Return to Winter. Douglas E. Schoen
Sea, a direct threat to the law of the seas, as well as to the United States and its Asian allies—whether Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, South Korea, or Vietnam, the latter not technically an American ally but a country with a long history of difficulty with China. These countries dispute China’s claims and assert counterclaims of their own, but none have the strength and force to pursue their aims as does Beijing. Only America can thwart Chinese designs.
One key flashpoint is the Spratly Islands, home to rich fisheries as well as oil and gas deposits. The territory is disputed: China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines all make claim to it, and they occupy pieces of the island.12 In April 2015, satellite images revealed that China is “building a concrete runway” on the Spratlys that would “be capable of handling military aircraft,” including fighter jets and surveillance aircraft.13 This was only the latest evidence of Chinese militarization there: Satellite photos in February showed that China had actually constructed an 800,000-square-foot island on top of Hughes Reef in the Spratlys. China has stationed helipads and anti-aircraft towers on both islands.14 It’s all part of its broader strategy to build serviceable land areas in the archipelago to serve Chinese military and territorial pursuits.
What’s at stake here has global ramifications, not only for international security but also for the global economy. If Beijing got its way, its new claims of territory in the South China Sea would convert about 80 percent of the South China Sea and its islands from international waters to Chinese possessions.15 The South China Sea is home to some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, through which passes a substantial portion of the world’s commerce. If China converted these waters to its jurisdiction, America and its Asian allies would be forced to heed Chinese dictates.
Tempers have been flaring—between Beijing and its Asian neighbors, especially in the Philippines, and also between Beijing and Washington. In May 2015, the Obama administration sent a surveillance plane over Fiery Cross Reef, a portion of the Spratlys where one of the Chinese airstrips is being constructed. The surveillance prompted a tense face-off with Chinese naval forces, which ordered the American plane to leave the airspace, and Beijing filed a formal diplomatic complaint.
The words heated up when China released a policy paper detailing its new military strategy, which made clear that its future plans centered around a vast expansion of its naval forces. The document accused China’s neighbors of provocations in the South China Sea, and it also warned America, though not by name. “Some external countries are . . . busy meddling in South China Sea affairs,” it said. “It is thus a long-standing task for China to safeguard its maritime rights and interests.”16
Around the same time, a provocative editorial in Global Times, a Chinese tabloid, hinted at a showdown with the United States. The editorial argued that conflict between the two great powers was inevitable if the United States didn’t stop interfering in China’s affairs in the South Pacific. “We do not want a military conflict with the United States, but if it were to come, we have to accept it,” the editorial said.17
Up to now, Beijing’s aggression has been enabled by a muddled and diffident American response. Though President Obama touted his “Asian pivot” as a key plank in his foreign policy, he has put no muscle behind it. Obama’s speeches stress the importance of Asia, but he has sent no substantial increase of naval forces into the region to bolster our beleaguered allies there, all straining to hold their own against Chinese pressure. Navy data show that the U.S. will deploy an average of only 58 ships to the Western Pacific, and that the number will increase barely 10 percent by 2020.18
Obama’s inattention has been interpreted as weakness, and it worries American allies, including Japan and the Philippines—who, perhaps in part because of it, have taken some provocative actions of their own, making the standoff with China more volatile and increasing the risks of escalation or a dangerous incident.
As we go to press, there are some hopeful signs that the United States is awakening to the Chinese challenge. Obama seems to have decided to confront the Chinese more directly—at least by way of demonstrating that Washington has no intention of ceding the South China Sea to Beijing. In May, the Pentagon began exploring options for enforcing freedom of the seas in the South Pacific; these include patrolling American ships within 12 nautical miles of those islands and sending American warplanes over the artificial islands that China is building. The goal would be to send a more concrete warning to Beijing than we have delivered before. But even these steps pose risks. What does the U.S. do if the warning isn’t heeded? Already, China has announced that its determination to say the course in the Spratlys is as “firm as a rock.”19 If the U.S. doesn’t follow through, it will once again leave its allies feeling vulnerable, and we will have lost face again in an international dispute, as Obama did in 2013, when he backed down from his heralded “red line” warning in Syria.
Clearly, the Obama administration recognizes that its passive approach in the South China Sea has failed and that something must change. It seems likely, though, that American aims are relatively modest: to dial down Chinese aggression. The airstrip and many of China’s man-made islands are near completion; the Chinese won’t abandon them. The U.S. and its allies are probably going to have to live with that, but through concerted effort, they should work to get Beijing to relinquish its wildly ambitious talk of colonizing the South China Sea and converting international sea lanes into Chinese territorial waters. In short, American options here are limited, which is why we need leadership and strategic vision more than ever. Dangerous as it could prove to be, the situation in the South China Sea holds more potential for constructive resolution than the crisis in Ukraine: American and Chinese interests are more intertwined than America’s and Russia’s, and in Xi, Washington faces a leader as formidable as Putin but less driven by motives of honor and revenge. American statesmanship has an opening here. All we need is statesmen.
ENABLING AND FACILITATING ROGUE REGIMES
On a separate front, Russia and China’s facilitation of leading rogue actors has sown discord and instability around the world.
In April 2015, the Obama administration announced a preliminary agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran to limit Iran’s nuclear program, allowing Iran to keep its nuclear facilities open under strict limits. But those limits would be in place for only the first decade of the accord, and even under these, the only assurance that the Americans could provide was that Tehran could not “race for a nuclear weapon in less than a year.” In short, the agreement all but guaranteed that Iran would soon have a nuclear capability. The agreement was reached through the administration’s willful disregard of stubborn facts about the Tehran regime’s behavior and intentions.
Nuclear experts warn that the deal will be impossible to verify, given Iran’s history of noncompliance with similar agreements.20 Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that Iran will enjoy “a sizeable enrichment capacity, and none of its facilities will be shuttered as was once contemplated.” And Takeyh points out that the 10-year “sunset clause” is the real key to understanding the agreement. After 10 years, he says, “all essential restriction on Iran’s enrichment infrastructure” will expire, thereby allowing Iran to develop highly advanced nuclear capabilities.21 “What is often missed,” he adds, “is that Iran’s ingenious strategy is to advance its program incrementally and not provocatively.”
Skeptics of the deal could hardly be encouraged by the increase in provocative behavior from Iran since the deal was announced. In April, Iranian Revolutionary Guard ships fired warning shots and then intercepted and seized a Marshall Islands vessel in the Persian Gulf, only days after Iranian patrol ships surrounded an American vessel.22 The United States directed a destroyer toward the area, along with patrol aircraft.23 And the Obama administration’s reassurances to Israel about its continued security were belied when Ayatollah Khamenei, discussing the Iran deal shortly after its completion during a speech in Tehran, warned: “I’d say [to Israel] that they will not see [the end] of these 25 years.”24
Iran’s aggression in the Gulf mirrors that of China’s activities in the South China Sea. In fact, China has enabled much of Iran’s naval activities, in addition to providing