The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia

Wer sich mit dem Thema auseinandersetzen möchte, sollte sich das Buch besorgen. Super gut geschrieben und das Thema gut bearbeitet. Kein oberflächlichiges bla

First half of the book is the history of the discovery of the islands and rocks in the SCS, it can results boring and not exciting. The second half provide a good and accurate reconstruction of the escalation of events in the last 20 years providing a clear idea to the reader. Unfortunately the book is not up to date and it misses the significant developments in the last 5 years. It needs a review as soon as possible.

The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia by Bill Hayton; Yale University Press, © 2014; 298 pages softcover.The South China Sea dispute is a complicated mess, requiring a knowledge of various country histories, world naval history, diverse conventions (treaties recognized by more than 2 countries), ambiguous legal rulings on territory and economic zones, and more. Anyone who pursues an open-minded reading of this book is to be commended because most U.S. media discussions are shallow ethnocentric nationalism. The student who does his homework is much to be preferred over the schoolyard bully, and this is good homework.The Introduction is preceded by four simple maps of the South China Sea that lay out the various border claims that are discussed throughout this book. It will come as a surprise to many that the Paracels claimed by Vietnam are really closer to Hainan, China or that many islands continue to be in full dispute between various combinations of parties including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and China. China’s nine-dashed U-shaped line is the current center of debate. The reader should return to these regularly.Hayton provides a hypothetical worst-case scenario of a Philippine ship on a mission to plan a flag on a disputed island in confrontation with a Chinese patrol boat, and the likely confrontation that all wish to avoid. Then in a preamble to the fuller history, Hayton explains the narrow use of a few journal accounts from the 1970s that justified the Chinese invasion of the Paracels. Hayton then moves beyond the superficial.Chapter 1 Wrecks and Wrongs: Prehistory to 1500 is truly prehistorical. If a reader is short on time, this is the only chapter that can be skipped, but it does provide an interesting background on the early settlement of this region and hints into the trade routes and items of trade. This prehistory also extends up to internal China where the treatment is generalized and superficial. When the author refers to sea cucumbers as “slithering,” you realize he is not a biologist but this alliteration does not disport the bulk of the historical narrative. Coverage of the Chinese eunuch admiral Zheng This is relevant insofar as this gave the Ming Dynasty garrisons across their extended trade route, but this was about trade security and not occupation.Chapter 2 Maps and Lines: 1500 to 1948 begins by defining two polar views of maritime law.British John Selden contended that countries had the right to establish and limit access to maritime regions around their shores, a legal argument triggered by many other countries exploiting the fisheries near England. As Britain grew to become THE maritime power, this meant that they could dominate and control all sea lanes. On the other side was Hugo Grotius, a lobbyist for the VOC [the Dutch equivalent of the British East Indies Company] who advocated that the seas belonged to all and could not be claimed by any one power (although shipping contracts could be made and defended). Both agreed that “ships had the right of ‘innocent passage’ another country’s waters…” with variations. This has been passed down to today, with whoever dominates the seas (first the Netherlands, then Britain, and now the U.S.) taking the stand for “freedom of navigation” and the weaker states desiring offshore sovereignty.During these centuries, more detailed maps were developed that allowed ships to cross the South China Sea rather than stay near the coastline, and since the South China Sea is relatively shallow with many reefs and shoals, many merchant ships met with disaster, their names giving rise to the names of the Macclesfield Bank and Scarborough Shoal.Hayton points out that by 1800, many Southeast Asian entities were not yet defined countries but kingdoms where authority faded as you moved away from the capitol. It was the Western colonial powers that defined the borders between countries: “…Malaysia and Indonesia was largely fixed by the British and the Dutch in 1842, the Chinese-Vietnamese border was dictated to the Chinese by the French in 1887…and the border between the Philippines and Malaysia by the U.S. and Britain in 1930.” Even the formation of the Republic of China in 1911 had to refer to defining its territory “as the domain of the former empire” with the domain having often been a fuzzy border. The early 1900s were also an era of mapmaking and renaming of islands where for example the Paracels became the Xisha