As part of a joint military exercise with the Philippines, the US Navy on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, sank a target warship in the South China Sea or South China Sea.
War games
The live-fire exercise is not a response to Beijing’s heightened tensions with Washington, both the US and the Philippines have stressed. But, in any case, Beijing was not satisfied – it responded by carrying out its own military operations by deploying warships and fighter jets around Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own.
The confrontational war games highlight a reality that US presidents must face more and more as the 21st century progresses. More than a century after President Theodore Roosevelt established the United States as the preeminent maritime power in the Pacific, that position is under threat. China seeks to displace it.
Naval disputes
The growing competition between the U.S. and China’s bid for dominance in the Pacific has the potential to define geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region for the next half century.
Already, ongoing maritime disputes pit China against many Asian countries as it routinely disputes the maritime rights of Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea.
(image from chinausfocus.com)
But the contested waters are also of enormous strategic importance to the US. And Beijing is making a show of its growing military power vis-à-vis Washington, its allies and partners, especially Taiwan, which the US has pledged to defend. If war breaks out between China and the U.S. the South China Sea will likely be a major theater, with Chinese aggression toward Taiwan providing the spark.
The Race in the South China Sea
For centuries, the dozens of islands, shoals, reefs, banks and rocks in the South China Sea have been seen as little more than hazards to navigation. But with the discovery of large oil and natural gas reserves in the 1970s and the development of multibillion-dollar fisheries, the previously indifferent sea has gained considerable attention from littoral countries. These factors have led to a resurgence of conflicting “ownership” claims in the maritime area.
China currently claims legal rights to the vast majority of the South China Sea, which extends far beyond the boundaries established by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
This claim, marked on the map (above) with a nine-dash line, coincides with the legally recognized maritime and sovereign rights of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
Over the past decade, China has consistently engaged in basic coercive activities called “gray zone tactics,” such as the small-scale deployment of the Chinese coast guard in disputed waters and the manning of fishing vessels with civilians trained by the Chinese military.
The artificial islands
The purpose is to harass others and assert maritime rights outside of China’s legitimate waters as recognized by UNCLOS. Since 2013, China has also formed several reefs and shallow waters into artificial islands, on which it is building military bases with airstrips, radar technologies and missile launch capabilities.
In 2016, a UNCLOS Annex VII arbitration panel ruled that China’s nine-dash line claims were illegal and rejected its rights over maritime portions in the Philippines’ legal waters.
(photo by Francis Malasig/AP)
However, despite the legally binding nature of the decision, China continued to militarize its artificial islands and harass the military and fishing vessels of neighboring countries. It has also denied passage to US Navy ships sailing legally in the South China Sea.
Successive US administrations have expressed concern about these developments in the region. In 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a US position on the South China Sea, dismissing Beijing’s maritime claims and its “intimidation” tactics as “illegal”.
His successor, Anthony Blinken, said in 2021: “Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea.” But why does the South China Sea matter so much to the US? The answer lies in economics and political power.
Source of trade, natural resources
About a third of the world’s shipping passes through the South China Sea. In total, more than $3.4 trillion worth of products – from plastic ducks to cars – are transported through its waters each year. The sea connects the Pacific Ocean with the Indian Ocean, allowing trade from East Asian countries to flow to and from billions of people in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
14% of all US maritime trade is also conducted from here. It is a critical route for US exports as well as the transportation of goods to the US. Without this sea route, the transportation of the products we use every day will slow down and their costs will increase.
Huge deposits
Also, about 30% of all the world’s crude oil is transported through the South China Sea. In addition, there is $11 billion worth of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves as well as undiscovered oil and gas. Meanwhile, more than half of the world’s fishing vessels operate in this maritime area.
For economic reasons alone, the US and the rest of the world need open trade and sea lanes in the South China Sea. Preventing one country – particularly a hostile China – from controlling these trade routes and resources is a critical policy concern for Washington.
Power politics
Although economics plays a role, Chinese actions in the South China Sea are part of a much broader offensive campaign. Beijing views territorial and maritime control in the region through the prism of its national security. He seeks to project his power and defend the mainland.
Ultimately, as recognized by the US government, China seeks to overturn the status quo, replacing the US as a superpower.
This power struggle is already taking shape in the South China Sea, with regular confrontations between US Navy ships and China’s naval militia and navy. Its artificial islands provide military capabilities far beyond the mainland. These outposts can be used to confront but also confront the US and its allies, for example, in a war over Taiwan.
While the US is not itself a claimant in the South China Sea disputes, the waters there also remain an important priority for its national security interests.
That’s why Washington and its allies are conducting free-of-navigation missions and participating in naval exercises like the one underway this month with the Philippines. With China playing by a different set of rules than the US and its allies in the region, the risk of conflicts at sea is very real. It could even lead to war between the two most powerful countries in the world today.
The next time a warship is blown up in the South China Sea, it will most likely not be just an exercise.
