South China Sea Forum
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Zero_wing
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Funny Mindanao is part of the Philippines Sabah was place on us by the Sultan of Sulu and Spratlys are part of the Philippines due to UNCLOS Archipelagic Doctrine all base on international law your claims are not only stupid but full of anti filipino bull$hit nothing more
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CSB-8003 : korea coast guard's HAN-RIVER class 1003
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Prashanth Parameswaran
March 18, 2014
On March 18, officials from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Singapore to discuss steps towards an elusive code of conduct in the contentious South China Sea dispute. If the past is any indicator, China will ensure that such diplomacy will produce little significant progress even as it continues to coercively change realities on the ground in its favor. While cooler heads hope diplomacy will prevail, hope is not a strategy. Southeast Asian officials and other external partners like the United States and Japan need to use the full range of instruments at their disposal to persuade Beijing about the urgent need for a diplomatic solution, dissuade it from undertaking further destabilizing moves, and prepare for a range of crises in the absence of Chinese cooperation.
Since 2009, China has displayed a growing assertiveness towards ASEAN states in the South China Sea, using a combination of diplomatic, administrative and military instruments to impose unilateral fishing bans, harass vessels, and patrol contested waters. Despite the so-called ‘charm offensive’ by China’s new leadership in the region in 2013, Beijing’s conduct in the South China Sea has remained largely unchanged, with a new fishing law promulgated in January, invasive patrols and encroachments into waters of other claimants, and foot-dragging at talks over a code of conduct it finally agreed to discussing last year. Meanwhile, the specter of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea also continues to loom large. Yet, as former CIA senior analyst Chris Johnson told a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies earlier this year, unlike most other observers China’s leaders continue to see no contradiction between seeking better relations with Southeast Asia and assertively defending their sovereignty claims at the expense of other ASEAN claimants.
Given this, it is now up to ASEAN states and their partners to craft an integrated strategy in the diplomatic, legal and security realms geared towards both steering Beijing away from its assertiveness if possible, and preparing to counter it effectively should it continue or intensify. In the diplomatic domain, ASEAN states and other parties should continue to consistently emphasize the cardinal principle that all countries – including China – need to resolve their disputes by peaceful means in accordance with international law. The principal means to reach this objective is a legally binding code of conduct. In spite of Chinese stalling, ASEAN states should remain united in insisting on both its speedy conclusion and meaningful content, including key mechanisms like a crisis management hotline.
While all ASEAN countries ought to be united in pursuit of a code of conduct, the four ASEAN states that have claims in the South China Sea – namely Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – should also take additional steps together given their greater stake in the issue at hand. The main objective would be to thwart China’s efforts to divide the ASEAN claimants (most clearly by isolating the Philippines) by banding together in spite of certain differences in their positions. Greater coordination looks more promising now than it did in the past, with the recent hardening of Malaysia’s stance along with the birth of the ASEAN Claimants Working Group Meeting held in the Philippines last month. Additionally, external actors beyond just the United States, including the European Union and Australia, need to do their part by speaking out against Chinese transgressions to raise the cost of noncompliance. A rules-based approach to resolving the disputes ought to be a shared global interest, and a greater coalition explicitly calling for this will help increase the pressure on Beijing without it being framed as just a U.S.-China issue.
Even if a code of conduct does come to pass, it will at best be a diplomatic tool to manage tensions in the South China Sea. The sustainable path to actually resolving them lies in the legal realm, with all parties codifying their claims in line with international law which could then open the door to shelving sovereignty disputes and initiating joint resource development. The burden here rests largely with China, whose deliberate ambiguity on the basis for its indefensible nine-dash-line claim submitted to the United Nations in 2009, which covers up to 90 percent of the entire South China Sea, is inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by any stretch of the imagination.
However, Southeast Asian states and the international community have roles to play as well. ASEAN countries should continue challenging China’s nine-dash line claim in legal circles to expose its egregiousness, as the Philippines is now doing via the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). To add weight to such initiatives in the Chinese mind, other ASEAN members and external actors should support them either through direct participation or strong public statements, which can be done carefully without explicitly taking sides on sovereignty questions. Finally, the four ASEAN claimant states should also continue to codify the specifics of their own claims in multilateral fora as well as domestic legislation. Greater clarity among ASEAN claimants could both reveal greater congruence in certain areas as well as further expose Beijing’s deliberate ambiguity.