and the Spratleys the Tuansha. However, with the approach of World War II (and possession being nine-tenths of the law), Hayton admits that the “South China Sea became a Japanese lake” until 1945.It is at this juncture that I am disappointed with Hayton, whose expertise is admittedly not focused on war history. The duplicity of the Allies in the Second World War did contribute to the post-War confusion of territory. The biography “China Hand” by John Paton Davies, Jr. as well as other sources describe the tension between Lord Montbatten who followed Churchill’s orders that he had not become Prime Minister in order to give away all of Great Britain’s colonies, and General Stilwell who defied Montbatten and attempted to solicit national guerrilla soldiers to join the Allies and fight the Japanese under the understanding that after winning the War, they would have also accomplished the liberation of their country from colonial status. Unfortunately, FDR grew weak at the last Allied Conference and conceded to the British, resulting in the Vietnamese having to fight to throw out the French, the Indonesians to eject the Dutch, etc. Hayton does mention that prior to the Yalta Conference, the U.S. State Department did see no country having a clear claim to the Spratlys and recommended future United Nations jurisdiction, but buckled to France and remained vague. Had the U.S. supported Stilwell, we could have prevented the post-War loss of many lives as these nations had to continue to liberate their countries from the colonial powers, and it is possible that there would have been more clarity on the ownership of many islands of the South China Sea that are contested today.The central contention of China was laid down by the Chinese Parliament in May 1947 based on a Geography Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (keep in mind that this is pre-1949 Liberation and under the Kuomintang) map. This is the critical “U-shaped map” where China asserts control of the South China Sea. In June 1947, the ROC indicated it “would negotiate precise maritime boundaries with other countries at a later date and according to the international laws in operation.” In 1999 China (now the PRC) and Vietnam defined the precise line in the Gulf of Tonkin, reducing two dashes to a total nine. In May 2009, the PRC added a dash as it issued a new map showing Taiwan completely in PRC territory---the resulting 10-dash map that is argued today.Chapter 3 Danger and Mischief: 1946 to 1995 could also be titled “little boys tussling on the playground.” No less than Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek tries to “demonstrate his fitness” and win Chinese public approval in a last ditch effort to make claims and stand up to the Westerners; then he is defeated on the mainland and retreats to Taiwan. Meanwhile the French are attempting to hold onto Vietnam and the Paracell Islands that are being settled by Chinese, and this brief episode features a Carmelite Priest joins the French naval effort and muddles the sea battle before being fired and returning to the priesthood. This is not just an aside, but illustrates the critical roles of certain individuals in the South China Sea debacle and again having the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time.Most of the South China Sea is not rich with fish, oil or other resources. But the tale of Tomas Cloma and his grandiose plans to mine guano and can fish on the Spratly Islands is an exercise in hubris. In 1956 and without support from his Philippine government, Cloma declared himself head of the “Free Territory of Freedomland,” a near 65,000 square mile area around the Spratlys. This was a challenge to Taiwan, the China mainland, and the French. It was the ROC (Taiwan) that sent a navy ship that forced Clomas to admit he was trespassing. The Philippines responded by letting Clomas claim any unoccupied islands as long as no other country claimed sovereignty over it. By 1971 and the possibility of oil off the coast of Palawan, the Philippine government used the Cloma activity to claim the islands and occupies nine islands and reefs.In 1973, South Vietnam annexed 10 islands in the Spratly group and it was obvious that it was hoping to award oil rights, as it had done with other coastal areas, to gain money to replace the war funds no longer coming from the U.S. Taiwan and the Philippines protested. China was busy worrying about Russia and making friends with the U.S. After the Vietnam War ended, Russia indeed did use Vietnam coastal ports, but the islands were not good as protected harbors.With Deng Xiaoping’s “opening up” came a focus on trade and a new importance to coastal production and shipping. This gave the PLA Navy a new focus on “active green water defense.” China began building more Coast Guard and near-Navy ships for operations in the South China Sea. It is important to understand that the shallow South China Sea is still continental shelf and not “blue water.” That is discussed later in Chapter 8. In 1987, following a UNESCO mandate, China built survey monitoring centers in the South China