China’s Defence Minister Wei Fenghe has reaffirmed its vow to not give up an inch of its territory in the highly disputed South China Sea, or its claim on the independent island of Taiwan, at the annual Xiangshan Forum in Beijing on Oct 25.
The tough talk came only weeks after a near miss between a US Navy destroyer and a Chinese warship in the disputed waters. The US had been probing China’s reaction by sailing through territory China claims as its own. US allies, including Australia and the United Kingdom have also been running their own tests
The stage
The South China Sea is a massive body of water of 3.5 million square kilometres — almost half the size of Australia — in China’s eastern littoral, which abuts a clutch of other island and southeast Asian nations. It is a vast fishing resource and thought to contain significant reserves of oil and gas.
The claim
China claims — falsely, according to most historians — that it has a historic right to the entire SCS. In recent years it has created man-made islands from uninhabited rocky atolls and reefs, some of which were previously almost all underwater, by dredging sand and shipping in landfill. On some of these islands it has reportedly built military facilities, despite Chinese Premier Xi Jinping explicitly promising that it would not.
“The islands in the South China Sea have long been China’s territory. They’re the legacy of our ancestors and we can’t afford to lose a single inch of them,” Wei said.
Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia are in all in dispute with China over various parts of the SCS and the rocks and atolls that lie within their claimed areas. There are regular clashes between the fishing fleets of various countries with China which is encroaching on fishing waters under international laws of the sea.
The law
In 2013, the Philippines, under then-president Benigno Aquino, took China to the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. In 2015, the court agreed to hear the claim and in 2016 found in favour of the Philippines.
This was an effective ruling against a raft of China’s other territorial claims but under Aquino’s successor, Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has not sought to use the ruling against China, instead opting for Chinese investment and trade and playing the region’s wannabe hegemon against its traditional ally the United States.
The other sea
As well as the South China Sea, China has disputes in the East China Sea with both Japan and Taiwan (a country it does not recognise, despite Taiwan having a democratically elected government and its own, substantial military). Under particular dispute are the Senkaku, or Diaoyu Islands (the Japanese and Chinese names respectively).
Australia’s stance
Despite a studied reticence by recent Australian governments to criticise China much at all, the South and East China Sea’s have been the exception, probably because the tens of bullions of dollars in Australian resources that are shipped to China, Japan and South Korea — three out of Australia’s top four trading partners and export destinations. Former foreign minister Julie Bishop has been particularly vocal and was joined last year by Malcolm Turnbull.
Bishop’s successor, Marise Payne, joined Bishop’s critique in her previous role as defence minister, and has continued to hew closely to Australia’s line in her new role, speaking out on the recent near-miss shipping incident.
Payne pithily laid out Australia’s stance at this year’s regional defence summit, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
“Nations must also have the right to be free from coercion or criticism when they lawfully and reasonably communicate objections about the behaviour of other nations,” she said. “This extends to the reasonable expectation that rules, not the exercise of power, govern our actions.”
Potential flashpoints
There have been a number of heated incidents in recent years, notably the 2014 dispute between China and Vietnam over oil drilling that was eventually resolved with a joint venture; a standoff with the Philippines over the disputed Scarborough Shoal within the archipelago nation’s 200km territorial zone approach; and serial attacks by Indonesia, blowing up Chinese fishing vessels caught in its waters.
But the biggest concern that global strategic analysts continue to have is the friction between China and Taiwan, separated by only 90 km of water. Xi Jinping has vowed to “reunite” the mainland and the independent island that is backed by a US military treaty.
“If someone tries to separate Taiwan from China, the Chinese armed forces will take action at any price,” Wei warned at last week’s Xiangshan Forum.
In the age of Donald Trump, things could get nasty very quickly if China tries anything on.
The Chinese government is openly attempting to control the region, and cement the Han Chinese people as the dominate power by mid century.
Any serious economic crisis in china will see blood letting of the newly wealthy minority wide spread at a national level as the government moves to realign with the peasant majority.
Continue to take their money but sow the seed of economic instability is a good policy, why not be open about it they are.