But ASEAN countries and their external partners should not just continue to hope that their efforts will change China’s ambivalence on the code of conduct or its blatant disregard for international law in the South China Sea. They also need to think critically about how to manage tensions if Beijing’s assertiveness continues unabated or grows over time and spills over into other issue areas as well. While the specific decisions eventually made will depend on each individual country, in general ASEAN claimants and other willing Southeast Asian and external states should prioritize increasing coordination, cooperation and crisis management at the domestic, regional and international levels in three specific ways.
First, ASEAN claimants need to redouble efforts to foster greater coordination between the various military and civilian government agencies considered maritime stakeholders. This is crucial not only to promote interagency cooperation in the complex domain of maritime security that touches several areas from fisheries to immigration, but to formulate an integrated approach to rival China’s adroit strategy of using a variety of nonmilitary instruments to enforce its claims in a calibrated way, including coast-guard vessels. Efforts by the Philippines and Brunei to establish national coast-surveillance programs are a useful step, as are more collective endeavors like a seminar on interagency coordination held in October 2013 between Vietnam the United States.
Greater integration at the national level should also be supplemented by more cooperation at the regional and global realms to at least mitigate the asymmetry in capabilities between China and individual ASEAN states. This is particularly necessary with respect to crisis-management mechanisms and scenario-planning. For instance, bilateral-security hotlines can be one useful instrument in managing crises if they are properly resourced, structured and utilized. While discussions have already begun at the regional level, they will likely take time to advance and this should not prevent countries from establishing security hotlines on a bilateral basis, as Malaysia and the Philippines are now reportedly considering.
ASEAN claimant states should also intensify contingency planning related to the South China Sea both nationally and in concert with relevant partners. Broader initiatives are already underway with several countries, including further acquisitions and coast guard cooperation with Japan and increased maritime security cooperation with the United States. But additional focus should be placed on planning for specific crisis scenarios ranging from rogue fishermen who may provoke an unintended bilateral crisis all the way up to potential Chinese economic coercion or blockades. These plans ought to reflect the sophistication of China’s strategy in the South China Sea in terms of the various instruments used and the different levels of military and non-military coercion employed. They should also incorporate current Chinese thinking. For example, one China expert recently told a conference at the Center for New American Security that China is working on a concept called ‘extended coercive diplomacy’ focused on how to coerce an adversary that is aligned with a great power, with U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines being case studies.
Critics will claim that elements of this overall strategy make little sense because it is too risky for weaker ASEAN states to antagonize a much more capable China. But the evidence suggests that is precisely what China is banking on – that the glaring asymmetry in capabilities, coupled with its rising regional influence, will make ASEAN states think twice before risking rupture in relations as long as Beijing’s assertiveness is calibrated to both divide various claimants and avoid drawing in other external players. It is up to Southeast Asian states and other interested actors like the United States and Japan to now think critically about how to counter the full spectrum of Chinese assertiveness proportionately and to do what is necessary make clear what their red lines are. Because in getting Beijing to commit to a peaceful, lawful resolution on the South China Sea disputes, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, it is not enough that all parties do their best; but that they do what is required.
Prashanth Parameswaran is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and a Pacific Forum CSIS non-resident fellow now based in Washington, D.C. He has previously worked on Southeast Asia at several think tanks including the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). You can follow him on Twitter at @TheAsianist.
Countering China in the South China Sea
March 18, 2014
On March 18, officials from China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will meet in Singapore to discuss steps towards an elusive code of conduct in the contentious South China Sea dispute. If the past is any indicator, China will ensure that such diplomacy will produce little significant progress even as it continues to coercively change realities on the ground in its favor. While cooler heads hope diplomacy will prevail, hope is not a strategy. Southeast Asian officials and other external partners like the United States and Japan need to use the full range of instruments at their disposal to persuade Beijing about the urgent need for a diplomatic solution, dissuade it from undertaking further destabilizing moves, and prepare for a range of crises in the absence of Chinese cooperation.