Sea, including one in the Spratlys and near islands occupied by Vietnam. They built barracks and a helicopter pad on Fiery Cross Reef before Vietnam noticed. Vietnam responded by sending ships to occupy other mostly submerged reefs, successfully controlling Collins and Lansdowne reef, but losing a violent battle for Johnson Reef which Hayton describes as a “turkey shoot.”Up until 1992, the Philippines was a protectorate of the U.S., with two major military bases: Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base. When the Philippine Senate voted in 1991 to kick out these bases, they were left with their own naval resources which were barely a rust bucket coast guard. By 1995, when the Chinese had built on and occupied Mischief Reef, 209 kilometers offshore the Philippines, and an area the Philippine government had signed paper with oil companies to discuss exploiting. This was the first action by China on the eastern side of the South China Sea, and also raised concerns or protests from Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia as well. These are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN.At this point we get to the actualization of the Beijing position: China is quite willing to arrange for joint development of resources throughout its U-shaped region as long as it is recognized that China has the territorial rights, a policy called “occupy and negotiate” and which Hayton says is also called “take and talk.”It is at this point that I would have appreciated a comparison with similar actions and positions taken by the United States in the case of the Caribbean under the Monroe Doctrine and even relative to the Cuban Missile Crisis. This would probably entail another whole chapter, the point being: are we protesting claims and actions of others that we ourselves practiced and consider legal?Chapter 4 Rocks and Other Hard Places: the South China Sea and International Law begins with how did the Spratly Islands get their name. Here we have a few colorful pages describing this whaling captain, and I appreciate Hayton’s writing that remains interesting although short of being a book that you can’t put down. But the main thrust of this chapter is the law. Hayton is sanguine is stating that international rules on claiming territory are established by those most active in acquiring territory and there is therefore a priority of “discovery over proximity.” Based on licenses to harvest guano (bird feces, a good fertilizer) in 1889, “…Britain has never formally renounced its claim to Spratly Island and Amboyna Cay.”In 1946, two ROC (Taiwan) ships arrived and pulled the Japanese marker and erected their’s; as the internationally-recognized successor to the ROC, China would be recognized as having sovereignty. France could have pressed for priority, but was busy with losing Vietnam and then Vietnam in turn might claim France’s priority although that lineage is more diluted. South Vietnam (before reunification) had also made an independent claim to the Spratlys, but then approved the Chinese claim before the government was toppled. Hayton observes that if any early claimant had actually settled and maintained occupancy, the issue would be clearer. But none of the current claims appear likely to go to court, and the Spratlys today are occupied by various countries, and the Vietnam and Philippine soldiers on opposing islands even play sports together. The Chinese “islands” were mainly containers mounted above water level on submerged reefs but 8 reefs now have blockhouses built with construction underway on a ninth. No less than six states could [but have not yet] present claims to an international tribunal. Whether a ruling would pertain to one island, or encompass the whole group would be uncertain.While government propaganda and ethnocentric news will portray the South China Sea affair based on simple-minded nationalism and assume international law is on their side, most citizens of all countries do not have a clue about the complexity of the laws involved. UNCLOS is the Convention on the Law of the Sea negotiated from 1973 to 1982. UNCLOS established that “…coastal states could claim a territorial sea 12 nautical miles (22 kilometers) wide, an EEZ [extended economic zone] out to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) and perhaps an ‘extended continental shelf’ beyond that.” Definitions include: ‘islands that can support human habitation or economic life; rocks (including sandbanks and reefs above water at high tide) that cannot support either; and low tide elevations which, as the name suggests, are only dry at low tide.” Each category in turn generates different territorial seas and EEZ. In 2013, the Philippines submitted a 20-page request to the Permanent Court of Arbitration to ask which regional features could qualify for status in hope that the ruling would disqualify many features claimed in China’s U-shaped map. Meanwhile, Hayton dismisses many of China’s claims based on these definitions. (Of course, any sea level rise due to global warming was never considered in the early definition, and if applied in