They cannot support their ambitions without foreign materials, time to stop selling off Australian assets for short term gain for greedy local companies and individuals, it is not a concern for the chinese and of no lasting benefit to our nation.
The Chinese way is longevity and prosperity.
It’s not military imperialism the West should worry about but economic imperialism. A commentator the other day pointed out relentless growth of the Chinese middle class would in due course give China the title of world’s economic power house.
As local demand climbs I suspect the importance of exports will diminish as will the ability of western nations to import deflation to keep local prices down
The hollowing of local manufacturing will then come back to bite us. Do we have to wait until the only local jobs are in the service industries. How many cafes barbers nail salons and comparison sites can an economy sustain?
Mr Sainsbury again plays with history to present his own version. Taiwan became a part of China in 1684 when it was joined to the prefecture of Fujian. It was forcibly ceded to Japan in 1895 and rejoined what was the the Republic of China in 1945. After the Nationalists lost the civil war, Chiang Kai Shek fled to Taiwan. He always argued that there was only one China; he thought that he should be running it.
Australia went along with the absurd fiction of the US that Taiwan was the government of China entitled to hold the Security Council seat. Nixon changed that. Since then the official US policy (and Australia’s) has been that there is not “two Chinas”.
As for the SCS, the so-called 9 Dash Line was advanced by CKS in 1946, 2 years before the PRC came into existence. To this day, Taiwan advances the same arguments about Chinese “rights” in the SCS as does Beijing.
Notwithstanding US and Australian provocations in the SCS (wrongly described as “freedom of navigation” exercises, the littoral nations to the SCS have been working on a resolution of their differences and reached a significant agreement earlier this year.
There is much else in Mr Sainsbury’s idiosyncratic view of the region that is disputable, but the above makes the point.
But does Taiwan want to be part of China?
Curiously these misguided ingrates appear reluctant to embrace the bounties currently being bestowed by Beijing on the Muslims in West China.
Ask the Formosans how they feel about CKS invasion & occupation.
Make that ‘felt‘ as one would be hard pressed to find any today – just don’t say ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Probably not. But as long as the People’s Republic of China (Beijing) and the Republic of China (Taipei) and the governments that support Taiwan’s self-governing status (principally the US) agree that Taiwan is part of China under a widely recognised “One China policy,” it is part of China. Part of a country doesn’t usually get to become not part of that country unless it both has very powerful friends who want to split it away for oil ( eg South Sudan) or geopolitical purposes (eg Kosovo) and faces a very weak central government.
My understanding is that the one China policy is a little more complicated than it appears. China most decidedly believes that Taiwan is part of it but many others, including Australia, only acknowledge China’s claim rather than accepting it. This happened because the then dictator of Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, insisted there was only one China and he was the rightful leader of it. Since this was pure fantasy, the US and others decided it was absurd to continue pretending mainland China didn’t exist and they ditched Chiang. But I don’t believe they ever accepted that Taiwan was part of China and since Chiang and his son passed on, Taiwan has developed into a fairly robust democracy and is increasingly distancing itself from the mainland, especially given the current leadership there.
Yes in recent times Taiwan has developed a robust democracy and if I lived there I wouldn’t want to give that up. Current developments in Hong Kong and Macao would further concern them. In the long run though Taiwan doesn’t have the capacity on its own to resist takeover in some form by Beijing and there will come a time when its US patrons will be unwilling or unable to prevent that. One would hope that some kind of non-military solution will be found.
Interesting that Sainsbury managed to get through this whole article without once mentioning the US bases in the region. America has well over 200 bases ringing China and North Korea and several hundred more not far removed. Do we really expect a growing China not to spread her wings? Lets not buy into this rediculous sabre rattling thats going on at the moment. If we want a safer world, keep on with trade agreements and other mechanisms that we know will keep the world a safer place.
“China claims — falsely, according to most historians — that it has a historic right to the entire SCS.”
Presumably the early Arab & Euroid cartographers several centuries ago were fellow travellers/paid dupes when the entire region was called the China sea.
Sainsbury, like Kingsbury, is stenographer for Langley VA.
Absolutely. Just like India owns all of the Indian ocean.