1. In Asia restraint is more likely than scs conflict—their evidence relies on media narratives of escalation that are sensationalized and artificially inflated

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AT: Solvency

1NC Solvency

China will say no—empirics

Andrew Browne, Gordon Lubold and Trefor Moss, 5-31-2015, China’s Island-Building Poses Dilemma for U.S.," WSJ, http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-island-building-poses-dilemma-for-u-s-1433102116, Accessed: 7-1-2016, /Kent Denver-MB

SINGAPORE—China’s refusal to curtail island-building in the South China Sea has sparked a debate in Washington between those who believe such muscle-flexing shouldn’t go unchecked, and others who fear the wrong response could trigger a military confrontation or a new Cold War. The delicacy of the Obama administration’s position was on display throughout the weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major security conference where Defense Secretary Ash Carter tried to convince Beijing to stop its building of islets in the disputed Spratly Islands. U.S. officials say China’s program, which has expanded dramatically in recent months, includes transforming semi-submerged reefs into forward bases with airfields fit for military use—sparking anxiety among China’s neighbors and threatening America’s decadeslong military primacy in East Asia. Obama administration officials are struggling to find “that right balance” to exert pressure without inflaming the situation “more than it needs to be as we try to pursue our goals and objectives,” a U.S. official said. “There aren’t any silver bullets to resolving this,” said David Shear, a former U.S. ambassador to Vietnam who is now the assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs.

Can’t solve—they are locked into island building

Ron Huisken is an adjunct associate professor at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University., 1-14-2016, What’s Really Behind China’s Island Building?," National Interest, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/whats-really-behind-chinas-island-building-14900?page=2, Accessed: 7-1-2016, /Kent Denver-MB

The People’s Republic of China has nonetheless progressively intensified its campaign to secure acceptance of its claim. It has alternated between phases of inducement and coercion as well as signaling, as it became wealthier, that its capacity to bring pressure to bear was, for all practical purposes, destined to become unlimited. Beijing has had ample opportunity—even since the end of the Cold War focused more attention on those ‘regional’ issues—to assess the costs and risks of its policy settings on the South China Sea. We can infer that, for some considerable time, the occasional policy review concluded that the established instruments of policy implementation—both carrots and sticks, all of which were growing in weight and effectiveness—could be expected to suppress opposition to China’s objectives at an acceptable cost and in an acceptable timeframe. It seems, however, that something happened that shattered political confidence in getting that timely and cost-effective outcome. Something persuaded the Politburo that the parameters of the issue needed a profound shake-up to accelerate progress toward the desired outcome. The Politburo was attracted to a spectacular blizzard of island building as the transformative development. Planning was conducted in complete secrecy. One can assume that the Politburo had to decide what island-building program was neither too small nor too big to achieve its psychological, political and security objectives, and how quickly it had to be put in place to preclude countervailing action. It would also have had to choose which features to transform into islands; decisions that would have been informed by the feasibility of transforming particular features, prospective economic rewards, military considerations stemming from the location of features occupied by other claimants and the full scope of the rights and privileges within its dashed line that China intends, eventually, to claim (but which it has steadfastly declined to elaborate on thus far). Not long before this development, and possibly even coincident with it, the more strategically-minded within the Party leadership might have lamented that China was now so strongly associated with that claim, had committed so much political capital to it, that failure was no longer an option. It might now be clearer that China’s proximity and the sheer weight of its activities in and around the South China Sea would have delivered de facto ‘ownership’ but it was too late for this: China had at that point no choice but to press its expansive claim and make it stick. The island-building program ramped up quickly from August 2014 and was declared complete in June 2015. The apparent objective of a political ambush was achieved. Secrecy about the Politburo decision, and preparations to implement that decision, was absolute. No one in the CCP, the legal profession, the media or the National People’s Congress breathed a word, not even to pose a question about the political wisdom, legality or cost of what the Politburo had in mind. That’s just as well, of course. If other states knew, or came to know, what the time-line for Beijing’s decisions on the program had been and then compared it with what China had been saying and doing diplomatically at the same time, the fallout could be rather damaging.

