areas can be quite fierce. Additionally, sea foods serve as
a major staple in the diets of many of the countries in East Asia, and these nations wish to have access
to rich fisheries in the area.

To China in particular, the South China Sea is of vital interest in the maintenance of its own freedom of
navigation, primarily stemming from the rapidly modernizing and growing country’s thirst for imported
fossil fuels (to a scale beyond any other in East Asia). Most of China’s imported petroleum passes
through the Straits of Malacca and then north through the South China Sea. China’s leaders realize that

1
Of these seven parties, Indonesia’s claims are the smallest and therefore do not appear in Figure 1.
2
Cronin testimony. p. 14 (chart).

2
they are heavily dependent on sea-borne
transport for the majority of their
imported petroleum, despite the fact
that in recent years they have opened a
number of overland pipeline systems for
petroleum, bringing in oil and natural gas
from South and Central Asia.3 Since
China’s demand for fossil fuel will not
decline in the near future and most of
their imports now are seaborne and will
continue to be seaborne in the future,
China has little choice but to beef up its
ability to protect vulnerable seaborne
transportation and protect its sea lanes
of communication (SLOCs). (See Figure 2
for a graphic indication of China’s key
SLOCs.) This may very well be linked to
the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Figure 2: China's key SLOCs. Note the Strait of Malacca. (US Navy Ofc of
Naval Intel)
(PLAN) recent development and
demonstration of the ability to conduct
long-distance naval operations from the North and East Sea Fleet homeports to the South China Sea
(please see the Military Developments section below for more on the PLAN’s 2010 demonstration of
naval power projection).

The Controversy – origins of claims

In terms of historical claims to the area, in 1973 Vietnam claimed the Spratly Islands as one of its
provinces. China claims nearly the entire South China Sea as “historical waters.”4 This “historical” claim
on the part of China is not in accord with the UNCLOS. (China is a signatory; the US has signed but not
ratified the treaty.) In 2002 a Code of Conduct was signed regarding activity in the South China Sea, but
counter intuitively, tensions have actually increased in the wake of this development.

The legal status of the claims in the South China Sea is established per the United Nations Convention on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which came into force in 1994.5

3
Andrew S. Erickson and Gabe Collins, “Oversea Trumps Overland: China’s Oil Supply Future is Maritime.”
4
Cronin testimony, p. 2.
5
Peter Dutton has an interesting article in the April 2010 edition of the U.S. Naval Institute’s journal Proceedings
that discusses the South China Sea issue from China’s point of view. See “Through a Chinese Lens,”
http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/archive/story.asp?STORY_ID=2310.

3
Functionally, it often happens
that whichever nation can
occupy a given piece of real
estate ends up staking claim to
it. China is the biggest
executor of this “ownership by
squatting,” although other
countries have tried it in the
South China Sea with
sometimes disastrous results
(see the discussion on Johnson
South in the “Military
Developments” section below
for more information).
Reportedly Chinese forces
modus operandi is to emplace
buoys on reefs and shoals of
interest, then come back to Figure 3: The First and Second Island Chains (US DoD)
emplace more permanent
structures at a later time, which are then occupied by Chinese troops. This provides the fait accompli
that delivers the reef or shoal in question to functional Chinese control.6

Finally, in terms of doctrine, it should be noted that China considers all of the South China Sea to be a
portion of its near territorial waters. China wishes to maintain control of its “near seas’ (the areas inside
what it refers to as the “first island chain”, consisting of Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, and the Philippines),
while the US and others wish to exercise the rights afforded to international waters under UNCLOS,
including the South China Sea. Signaling a further ascent in the area’s esteem by China’s leaders, China
has recently begun to refer to the South China Sea as a “core interest” of sovereignty, a status formerly
accorded to only Taiwan and Tibet. Further, a PLAN admiral recently indicated that, “With our naval
strategy changing now, we are going from coastal defense to far sea defense.”7

Military Developments

Despite accords to the contrary, nations have been resorting to the use of force to settle disputes in the
South China Sea for a long time. Despite the way it might appear, this list is not “cherry-picked” – China
really is the main aggressor in the South China Sea.

One of the first relatively recent outbreaks of violence (and one of the most severe, in terms of
casualties) was the Johnson South Reef Skirmish in 1988. Here, China used the pretext of establishing a
UNESCO-related observation station on an island in Vietnamese waters to occupy it. Vietnam

6
The Chinese technique is described quite well at
http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990308/spratlys2.html.
7
“Chinese Military Seeks to Extend Its Naval Power,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/asia/24navy.html?pagewanted=all.

4
responded with naval forces and a battle ensued. The Vietnamese lost naval assets and several dozen
troops in being driven from the area. The area remains in dispute today.8

Next was the 1995 Chinese confrontation with the Philippines at Mischief Reef. Here, the Chinese used
the “squatting” technique described above to assert functional control of the area, which is within the
Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ). However, knowing what happened to the Vietnamese at
Johnson South, the Filipino leaders took a more cool-headed approach and instead of trying to dislodge
the Chinese by force, instead they lodged a complaint against them at ASEAN. A resumption of tensions
in 1999 led to the severance of diplomatic relations between the two countries for a time.

