Geopolitics of the South China Sea

The South China Sea has the three most important seafaring routes of East Asia and carries about one third of global shipping or $5.3 trillion annually.  Almost everything going from or to the numerous nations in the region needs to go through the South China Sea. It controls access to the Strait of Malacca, among others, which allows shipping bound for India, Europe and Africa to get to their destinations quickly. Without a free and open South China Sea, nations such as South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines would be at risk of economic collapse (China too, but they are the ones trying to control it). Even countries not in the region rely on it to some degree since almost all products from the region take that route to get to the rest of the world. 

Since it is such a valuable route to everyone, it stands to reason that it should be free and open; but it is inconveniently littered with territorially disputed, uninhabited island chains. As very few islands in the South China Sea aren’t disputed, it has been easy for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to claim the entire South China Sea for themselves with something they call the “Nine Dash Line”. This is a line they drew around the South China Sea which encompasses what they claim is Chinese territory. The CCP thus claims almost all of the South China Sea. Not only that, a significant portion of the Nine Dash Line claims territory internationally recognised as being the sovereign territory of another country: for example, China claims 90% of Vietnamese claimed waters!

So how did this situation arise? When the Qing dynasty of China ceded Vietnam to France in 1885, a maritime border was never established. Similarly, when Japan lost the island chains in the South China Sea after WW2, none of the treaties which stated that the islands were not to be Japanese recognised an alternative territory claim.  Thus, when the region emerged from WW2, every country tried claiming part of the South China Sea, and in 1947 China (then ruled by the Nationalists – modern-day Taiwan) tried claiming it all. Neither they nor the CCP (who took control in 1949) ever acted upon this claim until recently though, as they were too weak to defend such claims, and doing so back then would have blocked the Soviet Pacific Fleet. This was not a good idea, as the CCP relied on the Soviet Union in many areas. Now the Soviet Union is gone and China is one of the world’s most powerful nations. It has recently started actually taking control of islands and reefs rightfully belonging to other nations, including building artificial islands, military bases, and missile launchers easily capable of hitting places as far afield as Australia.

“File:South China Sea Nine Dashed Line.png” by Keanehm is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0” (this shows each nation’s waters, not their claims)

Why do people let the CCP get away with this? There are many elements to it. In part many of the countries in the region have rather corrupt government officials, and what is a small country like the Philippines meant to do when faced with a country as powerful as China?  You would turn to your allies of course, but this is where the final part of China’s expansionist strategy comes in: salami slicing. It sounds ridiculous but it is actually quite smart. It was first invented by Hitler, and is based on the principle that if you want to steal someone else’s salami, you take one small slice at a time until you have it all. Nobody wants to be seen to be fighting over a tiny slice of salami, but once there’s a precedent it becomes harder to justify an intervention: this is exactly the game China is playing in the South China Sea. 

To illustrate how this works, let’s talk about Scarborough Shoal, a series of reefs off the coast of the Philippines. The Philippines claimed it as its own but China started sending more and more fishing vessels there, which just stayed there instead of fishing.  They also rammed non-Chinese boats in the area on occasion. The Philippines were understandably pissed and tensions grew.   Eventually the U.S. stepped in before it came to blows, and both sides signed an agreement saying that their ships would leave. The Philippines retreated its ships, while China immediately broke the agreement and has had control ever since, facing no consequences. This is what is currently happening at Whitsun Reef, in the Spratly Islands.

Since late 2020 a whole load of heavily armoured, fortified, large, fast and armed Chinese “fishing” vessels have been sheltering from non-existent bad weather in this reef which is claimed by the Philippines, Vietnam and of course China. They are actually there to make sure nobody else can assert sovereignty, and they have been refusing to leave. They’ll do this until everyone else just gives up and it becomes Chinese territory. It is much harder for the U.S. to intervene now because of how humiliating the outcome of the Scarborough Shoal agreement was, and the U.S. is not trusted to sort out problems in the region anymore because of it. By chipping away at countries’ sovereignty and territory slowly, China can build artificial islands with military bases on them, which they have done; claim the entire South China Sea, which they are doing; and cut off their rivals Japan and Taiwan to economically strangle them; which they will do. 

This article first appeared in Lorelai’s blog (Blog Takeover! Max Talks Chinese Geopolitics (wixsite.com)), check out her blog!