South China Sea Yes Conflict
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- Odds of SCS war slim due to balancing effect
No ConflictGenericNo ECS or SCS war – it’s all posturingCronin 15 – Patrick M. Cronin, Senior Advisor and Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, Feb 27, 2015(“Countering China’s Maritime Coercion,” The Diplomat, Available online at http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/countering-chinas-maritime-coercion/, Accessed 6/22/16, AJ) Is China-U.S. competition for primacy in Asia this century’s greatest threat to peace? Some analysts think so. But in leaping from Sino-American competition to potential world war, they miss the obvious: Chinese leaders probe, seize opportunities, and challenge the international system with creeping assertions of sovereignty in the East and South China Seas. Yet they have no intention of sparking war, and they know that American, Japanese and other leaders are equally averse to risking so much over something as arcane as maritime boundaries and rights. Odds of SCS war slim due to balancing effectJennings 16- Ralph Jennings, Attended National Chengchi University, a news reporter stationed in Taipei since 2006, tracking Taiwanese companies and local economic trends that resonate offshore. At Reuters through 2010, I looked intensely at the island’s awkward relations with China. More recently, studied high-tech trends in greater China expanded my overall news coverage to surrounding Asia, 2016 (“Why Odds Of War In The Contested South China Sea Are Near Zero,” Forbes, June 6th, Available online at http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphjennings/2016/06/06/why-odds-of-war-in-the-contested-south-china-sea-are-near-zero/#40cc9da735e0, Accessed 07-11-16, WSS) If you live in Taiwan, you know how this works: Show up in a café or a library and find the tables occupied not by people but their stuff. Books and a water bottle, even a laptop computer, tell you “don’t sit here, it’s occupied.” Owners of the stuff aren’t in the toilet. They’re in a class or out shopping. Seat seekers usually oblige the hint even though it’s a slap in the face, or maybe just a forgettable nip. This metaphor happens to apply to the South China Sea, a tropical Asian body of water contested by seven governments, including an expansionist China and others backed by Beijing’s rival world superpower the United States. Taiwan is a claimant as well. Despite speculation about armed conflict as China bores deep into other countries’ maritime territory, the parties have learned during their dispute of more than 40 years to avoid one another’s stuff yet keep saying in public that it’s all theirs and please everyone else stay away. China, for example, disagrees that Malaysia has a territorial right to explore for undersea natural gas around the Spratly Islands, but it doesn’t sabotage the equipment. Vietnam and Taiwan claim islets elsewhere in the Spratlys, one archipelago in the 3.5 million-square-meter ocean, that are so close you can see from one to the next. But they don’t attack and Taiwan says it has even helped Vietnamese vessels – erstwhile maritime intruders per Taiwanese law – recover from storm damage. The two governments still occasionally point fingers for infringing on each other’s maritime claims to parts of the ocean that’s packed with fish and undersea fuels. Armed conflict would follow only if a claimant took the books and laptop off someone’s metaphorical library table and there’s little precedent. “I only think there would be a war if Vietnam or the Philippines tried retaking territory already seized by Beijing,” says Sean King, senior vice president with consulting firm Park Strategies in New York. “I think a de facto code of conduct is evolving, most easily shaped by Beijing.” Fear of conflict has obvious merit. Vietnam fired on two Chinese ships in 1974 and in 1988 China killed 74 Vietnamese sailors as it sank or demolished three ships. Two years ago Chinese and Vietnamese boats sparred after Beijing allowed a Chinese state oil company to park a rig off Vietnam’s coast. China’s militarization of some of the sea’s approximately 500 islets among the various archipelagos raises more concern, prompting weaker claimants such as the Philippines to seek help from the United States or start buying more weapons. But those upsets are oddball incidents, nothing near routine. No one wants a war despite the maddening erosion of their claims and the economic opportunity they represent. First, the countries claiming the South China Sea have been leaving their stuff there a long time and coast guards from other places know where it is, reducing odds of a mishap. China and the United States both move in “predictable” ways and military commanders from each side have probably ordered no shooting except in “extreme” cases, says Denny Roy, senior fellow with the East-West Center think tank in Honolulu. The idea is the United States could strike on behalf of its old colony the Philippines as the two sides have increased defense cooperation since 2014. But the United States, China and other Asian countries with maritime claims depend on one another too much economically to get into an armed struggle, says Lin Chong-pin, a retired strategic studies professor in Taiwan. Interdependence has surged since the Global Financial Crisis seven years ago, he says. China, he adds, since 1982 has advocated struggle without a reaching a breaking point. “The unprecedented magnitude of interdependence of powers in the world and especially after the great recession 2009 is such that they wouldn’t want a war,” Lin says. SCS won’t escalate- interdependence and diplomacy checks- assumes military modernization and Chinese aggressionChaibi 13 