South China Sea – Heading for a confrontation?

For the better part of the last decade the South China Sea has been in the news quite frequently.  The sea lanes in this part of the world carry one third of the world trade by sea. Over the years, all countries around this rim have had disputes regarding territorial waters.  The exclusive economic zones have been disputed between Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia , Indonesia , Cambodia, Brunei, Thailand, Philippines and Taiwan.  The sea here is almost landlocked.  The disputing countries share borders and inevitably, their claimed territorial waters overlap. All these countries being comparable as to their economic and military strengths, there was never any possibility of a war breaking out between them. Their governments knew they could not win in a sustained or even a short war. Even a small skirmish would disrupt the economy of the entire region. So there were local confrontations between fishing boats of these countries or an occasional show of strength by their navies.  On top sat the USA which had cobbled together a loose group of these Pacific rim countries mainly to stop Russian economic influence from spreading in this region.  This obviously was a cold war era arrangement.  Incidentally  there are many islands in these waters which are also claimed by some  of the mentioned countries.  

There is much wealth in these waters. Fishing is an important occupation as well as a major source of income for the countries. There is oil and natural gas under the sea, largely unexplored.  This dispute would have continued for decades as the countries had stalemated each other.  But matters took a different turn with the rise of China. While there was perfect competition between the earlier disputing countries, now an elephant had entered into the room.

The rise of China was always a worrying factor for the countries of the Pacific Rim. A soft American hegemony, buttressed by generous  economic and military aid kept the smaller countries in line and under the American umbrella. A few years ago, China  trotted out a new map of the region and claimed the entire South China Sea as its own. Their ‘nine dash line’ as they call it, brushes against the territorial waters of all the disputing countries.  China started reclaiming the Paracel, Spratly islands and the Mischief reef located in these waters as well, in order to establish a military presence there.  In response the Philippines went to the United Nations for redressal of the dispute.  The UNCLOS ruled in favour of Philippines and asked China to vacate the entire area and stop their occupation of the islands. Predictably, China has refused to heed the UNLCOS (United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea)  ruling and is now in the process of establishing a missile base as well. Since the Trump administration seems to be uninterested in continuing American leadership in this region, the smaller countries have been feeling the heat from China. Since these countries find themselves wholly unprepared to face China in a military or economic confrontation, they are trying to get third countries involved in this situation.

 Japan and India are not party to this dispute. They have their disputes with China, but those disputes concern their respective borders with China, either land or maritime. Vietnam recently asked India to explore for oil in its territorial waters.  There is also a pact between the two countries for exploration for other resources. India may sell military equipment and missiles to some of these countries to gain influence to counter China.  Now that the big countries who are not direct parties to this dispute are getting involved,  its become a cauldron of a potent mixture.  China has a double layered strategy in this game. It openly disputes the claim of the smaller countries on one hand, but has invested heavily in these countries through its Belt and Road initiative.  A sort of carrot and stick policy.

Meanwhile, the US, India, Australia and Japan have formed a loose group to keep an eye on this important region.  Called the QUAD group, they have given themselves the task of keeping the major sea lanes in these waters open and free for trade and to resist Chinese advances. Though, given the huge economic potential of the region, it could be predicted that better sense will prevail, and no nation will take the extreme step of going to war, the possibility of this simmering dispute to become an open confrontation cannot be denied.