Since 2009, China has displayed a growing assertiveness towards ASEAN states in the South China Sea, using a combination of diplomatic, administrative and military instruments to impose unilateral fishing bans, harass vessels, and patrol contested waters. Despite the so-called ‘charm offensive’ by China’s new leadership in the region in 2013, Beijing’s conduct in the South China Sea has remained largely unchanged, with a new fishing law promulgated in January, invasive patrols and encroachments into waters of other claimants, and foot-dragging at talks over a code of conduct it finally agreed to discussing last year. Meanwhile, the specter of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea also continues to loom large. Yet, as former CIA senior analyst Chris Johnson told a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies earlier this year, unlike most other observers China’s leaders continue to see no contradiction between seeking better relations with Southeast Asia and assertively defending their sovereignty claims at the expense of other ASEAN claimants.
Given this, it is now up to ASEAN states and their partners to craft an integrated strategy in the diplomatic, legal and security realms geared towards both steering Beijing away from its assertiveness if possible, and preparing to counter it effectively should it continue or intensify. In the diplomatic domain, ASEAN states and other parties should continue to consistently emphasize the cardinal principle that all countries – including China – need to resolve their disputes by peaceful means in accordance with international law. The principal means to reach this objective is a legally binding code of conduct. In spite of Chinese stalling, ASEAN states should remain united in insisting on both its speedy conclusion and meaningful content, including key mechanisms like a crisis management hotline.
While all ASEAN countries ought to be united in pursuit of a code of conduct, the four ASEAN states that have claims in the South China Sea – namely Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – should also take additional steps together given their greater stake in the issue at hand. The main objective would be to thwart China’s efforts to divide the ASEAN claimants (most clearly by isolating the Philippines) by banding together in spite of certain differences in their positions. Greater coordination looks more promising now than it did in the past, with the recent hardening of Malaysia’s stance along with the birth of the ASEAN Claimants Working Group Meeting held in the Philippines last month. Additionally, external actors beyond just the United States, including the European Union and Australia, need to do their part by speaking out against Chinese transgressions to raise the cost of noncompliance. A rules-based approach to resolving the disputes ought to be a shared global interest, and a greater coalition explicitly calling for this will help increase the pressure on Beijing without it being framed as just a U.S.-China issue.
Even if a code of conduct does come to pass, it will at best be a diplomatic tool to manage tensions in the South China Sea. The sustainable path to actually resolving them lies in the legal realm, with all parties codifying their claims in line with international law which could then open the door to shelving sovereignty disputes and initiating joint resource development. The burden here rests largely with China, whose deliberate ambiguity on the basis for its indefensible nine-dash-line claim submitted to the United Nations in 2009, which covers up to 90 percent of the entire South China Sea, is inconsistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by any stretch of the imagination.
However, Southeast Asian states and the international community have roles to play as well. ASEAN countries should continue challenging China’s nine-dash line claim in legal circles to expose its egregiousness, as the Philippines is now doing via the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). To add weight to such initiatives in the Chinese mind, other ASEAN members and external actors should support them either through direct participation or strong public statements, which can be done carefully without explicitly taking sides on sovereignty questions. Finally, the four ASEAN claimant states should also continue to codify the specifics of their own claims in multilateral fora as well as domestic legislation. Greater clarity among ASEAN claimants could both reveal greater congruence in certain areas as well as further expose Beijing’s deliberate ambiguity.
But ASEAN countries and their external partners should not just continue to hope that their efforts will change China’s ambivalence on the code of conduct or its blatant disregard for international law in the South China Sea. They also need to think critically about how to manage tensions if Beijing’s assertiveness continues unabated or grows over time and spills over into other issue areas as well. While the specific decisions eventually made will depend on each individual country, in general ASEAN claimants and other willing Southeast Asian and external states should prioritize increasing coordination, cooperation and crisis management at the domestic, regional and international levels in three specific ways.
