China takes new tack in maritime diplomacy

By Jian Junbo

SHANGHAI - With its first explicit declaration that the South China Sea is one of its national "core interests", the Chinese government is taking a tougher stand on safeguarding its rights in what it sees as its territorial waters.

Beijing's stance on the South China Sea is a proclamation that China will no longer tolerate activity deemed unfriendly or hostile there, since no country would compromise on any issue concerning its core national interests.

In the Yellow Sea too, China has reacted with unprecedented strength over a planned United States-South Korean joint naval maneuver, which reportedly is likely to start now that the United Nations Security Council has adopted a resolution on the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan in March. A firmer stand seems likely on territorial waters in the East China Sea, where China this month has been carrying out naval exercises aimed at rattling the United States over its sale of weapons to Taiwan.

Reports that South Korea is to carry out joint naval maneuvers with US in the international waters of the Yellow Sea suggest an attempt to warn North Korea to back off from continuously threatening security in Northeast Asia, as Seoul blames Pyongyang for the sinking of the Cheonan.

The statement last week from the 15-member Security Council did not directly name North Korea as the culprit for the sinking, but "deplored" the attack in which 46 sailors died and expressed "deep concern". North Korea has said it is "satisfied" with the report.

But the possible involvement of a US aircraft carrier in any Yellow Sea naval exercises irks China. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang has said in Beijing that China is firmly opposed to any foreign warship coming near the Yellow Sea or other waters close to China's territory to conduct activities that would have consequences for China's national security.

When the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) broke away from past practice of keeping military activities secret, and publicized exercises against an imagined hostile aircraft carrier battle group in the East China Sea, it was seen as an expression of Beijing's disquiet about the impending US-South Korean war games.

China's naval exercise happened, interestingly enough, after a PLAN officer told two visiting senior US officials in Beijing in March that China regarded the South China Sea as its territorial water and core national interest - the first time this has been said.

A major reason for China's more proactive interventions in regard to safeguarding its rights and interests in its territorial waters is that with its growing economic muscle, China no longer wants to tolerate any threat in its "near" seas from its neighbors or the United States.

The overtly unfriendly posture toward China from two of its strategic partners - the US and South Korea - is unacceptable to Beijing, especially since China compromised on the Iran nuclear issue and the Cheonan incident by voting in line with the US on two Security Council resolutions.

This is not the first time the US has challenged China's territorial waters. US spy planes and ships have constantly come to the edge of these waters in past years, collecting Chinese military information. One example was in 2001, when a Chinese fighter plane sank into the South China Sea after a collision with a US spy plane. The Chinese pilot died and his body was never found.

With recent US arms sales to Taiwan and the consolidation of the US-Japanese alliance after the end of the Cold War, China now deems the US as too antagonistic in the security area, even as bilateral relations in the economic and financial fields have been enhanced. Because of this, Washington is suspected by Beijing and many Chinese people of being an untruthful partner, or even of seeking to contain China's rise.

Beijing's claim that the South China Sea (and hence other near seas) is part of its core interests is not only in response to perceptions of a US challenge, but also to the realities of geopolitical conflict in the area. In Beijing's view, the most controversial islands in the South China Sea, especially the Nansha (or Spratly) islands, have been occupied by neighboring countries.

Among them, Vietnam is perceived as the most aggressive, followed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Yet China only controls a small part of the Nansha islands, while the biggest island in the group, Taiping, is managed by Taiwan.

Mostly due to Beijing's weakness on the issue, these countries became more ambitious in strengthening their hold of the islands in the South China Sea. Vietnam, for example, has placed a new administrative division on some islands - although they have no permanent residents - and developed some tourist routes, and built military infrastructure to lay greater claim to sovereignty.

Before the 1970s, though, no country questioned China's legitimacy and sovereignty over these islands and the waters of the South China Sea. For the Chinese, the South China Sea and its islands have historically been Chinese territory.

According to Chinese documents, the Chinese discovered the Nansha islands in the Han Dynasty some 2,000 years ago. From the Song Dynasty (960-1276 AD), the islands were under China's jurisdiction, while in the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368 AD) the Nansha islands were a part of Hainan (today's Hainan province) and managed by the central government.

In the following Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 AD), China's ships sailed by the islands of the South China Sea, symbolically implying China's sovereignty over the waters. Then in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 AD), important official and royal Chinese political maps issued or drawn in 1724, 1755, 1767, 1810 and 1817 clearly marked the Nansha islands as Chinese territory.

In 1947, based on the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation, China's central government appointed Mai Yunyu as official commissioner to take sovereignty over the Nansha islands from Japanese forces. In 1947, the Internal Ministry of the Republic of China finished marking the South China Sea boundary, and the Nansha islands were undoubtedly included as a part of China's sovereignty.

Until about a quarter of a century later, no country, including Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, expressed dissent over this situation, until two events occurred. First, geologists declared in 1967 and 1968 that they had discovered oil and gas in the South China Sea; second, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea was adopted in 1982.

The discovery of oil and gas stimulated some countries to claim sovereignty over the islands and water in this region, and tried to seek historical proof to support their claims. The UN law gave these countries a general and legal basis to request sovereignty.

Since the end of the 1960s, one claim or another over sovereignty of one or all of the islands has been a constant. These led to military conflict with Vietnam and the Philippines in 1974, 1988 and 1995, small-scale skirmishes that China won.

In 1979, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping proposed dealing with issue through the principle of "shelving disputes and co-developing", meaning that disputes over sovereignty in the South China Sea could be put aside and countries could pay more attention to exploiting oil and gas through international cooperation. This is still the policy of China's leaders today, though it has aroused increasingly vocal criticism from the Chinese public.

Some overseas commentators argue that China's recent tougher attitude indicates Beijing is becoming more and more influenced by nationalistic sentiment at home into giving up its rational policy in dealing with South China Sea matters.

However, such reasoning confuses the concepts of nationalism and patriotism. Nationalism can lead to a country taking over territory, as the Nazis did. On the other hand, if a nation aims to recover its interests or territory taken away by others, this is patriotism, which is a cornerstone a nation needs to survive and prosper.

China should not be unjustly labeled as nationalistic, since it never claims other countries' territory. Simply for the sake of keeping "peace" and "stability", for a long time China has adopted an appeasement policy toward the US and neighboring countries.

But now, Beijing perhaps thinks appeasement is coming to an end. A friendly China is considered by some neighbors as a weak state, and hence potential conflicts are accumulating. So Beijing must stop playing the part of a non-contentious person. In the long run, a tougher China with a clear strategic policy toward the South China Sea and other seas will help maintain stability and peace in East and Southeast Asia.

Since the policy of "shelving disputes and co-developing" cannot effectively be put into practice because of a lack of cooperation from some Southeast Asian countries, it should be replaced by a new policy, even though the image of China as a peaceful rising power could be damaged.

However, the international image of China is still mostly defined by Western leaders and their media and not by China itself. In other words, for the Chinese, concerns over image take a back seat to what China should be doing.

Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

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