Abraham Chaibi, 3-4-2013, "The outlook for continuing stability in the South China Sea," OxPol (Oxford University Political Blog), http://blog.politics.ox.ac.uk/the-outlook-for-continuing-stability-in-the-south-china-sea/, Accessed 7/11/16//SRawal What then is the evidence suggesting a continued reluctance to engage in full-scale military confrontation? Although in the past conflict has often arisen between economically interdependent nations (viz. the previous peak of global trade in 1914), the China-ASEAN relationship is one of fundamental interdependence of production, visible in the prevalence of international supply chaining in manufacturing processes, rather than solely trade and labour movement[i]. The burgeoning economic interdependence and growth of neighbouring states contributes a major incentive to prevent a conflagration. $5.3 trillion of trade, of which approximately 20% is US, transits the South China Sea annually and any interruption would not only severely restrict regional trade revenues, but would also very likely guarantee US military intervention[ii]. The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is becoming increasingly interconnected and 2015 will mark a key turning point with the opening of internal ASEAN borders for free movement of labor. The ASEAN bloc has also concluded a number of reconciliation agreements with China. Regarding security, both the 2002 Code of Conduct and the 2011 Guidelines to the Code of Conduct are intended to help coordinate diplomacy and maintain peace in South China Sea disputes. Economically China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner since 2009, and at its opening in 2010 the ASEAN-China free trade area (ACFTA) became the largest in the world by population. These arrangements come at a time when growing estimates of the value of the natural resources contained in the South China Sea are generating pressures associated with ensuring energy security. Economic interdependence between China and ASEAN, however, is not the sole factor at play. In areas with considerable interstate tension sub-state actors have often contributed to the deterioration of international relations, most prominently with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand tipping Europe into World War I. Recent developments in state-level Chinese political and military discourse reflect a strong interest in cooperation. Chinese President Hu Jintao’s 2011 discussions with Filipino President Corazon Aquino firmly expressed the hope that “the countries concerned may put aside disputes and actively explore forms of common development in the relevant sea areas”[iii]. Additionally in 2011 the Chinese State Council Information Office released a white paper with a similar emphasis on joint development. Yet China is also reported to have developed internal fractures in its South China Sea policy, with a number of different ministries controlling paramilitary units that are not under express government oversight[iv]. For example, the Bureau of Fisheries Administration (BFA) now directs a relatively well-equipped law enforcement fleet that is tasked with patrolling Chinese-owned fishing areas. Such interest groups repeatedly instigate minor disputes with their ASEAN counterparts and the US navy that exacerbate state-level discussions and risk eventually drawing unintended consequences (characteristically, in 2004 two BFA vessels obstructed a US Navy surveillance ship in the Yellow Sea). The region has also seen a rise in high-tech militarization, with rapid development in areas ranging from aircraft carriers and submarines to cyber-espionage; this is likely to further increase due to the 2011 US “pivot to Asia” and military surge. The pivot is considered to be a sign that the US intends to continue playing a leadership role in East Asia, a strategy at odds with China’s vision[v]. An associated complication is the imprecise definition of US commitments to its ally nations in the event of disputes in contested territories, especially vis-à-vis the Philippines and Vietnam, and the possibility that alliances will be used to escalate a small battle into a regional affair. The US is making efforts to address these complications; for the first time since RIMPACS’s creation in 1971, China has been invited to participate in a US-led naval exercise. Positive near-term repercussions of growing US involvement have also been postulated; analysts suggest that one of the root causes behind Chinese interest in cooperation is the fear that aggression in the South China Sea will drive other parties to strengthen their ties with the US[vi]. The relative wealth of economic and diplomatic compromises on all sides presents a compelling argument that under current conditions, disputes in the South China Sea will continue to be restrained to small-scale skirmishes that do not threaten overall stability. This is not to say that the increase in regional tension is insignificant, but rather that the involved parties all have a strong interest in maintaining mutual growth and have demonstrated their willingness to make strategic sacrifices to maintain the status quo. Furthermore as China is the common link in the majority of the disputes, it is probable that it will be at the heart of any conflict — and China has frequently shown restraint in this regard (though not so, for example, in Tibet). In terms of China’s priorities, policy analysts tend to agree that if China were to begin a large Directory: file -> view -> SCS-ECS-Impact-Core-HSS-2016.docx view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad SCS-ECS-Impact-Core-HSS-2016.docx -> South China Sea Yes Conflict Download 0.84 Mb. Share with your friends:
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