Expert panel expects rising tension in the South China Sea

A panel of experts on Asian and maritime issues predicted to a March 21 National Press Club Newsmaker audience that tension in the South China Sea will increase after an international court ruling expected in the next few months.

China has claimed large areas of the South Chinese Sea, including the Spratly Islands also claimed by the Philippines, which has sued under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Gregory Poling of the Center for Strategic and International Studies explained.

Poling said he expects at least part of the anticipated ruling to go against China on the technicality that a reef taken by China is not an island but only a rock, and therefore China has no right to it.

"The idea that one country in the world can claim rights to areas 1,000 miles from its shore while everybody else is limited to 12 miles . . . is not sustainable, " he said.

According to Poling the United States’s strategy is to generate international disapproval of China for violating the treaty, which was signed by 167 nations but not the U.S., until China realizes that it is in its long term interest to reduce its claim.

"The goal is just to make China look as bad in the international arena as possible," he said. He termed the policy correct because “there is no military solution."

"There is no short term solution to this,” he added. “This is a 10 to 15-year problem."

Meanwhile, as the continuing buildup in the Spratly Islands enables the Chinese to increase their air and sea movements in the region, tensions will rise, Poling said.

Another panelist, Yann-huei Song, of the Center for Asia-Pacific Studies, reiterated that China is obligated to abide by UNCLOS. He foresaw that the buildup on the islands will lead to more disputes. The increased Chinese air and sea activity in an area where U.S. forces are also active creates a dangerous situation, he said.

A big challenge for the U.S. and China, Song said, is to implement the code of conduct, and subsequent memorandum of understanding, they signed in 2014 governing unplanned air and sea encounters.

A third panelist, Donald Marcus, president of the International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots, an organization of American sea captains and deck officers, agreed with a statement by Song that the dangerous situation could lead to a "Guns of August," a reference to the beginnings of World War I.

Marcus lamented the size of the American merchant marine, pointing out that it carries only 2 percent of U.S. trade while the Chinese merchant marine carries 90 percent of Chinese trade.

He equated the size of a nation’s merchant marine with sea power, citing history beginning with President Thomas Jefferson in which U.S. policy has supported and defended a merchant marine.

The fourth member of the panel, Larry M. Wortzel, of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, called for "perspective" on the situation. Because the UNCLOS court "has no marshalls," he noted, it cannot enforce its edicts.

Given this situation, he agreed with Poling that U.S. policy is correct.

Because China's economy is equally dependent on trade as others in the area, he observed, it is not going to interfere with navigation. "In general, I don't think anything is going to close the South China Sea unless in a general war in which commerce would be severely interrupted," he said.

Wortzel interpreted Chinese actions partially as counter-intervention to the air-sea contingent strategy in event “we ever go to war to protect Taiwan." He noted that U.S. B52s fly across the area China is claiming on their flights en route to South Korea from Guam.

Although he reiterated the danger from rising tension and chances of unplanned encounters, he said he doubts that any nation in the area is likely to use force to reclaim territory seized by China.