the future would result in the downgrading of many currently recognized islands if historical status was ignored.)Chapter 5 Something and Nothing: Oil and Gas in the South China Sea begins with Premier Li Peng’s 1990 announcement that China is “ready to join efforts with Southeast Asian countries to develop the Nansha islands while putting aside, for the time being, the question of sovereignty.” The Chinese entity that would make any such negotiations would be NCOOC or the China National Offshore Oil Company. Of course, the need for oil exploration by companies to confirm the value of any resources, and the conflicting assignment of exploration rights by various other countries including Vietnam make the situation anything but simple. With the rise of China’s economy, and with many Western oil companies highly invested in mainland China projects, China gained increasing leverage to force Western companies to not cooperate with Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries in any violation of the seas within the U-shaped line. BP and Conoco had big investments in China and had to divest of non-Chinese exploration agreements. In spite of our Western media hype, Hayton concludes that oil experts believe “the disputed areas of the South China Sea actually contain relatively little oil and gas.”Chapter 6 Drums and Symbols: Nationalism answers the question of why, if the South China Sea actually has contains few resources, would nations fight over the territory. Hayton begins with the emotional rise to protest in Communist Vietnam that occurred in response to Chinese assertions in “their” waters. Simply: “Across the region millions of people have come to believe that their identity as a human being can only be complete if the imagined community to which they feel they belong appears stronger than its rivals.” This is “tribalism” (which Hayton does not call by that name, and is further explained by E.O. Wilson in his recent 2-hour PBS documentary). The U.S. is also subject to this ethnocentric tribalism, but Hayton points out that “Modern Vietnamese nationalism more or less defines itself in opposition to China.” He likewise points out that (unknown to most Americans) that China invaded Vietnam in February of 1979 (“…with political and intelligence support from the U.S.) soon after America had pulled out and North Vietnam re-united the South. The dangers of big countries driving the argument is well-stated by the Philippino Secretary-General Renato Reyes: “if you bring in one superpower to oppose the other, then superpower dynamics begins to push the issue and marginalizes a peaceful settlement.” And this reasoning comes from a Philippino population that still holds the U.S. in high regard despite their Senate having voted to expel the American naval and air bases in 1991. However, it is no longer certain that the U.S. relationship with the Philippines is as important as the relationship with China. Indonesians have a better regard for China than for the U.S., and Malaysia is the most pro-China, indicating that the U.S. press portrayal of the South China Sea countries being intimidated by China is not in alignment with the populations of those countries. Hayton describes that the debate is hottest online, where young nationalists move far beyond government rhetoric in stirring up trouble at the first hint of conflict. He also notes that the 2008 U.S. financial crisis and great depression not only caused major losses for Asian stockholders, but also caused many Asians to drop their blind faith in U.S. exceptionalism. Meanwhile China’s portrayal of the South China Sea actions as taking back losses to 1800’s imperialism is their drumbeat. Hayton points to great-power-confrontation rather than nationalism as the real danger.Chapter 7 Ants and Elephants: Diplomacy is the natural follow-up chapter. Hayton begins by describing the Cambodian strategy of playing off China and the U.S. against each other, taking U.S. investments and China trade deals to enrich those in power. At this point Hayton describes the World War II arrangements including the South East Asia Command, the China Command and resultant South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). A few sentences describe the Potsdam Conference in 1945 where much of this region was carved up by the Allies. This is where I could wish for more details, because the restoration of colonies was an egregious error by the West that caused continuous civil wars of liberation and also was the basis for some of the territorial confusion surrounding South Sea islands. Moving into the current era, Gates announces the U.S. is “still a resident power in Asia” in 2008 and Hillary Clinton signs the “ASEAN treaty on Amity and Cooperation” in 2009. Because of their internal disputes, ASEAN nations fail to form a unified position and it is to China’s advantage to negotiate with each maritime country one-by-one. Hayton summarizes the U.S. budget and the heavy cost of maintaining the world’s largest military (by far); simply, the U.S. economics cannot forever remain ahead of the rest of the world. But