First, ASEAN claimants need to redouble efforts to foster greater coordination between the various military and civilian government agencies considered maritime stakeholders. This is crucial not only to promote interagency cooperation in the complex domain of maritime security that touches several areas from fisheries to immigration, but to formulate an integrated approach to rival China’s adroit strategy of using a variety of nonmilitary instruments to enforce its claims in a calibrated way, including coast-guard vessels. Efforts by the Philippines and Brunei to establish national coast-surveillance programs are a useful step, as are more collective endeavors like a seminar on interagency coordination held in October 2013 between Vietnam the United States.
Greater integration at the national level should also be supplemented by more cooperation at the regional and global realms to at least mitigate the asymmetry in capabilities between China and individual ASEAN states. This is particularly necessary with respect to crisis-management mechanisms and scenario-planning. For instance, bilateral-security hotlines can be one useful instrument in managing crises if they are properly resourced, structured and utilized. While discussions have already begun at the regional level, they will likely take time to advance and this should not prevent countries from establishing security hotlines on a bilateral basis, as Malaysia and the Philippines are now reportedly considering.
ASEAN claimant states should also intensify contingency planning related to the South China Sea both nationally and in concert with relevant partners. Broader initiatives are already underway with several countries, including further acquisitions and coast guard cooperation with Japan and increased maritime security cooperation with the United States. But additional focus should be placed on planning for specific crisis scenarios ranging from rogue fishermen who may provoke an unintended bilateral crisis all the way up to potential Chinese economic coercion or blockades. These plans ought to reflect the sophistication of China’s strategy in the South China Sea in terms of the various instruments used and the different levels of military and non-military coercion employed. They should also incorporate current Chinese thinking. For example, one China expert recently told a conference at the Center for New American Security that China is working on a concept called ‘extended coercive diplomacy’ focused on how to coerce an adversary that is aligned with a great power, with U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines being case studies.
Critics will claim that elements of this overall strategy make little sense because it is too risky for weaker ASEAN states to antagonize a much more capable China. But the evidence suggests that is precisely what China is banking on – that the glaring asymmetry in capabilities, coupled with its rising regional influence, will make ASEAN states think twice before risking rupture in relations as long as Beijing’s assertiveness is calibrated to both divide various claimants and avoid drawing in other external players. It is up to Southeast Asian states and other interested actors like the United States and Japan to now think critically about how to counter the full spectrum of Chinese assertiveness proportionately and to do what is necessary make clear what their red lines are. Because in getting Beijing to commit to a peaceful, lawful resolution on the South China Sea disputes, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, it is not enough that all parties do their best; but that they do what is required.
Prashanth Parameswaran is a PhD candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and a Pacific Forum CSIS non-resident fellow now based in Washington, D.C. He has previously worked on Southeast Asia at several think tanks including the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). You can follow him on Twitter at @TheAsianist.
Countering China in the South China Sea
China already lay their claim in SCS, China won't retract their claim unless there will be an actual war to determine the rightful owner of the area. SCS will always remain in Asia, those island and surrounding sea still be right where there even the end of the war in the future. Either cooperate and jointly explore the resource or the dispute will never be settle. War won't solve the dispute, diplomacy won't solve the dispute, only solution share resource with each other in SCS.
Genesis
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This guy is a PHD candidate? Has he ever talked to a third person? Even personal friendships don't last, much less those between country.
This person thinks all of ASEAN is against China, sure, but they each got their own agenda and it doesn't align.
This is the map of current claimant, you think they will work it out? If they give in to China at least they can say they lost to a bully and a bigger power. What's the president of Philippines and Vietnam going to say? That they gave up to a lesser power?
In theory they could all retract their claims, but in reality they won't.
This is why China's not worried, not just the claims, but China is a major economic investment country, third overall and will increase. They want Chinese money, then Chinese manufactures will go to another country and all these are developing countries, one carrot and one of them will fall in line and completely defeat the coalition. IF they even get it on the ground which they won't.
In the international arena, China is a major player, if European nations are doing nothing on Crimea which is an EU interest, they definitely won't do anything for something so far away.
America cannot risk war over what they think are essentially rocks, and no way a president can spin it in a way that makes it popular.