2NC Say No

US requests won’t phase China—they will stand strong

Yet Mr. Carter couched his remarks in language that stressed a common vision of Asian prosperity in which “everyone rises.” By portraying China as disrupting this status quo and defying international norms, he appeared to be carefully laying the groundwork for any future show of force. China appeared unfazed by Mr. Carter’s remarks and showed little indication of backing down. Zhao Xiaozhou, a Chinese colonel, said Mr. Carter “wasn’t as tough as I expected.” On Sunday, Adm. Sun Jianguo repeated Beijing’s line that the islands are China’s sovereign territory and would benefit Asia, providing maritime search and rescue, disaster relief, and scientific research bases. “There is no reason for people to play up the issue in the South China Sea,” said Adm. Sun, the deputy chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army’s General Staff. The new islands “do not target any other countries, or affect freedom of navigation.”

They think it is theirs—regardless of outside pressure

2NC No Solvency

It is too far militarized to solve

It’s become increasingly clear that China intends to make the SCS a China-only military operating area. This can be seen in a number of recent actions by the Chinese. The first of these is the ratcheting up of activities by China’s “militarized fisherman,” the so-called “little blue men” who go out in the SCS and clash with ships from other nations, both commercial and naval. These are not simply private fishermen engaged in “patriotic activities.” On the contrary, according to researchers at the US Naval War College (NWC) with whom I recently spoke, these vessels are in actuality a maritime militia subsidized by Beijing and effectively a part-time military organization. These boats are sent out to collect intelligence, show the flag, and promote sovereignty claims. Moreover, they are not above creating minor clashes with other ships, as they provide Chinese naval and paramilitary forces, particularly the Chinese Coast Guard with a pretext (protecting Chinese “civilians”) to intervene and thereby bolster China’s military presence in the SCS. While this maritime militia has been around for decades, researchers at the NWC point that they have become a much more active and aggressive force, and one that has a growing strategic purpose in what has been dubbed the “3Ds” of China’s SCS strategy: declare (Chinese claims), deny (other countries’ claims), and defend (those claims). Full-scale militarization of SCS At the same time, China’s aggressive (and wholly illegal, according to the UN Law of the Sea Treaty) artificial island-building program that has taken place in the Spratlys over the last few years is apparently entering a second phase: the full-scale militarization of Chinese possessions in the SCS. This includes building runways on Fiery Cross, Subi, and Mischief Reefs, emplacing radar stations, and even temporarily moving weapons (such as artillery pieces) to these islands.

Woody island proves it is too militarized

More important, Woody Island, one of China’s largest possessions in the SCS, has experienced a dramatic military expansion in recent years. Its 2700-meter runway can accommodate most Chinese fighter jets (in fact, Chinese Air Force J-11B fighters were recently spotted on the island), it has improved its harbor, and in early 2016 it was reported that long-range surface-to-air missiles were deployed to the island.

Too important to give up islands

Richard A. Bitzinger is a Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Military Transformations Program at the S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The opinions expressed here are his own. 6-21-2016, China’s militarization of the South China Sea: Building a strategic strait?," Asia Times, http://atimes.com/2016/06/chinas-militarization-of-the-south-china-sea-building-a-strategic-strait/, Accessed: 7-1-2016, /Kent Denver-MB

And this amalgamation of force, combined with the rise of the “little blue men” and the growing militarization of the SCS gives a new strategic foreboding to this body of water. In particular, researchers at the US Naval War College see the South China Sea as being increasingly dominated by China not just according to sea power, but to land power as well. As they put it, the more or less permanent deployment of land-based Chinese military power at both extreme ends of the SCS – Hainan and Woody Island in the west, and the new artificial islands in the east – means that China is basically trying to turn the South China Sea into a strait. In other words, Beijing seeks to transform the South China Sea from an international sea lane into a Chinese-controlled waterway and a strategic chokepoint for other countries. This “continental militarization” of the SCS not only diminishes the “open order” of the Southeast Asian maritime sphere. It also greatly raises the likelihood that the South China Sea will become a flashpoint for escalating conflict. China is not only militarizing the SCS, it is making it too important for Beijing to lose. This, in turn, raises the premium of a first strike by China on its regional rivals, in order to shore up its claims. More and more, China is playing a risky game of chicken, and at the same time, it does not seem to appreciate the grave potential consequences of its actions.

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