In April 2001, an American Navy EP-3 surveillance aircraft originating from Okinawa flying in
international airspace over the South China Sea was aggressively approached by a pair of Chinese PLAAF
fighter jets. One of these jets got too close to the slower moving EP-3 during a maneuver probably
designed to intimidate the American pilot and crew and struck the American aircraft. The PLAAF fighter
was lost and the EP-3 nearly was. After evasive maneuvers, the pilot managed to bring the EP-3 under
control and made an emergency landing on Hainan Island. This created an international incident.
Chinese authorities held the American military crew for several days before releasing them and the
aircraft for several weeks. The military surveillance aircraft was performing a reconnaissance mission in
the South China Sea to collect information that, if the PLA were more open and forthcoming in their
military-to-military contacts with the US armed forces, Americans would not have to go to such lengths
to try and get by means of surveillance aircraft and other means. The Chinese see the American
reconnaissance flights, which are routine in nature and conducted in international airspace, as coercive
(I would imagine if the shoe were on the other foot – if it was a Chinese surveillance aircraft flying on,
let’s say, Hawaii – the Americans would behave in a similar fashion, sending fighter aircraft to meet and
escort the Chinese surveillance aircraft out of the immediate area. However, I do not think that
American pilots would be so foolish as to get so close to the Chinese aircraft as apparently the Chinese
fighter pilot did, to such tragic result.) , while the Americans see them as something well within their
rights and indeed responsibilities as guarantors of peace and security to much of East Asia and the rest
of the world.9

In the past few years, the PLAN has built a robust naval facility at Sanya, Hainan Island, that allows SSNs
and SSBNs secure access to the deep waters of the South China Sea. It is possible that the American EP-
3 that was struck by the Chinese jet in 2001 (mentioned above) was attempting to collect information
related to the PLAN build-up on Hainan. The facility is designed to allow Chinese subs to leave the port
from an underground structure that leads directly to the deep South China Sea waters – impossible for
above-surface optical means to detect their departure. This base’s construction is provocative in that it
allows PLAN sub-surface assets direct, unobserved access to the South China Sea and the open waters of
the Pacific Ocean beyond the first island chain.10

In March 2009, about 75 miles south of Hainan Island in the South China Sea (not far from where the
2001 EP-3 incident took place, in fact), the American ocean survey ship USNS Impeccable was

8
“Johnson South Reef Skirmish,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_South_Reef_Skirmish.
9
Shirley Kan, “China-U.S. Aircraft Collision Incident of April 2001: Assessments and Policy Implications.”
Congressional Research Service, October 10, 2001.
10
“Secret Sanya: China’s new nuclear naval base revealed,” Jane’s Intelligence Review, April 21, 2008.
http://www.janes.com/news/security/jir/jir080421_1_n.shtml.

5
approached and nearly rammed by Chinese civilian maritime militia vessels.11 The Chinese maintain that
the Americans were conducting surveillance against the Yulin Naval Base at Sanya, Hainan Island, while
the Americans maintain that they were merely conducting ocean surveys in international waters. This
goes back to the differing perspectives of the two sides involved – the Chinese see American presence
and activity inside the first island chain as an affront to their efforts to control their immediately
surrounding territorial waters, while the Americans see themselves as abiding by the rules and laws of
the seas, well outside China’s official territorial waters. The Chinese feel that the waters of their EEZ
(extending 200 miles offshore) are territorial; the Americans do not agree.

Finally, in March 2010, the long-standing feud between Vietnam and China in the South China Sea
heated up once more. (See Figure 4 nearby.) Chinese and Vietnamese fishermen were both operating
not far from Vietnam in the South China Sea. The Vietnamese fishermen felt the Chinese fishermen
needed to leave. The Chinese fishermen disagreed and refused to leave. They soon found themselves
surrounded by dozens of Vietnam craft and being threatened. They called for back-up, and soon a pair
of Chinese coastal patrol vessels arrived. They were soon mobbed by even more Vietnamese fishing

Figure 4: PLAN North and East Sea Fleet maneuvers, March - April 2010
(IISS)

11
“China Harassed U.S. Ship, the Pentagon Says,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/washington/10military.html?_r=1.

6
vessels. China felt that it had to escalate with a show of force. Soon the PLAN East Sea dispatched a
flotilla from Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, all the way to the South China Sea. When the flotilla of over 10
warships passed through the Miyako Strait south of Okinawa on April 10, it made news around the
world.12 (This was the first time the PLAN had moved beyond the first island chain into the open waters
of the Pacific Ocean in such force.) Once the Vietnamese fisherman heard that this armada was headed
their way, they immediately left the area, leaving the Chinese fishermen in peace. With this strategy of
brinksmanship on both sides, one imagines it is only a matter of time until Vietnam and China really get
into a large armed conflict in the South China Sea.13

Conclusion

China’s designs on the South China Sea will only increase in significance militarily because of ongoing
PLAN modernization, new force projections missions which require PLAN submarines based at Hainan
Island be able to easily access the open waters of the Pacific Ocean, and the inclusion of the South China
Sea as one of China’s “core interest” of sovereignty. Unless the PLA and China adopt a more open
attitude towards increasing their degree of military transparency to the US, American surveillance assets
in the air and on the sea will continue to enter the South China Sea area to try to learn more about
Chinese intentions. The area’s significance as a major SLOC will only grow in the future, too, as China
and other East Asian countries import more and more fossil fuels by sea.

12
See, for instance, “PLAN East Sea Fleet Moves Beyond First Island Chain,” China Brief,
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=36320&tx_ttnews[backPid]=25&cH
ash=94795126bd.
13
IISS Strategic Comments, “Chinese navy’s new strategy in action.” http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-
comments/past-issues/volume-16-2010/may/chinese-navys-new-strategy-in-action/

7
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Dutton, P. A. (2010, April). Through a Chinese Lens. U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings , pp. 24-29.

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