China builds islands

Is China building islands illegally in international waters?

China is making a claim on international waters in the South China Seas, which is the ocean sharing borders with States and territories including  the People's Republic of China (including Macau and Hong Kong), the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

It started as a  tiny artificial island built by China  in sand and concrete, but now the landfill construction is encroaching on international waters in the South China Sea.  When completed it will encompass 600 acres of at least seven islands spread across the shared international zone of the South China Sea.

One of the most impressive is called Fiery Cross Island, the permanent structure complete with a military-styled air strip and the ability to permanently station advanced weapon systems to patrol the skies and seas, according to Breaking Defense.

China’s landfill reclamation project did not go unnoticed, however, as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made a point of asking Director of National Intelligence James Clapper about the Chinese actions just before the end of a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on worldwide threats last week, calling the Chinese actions “a rather dramatic change.”

Territorial grabs by the Chinese is not new.  In 2013, The New York Times reported that China’s mapping authority, Sinomaps Press, issued a new map of the country showing 80% of the South China Sea as Chinese ocean. 

The gradual encroachment by the Chinese has international repercussions as half of the world’s annual merchant tonnage passes through the South China sea including a third of the global trade in crude oil and over half of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) trade.

As Beijing asserts sovereignty over the disputed body of water, the international community, as well as the bordering countries, considers the possibility of China closing off the South China Sea to international commerce at will.  Given its extremely broad view of its right to regulate coastal traffic, Beijing will undoubtedly define the concept of “innocent passage” narrowly and require vessels entering that sea to obtain its permission beforehand and similarly require aircraft flying over it to do the same.  Also, the presence of the new landing strip located on landfill-constructed islands designed for military style aircraft furthers the belief that the Chinese are preparing to enforce their control and dominate the international waters in the zone.

The South China Sea areas in question by the international community are part of map developed in 1947 by Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China.

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The map shows “dashes” around the edge of the South China Sea supposedly signifying China’s claim to only the islands within the perimeter.  Those islands are subject to competing claims by other shoreline nations, specifically, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and Taiwan. 

When China ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in June 1996, analysts believed that China had abandoned its expansion into international waters based on the 1947 claim, which included the areas on the map with the ominous “dashes.” 

The new development of a landfill island composed of sand and concrete complete with an air strip long enough to accommodate military aircraft renewed concern by neighboring countries sharing access to the South China Sea.  The United States is directly involved because of treaties with countries like the Philippines; however, this has not stopped the slow intrusion by China into international waters.

Beijing has come forth with a new map supplanting the 1947 one in which they have converted “dashes” into outlines which include Chinese boundaries.  They claim all the islands and waters inside the line belong to them.  It’s being described as the biggest land grab of territory since World War II, according to a report in Forbes.

President Barack Obama’s pivot to the Asian Pacific region in 2014 signaled a new reinvestment diplomatically, militarily, commercially and in terms of policymaking. Rebalancing began with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s trip to Asia, which was the first time since 1961 that a secretary of state visited the region.

In December of 2014, Joseph Stiglitz, American economist and professor at Columbia University, wrote that the 21st century is going to be China’s century. China, he says, “enters 2015 in the top position, where it will likely remain for a very long time, if not forever. In doing so, it returns to the position it held through most of human history.”

Furthermore, Stiglitz contends that the US and China are “intertwined” and have an interest in stability and efficient global political and economic order.  He emphasizes cooperation between the super powers to accomplish goals.  The US should maintain its ability to use “soft power” in economic and political practices, in both domestic and foreign policy.

If relations with Iran and the Middle East are an example, then the Obama administration is following a “soft power” path utilizing sanctions and ultimately diplomacy to implement change. But will this work in Asia when the primary power China governs and creates policy with a heavy hand.  They used invasive, assimilation practices to take over Tibet, which has resulted in the slow demise of the Tibetan people, culture and language.

By actually building land masses in disputed international waters, China is once again encroaching and creating instability in a region which according to Stiglitz is the opposite of what should be evolving in Asia. Can the United States continue to look the other way when China acts in its own interests, rather than considering the global consequences of empire building—which is essentially what is happening?

Resources
Breaking defense
Forbes
Economist