The South China Sea has always been a geo-political hotspot in international politics, a part of the Pacific Ocean bordering with Brunei, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The sea’s importance largely results from a large portion of the world’s commercial merchant ships passing through these waters, and reserves of huge undiscovered oil and gas.
Though the dispute has been going on for centuries, claims to ownership of the islands as the Paracel Islands, Spratly Islands, Scarborough Shoal, etc possibly came into focus in the third century, and the dispute deepened over the Chinese claim of the sea based on the nine-dotted line in 1947, which provides historical support for their claims to the South China Sea.
The bordering nations and the US claim an eleven-dotted line in reality. Subsequently, the incident gave a different flavour to various crucial periods in world history, such as the Cold War, the post-Cold War period, and the New World Order. Now it has become a field for the “great powers game” being played in the power politics of the Indo-Pacific regions, with China on one side and the US on the other.
However, current disputes came into focus over China’s projects in building airstrips in the Spratly Islands and drilling rigs into waters near Paracel Islands seeking to inhabit its people, basing military assets, and overseeing this busy shipping route.
In the latest incident, the foreign policy of the two nations worsened again when the US Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft flew near the Fiery Cross Reef in Spratly Islands. The US Department of Foreign Affairs termed China’s activities as “excessive,” “outrageous,” and “without basis under international law.”
The South China Sea is of geo-political and geo-strategic importance to China, ASEAN, and the US. To China, as a great regional power, firstly, the dominance over this sea is imperative to exert greater political and economic influence in Asia and Southeast Asia. To protect its core interests, China needs to control its strategic stability belt (a regional or global security environment in which nations enjoy peaceful and friendly relations).
This is also important in bringing together Taiwan with the mainland under China’s grand strategy in becoming a superpower. In this regard, China is increasing its naval presence in the South China Sea. As a result, the country treats the sea as an important “backyard” to shield the mainland from any sea attack.
Secondly, it is widely believed that the sea has great potential in terms of unexplored oil and gas. China is now importing oil from the Middle East despite huge transportation costs. Beijing's energy security strategy is based on the exploration of natural resources from the sea to fulfill its own demands as well as regional littoral countries. For this reason, China wants to seize control over important sea routes which are vital to its economy, such as the Malacca Strait and routes through the South China Sea. Since, through these routes, 50% of the global oil tanker shipments are transported.
If China is able to explore oil and gas from this sea, it may hinder oil and gas shipments through these lines. That, in turn, will create an energy dependency for the other countries, making them reliant on China, which is seemingly its ultimate goal.
On the other hand, China’s recent political and economic emergence -- with the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS Development Bank -- is seen as a direct challenge to the US-dominated international economic order such as the IMF, WB, and ADB in the region. To the US, it is high time to bring a halt to the pace of Beijing’s development. As a regional bloc, the ASEAN is not an active association for China’s hegemonic role in the region.
As a consequence, the US is very much worried about the future of its own interests and that of its allies. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies has sketched three direct strategic challenges for the US centring the sea. Firstly, the US tends to see the implementation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in the South China Sea, particularly for freedom of navigation for US military ships in the region, and the just distribution of sea-based natural resources among the nations following the convention.
Secondly, the US is now quite concerned about the protection of the interests of its traditional allies as they are strategic naval routes for Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Taiwan. It also tends to safeguard the interests of US gas and oil corporations in the region.
Thirdly, China’s military rise in the sea is deemed as the US’s failure to maintain Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy -- remaining a global power in the Asia-Pacific region through economic, political, and military presence. So, China’s control over the South China Sea is part of the country's endeavor to neutralise the US geo-economic and geo-political influence in that region.
It is clear that there remains a game of power politics between China and the US over the South China Sea. A military solution is not the proper means to resolve this dispute as it will only work to deepen regional tensions. For the solution, the US and the ASEAN countries will have to voice concern through regional diplomatic forums and promote maritime security co-operation.