the U.S. “pivot” to Asia and Hillary Clinton’s announcement of a “broad-based military presence” in Asia leads to military considerations in the next chapter.Chapter 8 Shaping the Battlefield: Military Matters assesses the minor confrontations and air-sea military potential for conflict. It is interesting that while the U.S. appeals to definitions of international law in the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the U.S. is not one of the signatories to that, maintaining in so many ways the American perspective of exceptionality, superiority and arrogance (my terminology). While the U.S. has sent spy ships with tow-gear to detect submarines up to the 12-mile territorial limit, China cites the UNCLOS section requiring permission for “marine scientific research” in the EEZ or 200 miles out. Unfortunately, nowhere in UNCLOS is there a prohibition of military activities in the EEZ but many countries disagree, including China, Brazil, India, Malaysia and the Maldives. The U.S. therefore pursues its “Freedom of Navigation” activities to challenge any assertion of 200 mile military exclusion, and like the school yard bully, sails through these areas just to prove that it can. It is important to note that the 200 mile EEZ does not in any way impede non-military commercial traffic, and the U.S. cannot claim that it is sailing through the 200 mile Chinese EEZ in order to protect the world’s commercial shipping---the U.S. is asserting its military mobility because it would otherwise be more difficult to send a navy to the Middle East if the U.S. had to stay out of the U-shaped EEZ.Hayton details what is known of the China naval buildup. He quotes experts who conclude that China’s navy is several generations behind the U.S. and numbers of ships as well as experienced sailors are in poor contrast to the U.S. Navy. Everything that is described shows a self-defense and green-water navy, not an international-capable blue water navy, which matches with China’s long history of not being aggressive (aside from the Vietnam debacle) an in stark contrast to the U.S. that has a long history of overseas invasions. Hayton describes a top ranking General Liu as cautioning against the West leading China into premature conflicts and that “…war is a last resort.” He also describes the impression that China is ready to be aggressive to a combination of ultra-nationalist bloggers, international media eager for to amplify it as news, and U.S. hawks that tout this overblown threat. Hayton describes CALFEX, a combined arms live fire exercise, where U.S. marines, Thai soldiers and troops from five other countries practice together, with the Chinese invited to come watch. Finally, in an eerie resurrection of President Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex, Hayton describes the Shanghri-La Dialogue that is held each year in Singapore where the companies including Boeing, EADS, Mitsubishi, and other armament manufacturers come, along with diplomats. It combined Leon Panetta’s description of what exactly was the “pivot to Asia” with to-the-side meetings for countries to buy armaments. With the U.S. military budget decreasing, arms companies are eager to sell more to these Southeast Asian countries. Hayton concludes the military chapter with “Chinese capabilities will grow and there may come a time when the Beijing leadership will want to push the imperialist aggressors out of its backyard, just as the U.S. pushed Great Britain out of the Caribbean a century ago.”With Chapter 9 Cooperation and its Opposites: Resolving the Disputes, Hayton begins with the environmental problem of overfishing and a 6-year project aimed at improving fish stocks for all parties. Next, he details how the Philippines has asked the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague to clarify the status of those reefs, rocks, shoals, etc. China is not party to this Court nor is the U.S., which has ignored this Court’s rulings relative to the U.S. mining of the harbors in Nicaragua. And Hayton describes the four various Chinese interests in the South China Sea and the fact that the Chinese Foreign Ministry is not equivalent to our Department of State and that other governmental ministries will be making decisions on future actions.Hayton finally summarizes a few cases where boundary disputes have been resolved but concludes that “law is unlikely to provide the final answer to the disputes.”The Epilogue notes the 2014 cooperation in searching for the missing Malaysian airliner. He also discloses that while he started the book research with the feeling that conflict would be inevitable, he has changed his mind as he came toward the end of the work. 15 pages of Notes in fine print allow a reader to check the sources numbered throughout the text, chapter by chapter.Four pages of Acknowledgements and Further Readings are followed by a detailed 10-page Index.

One of the best books on the South China Sea that I have read. Good research done by author and quite a balanced view for those who are still trying to understand the issue, this is a good book to read.

too political