China and the South China Sea

China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and rapidly expanding military represent a unique challenge today in world politics. No other issue is as delicate and has as much at stake; we face the very real possibility of large scale warfare between two nuclear powers (China and the US) if this issue is not carefully and deliberately managed.

China’s meteoric rise economically was not always matched by a rise in military capabilities; war is bad for business after all and with no serious challenger to her interests, there was no reason to develop a large and modern military. But recently, that has changed and China’s first goal has been to build up the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). For a long time, the PLAN had no “blue-water” capability to speak of, with only a moderately sized “green-water” navy focused on littoral combat and patrolling closely off the coast.

However, this has changed recently and on 26 December 2008 the PLAN deployed 2 destroyers and 1 supply ship to the Gulf of Aden to take part in anti-piracy operations with the other international forces. This marks the first deployment of Chinese warships outside Chinese territorial waters in hundreds of years.

The rest of the PLAN continues to rapidly expand and modernize with an emphasis on weapons systems deliberately designed to counter US capital ships and Carrier Battle Groups in the South China Sea and up to the first island chain. This is combined with the rapid proliferation of area-denial weapons such as the newly designed DongFeng 21 capable of reaching speeds of mach 10 and closing in on 2000km in 12 minutes. This weapon is designed specifically to destroy US Carriers by traveling so fast that it evades detection and interception by the increasingly sophisticated US anti-missile network. China is also modernizing and increasing its submarine fleet with an emphasis on nuclear attack submarines designed, again, to counter conventional US superiority.

On the bright side of all this, as was mentioned earlier, war is bad for business. China appears to not want war, what they want is to make the prospect of war so expensive that the US is dissuaded from standing up to China on issues like disputed islands in South China Sea, Taiwan and Tibet. China is aware that the US still maintains an overwhelming advantage in sea, air and land power and any actual sinking of a US Carrier, while it would be the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor for the USN, would be manageable and China would suffer terribly in any protracted war. China continues to maintain, as it did in the recent defense white paper that it, “unswervingly taking the road of peaceful development, unswervingly carrying out its policies of reform and opening-up and socialist modernization, unswervingly pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace and a national defense policy solely aimed at protecting its territory and people, and endeavoring to build, together with other countries, a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity.”

While this is broadly true, all things considered, it remains to be seen how long China keeps this low profile, problem free foreign policy. Recently, China has been showing growing assertiveness in how it handles its local diplomacy. When the US sold more weapons, as it does every year, China protested more strongly and longer than usual. China had normally taken these sales as a matter of course and only protested briefly but this most recent time reflected a much more hardline approach than we were accustomed to. China used the incident as justification for cutting off defense ties and exercises with the US.

So why the potential conflict between the US and China, why can’t the growing PLAN be regarded as a potential ally? Well, it can be but matters with China’s view of the South China Sea and its increasingly aggressive posturing in relation to the first island chain are a cause of great concern. For years under the Bush administration US policy in the South China Sea had foundered, and China was attempting a diplomacy blitz to win allies in the region. But recently the US has responded with a diplomacy blitz of its own, winning back allies afraid of a rising China. The US has re-established ties with Indonesia’s Special Forces and has announced or conducted military exercises with Cambodia, South Korea and Vietnam. China views the South China Sea as it’s historical domain and believes it has a special sovereignty over it, but it’s interests also run more pragmatic. If the PLAN was to successfully assert itself in the South China Sea and up to the first island chain, it would accomplish the dual use of keeping the other neighborhood up and comer, India, bottled up in the Indian Ocean. It has identified India as a potential trouble maker because of its similar meteoric rise in power and status as well as a historic enmity stemming from disputed territories in Xinjiang and Arunachal Pradesh and its close alliance with the United States.

Conflict is avoidable in the South China Sea, certainly, but the conflict between US, Chinese, Indian, South-East Asian interest has the potential to blow up into a the most serious military engagement since World War II. The results of any such conflict with not only be a tragedy for the thousands who would certainly die but would drastically alter the balance of power in the world and have severe consequences for the global economy as the two biggest economies in the world make war upon one another. It is for this reason -- the potential for violence and drastic changes in the regional and worldwide balance of power, that China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea is the biggest issue in world politics.