UN, that's our battle ground and Russia still needs China for years to come and they won't do anything to antagonize us, not for Vietnam, Philippines anyways.
ASEAN is not a rock, they are themselves neighbors and competitors, who's going to take the bullet for the team?
Even if somehow they work it out, the actual execution is impossible and somewhere there's going to be tension, as their always has been in alliances of the past, between more or less equals and some who think they are superior.
let's ask some Vietnamese members if they would sacrifice for Philippines, giving ground on sea and economic opportunities including investments and such, essentially antagonize China for no gain, or even maintenance of status quo.
@Viet @BoQ77 @Viva_Viet @ViXuyen
This person thinks all of ASEAN is against China, sure, but they each got their own agenda and it doesn't align.
This is the map of current claimant, you think they will work it out? If they give in to China at least they can say they lost to a bully and a bigger power. What's the president of Philippines and Vietnam going to say? That they gave up to a lesser power?
In theory they could all retract their claims, but in reality they won't.
This is why China's not worried, not just the claims, but China is a major economic investment country, third overall and will increase. They want Chinese money, then Chinese manufactures will go to another country and all these are developing countries, one carrot and one of them will fall in line and completely defeat the coalition. IF they even get it on the ground which they won't.
In the international arena, China is a major player, if European nations are doing nothing on Crimea which is an EU interest, they definitely won't do anything for something so far away.
America cannot risk war over what they think are essentially rocks, and no way a president can spin it in a way that makes it popular.
UN, that's our battle ground and Russia still needs China for years to come and they won't do anything to antagonize us, not for Vietnam, Philippines anyways.
ASEAN is not a rock, they are themselves neighbors and competitors, who's going to take the bullet for the team?
Even if somehow they work it out, the actual execution is impossible and somewhere there's going to be tension, as their always has been in alliances of the past, between more or less equals and some who think they are superior.
let's ask some Vietnamese members if they would sacrifice for Philippines, giving ground on sea and economic opportunities including investments and such, essentially antagonize China for no gain, or even maintenance of status quo.
@Viet @BoQ77 @Viva_Viet @ViXuyen
Viva_Viet
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True, ASEAN is not a rock, but we will unite Sub-Mekong region to get bigger and stronger . Laos-Camb r under our control now, the next will be Thailand. We can conquer Thai within 1 month as long as USA refuse to sanction us like in 1979
True, ASEAN is not a rock, but we will unite Sub-Mekong region to get bigger and stronger . Laos-Camb r under our control now, the next will be Thailand. We can conquer Thai within 1 month as long as USA refuse to sanction us like in 1979
Viet Nam used antique weapons to conquer Cambodia, Lao, and Thai Land? Viet Nam consider a 3rd world nation, how the heck Viet Nam have the money and military to attack any nation.
Viva_Viet
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Our sapper only need knife and grenades to kill ur troops and destroyed ur 10 million $ in 1984 without being detected, did u forget that ??
Link in Chinese
越南特工竟敢偷袭我军：军方高层大为震怒！
vtnsx
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You see, this is where American people fail to see because your arrogance blinds you.
WTF are you talking about
Viet Nam still a 3rd world, don't dream of conquer other when your people still starving.
vtnsx
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Dude, look at USA. You're in greater debt than Vietnam. Your GDP means nothing when you have much more debt to pay. Vietnam doesn't run into that problem. USA is growing at 2.8% while Vietnam is growing at 5.2%. More debt means you're closer to serious economic meltdown. Keep wasting all your resources and your equipment become garbage for the next 20 years. Unless USA holds all trade to China then they could do much better. China is a blood sucker and its killing you slowly.
You don't know? Watch out for sappers, Vietnamese super soldiers.
You shouldn't be worry about US debt crisis, your Japan sugar Daddy still to take order from the US government.
vtnsx
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LOL, who says I'm worry? I'm actually trying to help them increase more debt and make you pay for it. Truth hurts doesn't it? I feel ya. Don't worry, you're used to someone stomping your head that's why you don't feel it.
Got better things to say American prick? Exactly, sit down like a good citizen you are.
