Just a Geopolitical Issue or a Global Risk?: The Case of South China Sea Dispute

The 2015 Global Risk report of the World Economic Forum (WEF) identifies a variety of risks that the world has faced and will likely face in years to come. Among those concerns geopolitical risks in general and interstate conflict in particular are identified as the outstandingly sensitive issue which may lead diplomatic relations between states to become more volatile and ultimately hinder security and development within various regions.

Asked as to what global risk concerns me the most, for the time being I do not think environment is the most sensitive one, because the world seems to roll back its position, especially the climate change talk, from its primary agenda. Otherwise we should have been seriously more practical and active than that ‘consensus’ consented in the 2009 Copenhagen Summit. However, this does not mean that I disregard the environmental issues as risky for the today’s world. Though, I do just consent that interstate conflict is now the most sensitive issue which shall hamper not only regional peace and security development but also wider global stability. In this article, therefore, I will briefly draw the years-long South China Sea dispute as one study among critical interstate conflicts impeding the regional peace and security as well as threatening to the global stability today.

The South China Sea dispute is the dispute over both island and marine claims amongst several countries including China, Vietnam, Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei. It is particularly a dispute on the overlapping claims on the territory and sovereignty over the ocean areas and the Paracel and the Spratly islands which are known rich of natural resources and the very strategic major shipping route. The dispute is actually not new. It has emerged and remained unsolved since 1947 after China issued a map contradicting to other states’ claims. Since then both diplomatic and military confrontations between China and other conflicting states especially Vietnam and the Philippines have been often on high alert, and their marine forces clashed a few times causing several deaths and damages of a number of sailors. For instances, in 1974 the Chinese seized the Paracels from Vietnam, killing more than 70 Vietnamese troops, and when the Vietnamese came off against the Chinese in 1988 in the Spratlys, they lost about 60 sailors. Controversially, the recent move of China in 2014 drilling rig into waters near the Paracel islands has led to multiple collisions between the Vietnamese and Chinese ships[1]. The Philippines and other claimant states also faced similar military stand-off confrontations with China though there were yet as serious as the Vietnamese’s.

So what is the sovereignty of states in such a situation where several states lay in the overlapping sovereignty claims and especially the navigational proclamation? One of the answers I found particularly convincing is what Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development at Brookings, refers to as the state’s occupation as part what determined sovereignty in international law[2]. And this perhaps is not just the South China Sea conflict but also several other interstate conflicts, for example the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand over the temple’s area and the recent Ukraine crisis, and the years-long conflict of the Middle East countries including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just to mention a few. Nevertheless, neither the question of sovereignty nor the in-depth history of the South China Sea dispute will be further detailed in this article, because what more important here is to now pay more attention on how the interstate conflict grows a higher risk in the regional and global stability.

This dispute amongst states over the patrol of South China Sea lays an obvious ground to the above argument. It, to some extent, provokes not only the confrontation between those conflicting states but occasionally diplomatic clashes between superpowers specifically between China and the United States and its allies including Japan and the emerging power India. In fact, in 2014 when Delhi attempted to take up Vietnam’s offer for oil exploration in the disputed South China Sea, Beijing government warned Delhi meddling in its dispute with Vietnam and India’s interference would harm the regional peace[3]. In addition, when current Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed concern about the regional tensions due to China’s unilateral drilling, China immediately advised Japan to stay out of a dispute and required the Japanese to be more realistic in protecting the regional peace and stability[4]. The same thing happened to the United States when it denounced the China’s drilling as provocative unilateral, Beijing warned Washington to stay out of a dispute and leave claimant countries in the region to resolve the problems[5]. These cases can illustrate clearly how the diplomatic relations can be fragile in the international relations realm. Should either India, Japan or United States fall its diplomatic stand and gets trapped into this South China Sea dispute against the Giant Chinese, how vulnerable Asia regional peace and security and the world stability would be? It is a very critical concern each state must be cautious when it comes to deal with the so-called superpower quarreling dilemma, especially as the rise of China is so influencing in the global order today.

Regarding dispute resolution, on the one hand, as the world’s primary emerging power China over years has preferred the bilateral agreement with each claimant country as a mechanism to solve this problem. On the other hand, some other countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and recently Malaysia have favored to call on the international meditation, hoping they can have better leverage over the negotiation with the world’s most populous China. Contradictorily, such attempts by the regional group ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) to gaze for solutions to the dispute does not seem working but rather appears to have left this regional bloc relentlessly divided. For instance, the Cambodian Prime Minister had been reluctant to put the South China Sea dispute into the ASEAN agenda while he was a chairman of ASEAN in 2012 and has reiterated that the South China Sea dispute is not an ASEAN’s dispute with China but only an issue between claimant states of a few ASEAN member-states with China[6].

Group: ViewsAsia Credit: PARESH Source: The Khaleej Times – Dubai, UAE Keywords: COLOR SOUTH CHINA SEA ASEAN DRAGON CONDUCT 052715 Provider: CartoonArts International / The New York Times Syndicate. From http://www.japantimes.co.jp

So, what comes next? Of course, it is very intricate to dig out the exact trend or direction to which this dispute may lead, but probably what could provide us better understanding is the leadership positioning of China in settling the dispute. Despite its primary goal to fight for more energy power, given strong internal pressures from the Communist Party of China per se, the Chinese leader definitely dares not to comprise his position to give up perhaps even a small amount of that of claimed sovereignty; therefore, China will probably still stay firm to its position in favoring the bilateral talk with each conflicting state where obviously it is superior to its opponent. To this case, some say the involvement of the US is necessary not only to protect the interest of its ASEAN allies like the Philippines but more importantly to make all of other US’ allies confident in its leadership positioning in securing security and stability in the region. However, how far the US will get itself into this South China Sea dispute remains unclear. In my personal view, if the US gets so deeply into this conflict, it may not help much but rather may create harsher confrontations with the region and shall in some way pollute both its diplomatic relations with China which is not a good news to the global order, unquestionably.

In brief, according to the abovementioned, it is convincing that conflict amongst states is severely threatening the regional security and development and shall possibly turn global stability in fragility.

Noted: This article was published at my school’s magazine, AJOU GSIS’s Gazette 27th publication in which I was one of the editors.

References:

[1] BBC News, extracted from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349

[2] China Documentary: South China Sea at the heart of territorial disputes, extracted from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6yzz1_VZSQ

[3] International Business Times, extracted from http://www.ibtimes.com/vietnam-india-sign-oil-naval-agreement-amid-south-china-sea-disputes-angering-beijing-1715677

[4] Reuters, extracted from http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/05/23/uk-southchinasea-china-japan-idUKKBN0E30PS20140523

[5] Reuters, extracted from http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-china-usa-asean-idUSKBN0FK0CM20140715

[6] The Diplomat, extracted from http://thediplomat.com/2015/03/does-asean-have-a-south-china-sea-position/