16

The ultimate South China Sea “secret”

by Pepe Escobar, Sputnik

The South China Sea is and will continue to be the ultimate geopolitical flashpoint of the young 21st century – way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands.  No less than the future of Asia – as well as the East-West balance of power – is at stake.
To understand the Big Picture, we need to go back to 1890 when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783.  Mahan’s central thesis is that the US should go global in search of new markets, and protect these new trade routes through a network of naval bases.
That is the embryo of the US Empire of Bases – which de facto started after the Spanish-American war, over a century ago, when the US graduated to Pacific power status by annexing the Philippines, Hawaii and Guam.
Western — American and European — colonialism is strictly responsible for the current, incendiary sovereignty battle in the South China Sea.  It’s the West that came up with most land borders — and maritime borders — of these states.
The roll call is quite impressive. Philippines and Indonesia were divided by Spain and Portugal in 1529. The division between Malaysia and Indonesia is owed to the British and the Dutch in 1842. The border between China and Vietnam was imposed to the Chinese by the French in 1887. The Philippines’s borders were concocted by the US and Spain in 1898. The border between Philippines and Malaysia was drawn by the US and the Brits in 1930.
We are talking about borders between different colonial possessions – and that implies intractable problems from the start, subsequently inherited by post-colonial nations.  And to think that it had all started as a loose configuration.  The best anthropological studies (Bill Solheim’s, for instance) define the semi-nomadic communities who really traveled and traded across the South China Sea from time immemorial as the Nusantao – an Austronesian compound word for “south island” and “people”.
The Nusantao were not a defined ethnic group; rather a maritime Internet.  Over the centuries, they had many key hubs, from the coastline between central Vietnam and Hong Kong to the Mekong Delta. They were not attached to any “state”, and the notion of “borders” didn’t even exist.
Only by the late 19th century the Westphalian system managed to freeze the South China Sea inside an immovable framework.  Which brings us to why China is so sensitive about its borders; because they are directly linked to the “century of humiliation” – when internal Chinese corruption and weakness allowed Western barbarians to take possession of Chinese land.

Tension in the nine-dash line

The eminent Chinese geographer Bai Meichu was a fierce nationalist who drew his own version of what was called the “Chinese National Humiliation Map”.  In 1936 he published a map including a “U-shaped line” gobbling up the South China Sea all the way down to James Shoal, which is 1,500 km south of China but only over 100 km off Borneo.  Scores of maps copied Meichu’s.  Most included the Spratly Islands, but not James Shoal.
The crucial fact is that Bai was the man who actually invented the “nine-dash line”, promoted by the Chinese government – then not yet Communist – as the letter of the law in terms of “historic” Chinese claims over islands in the South China Sea.
Everything stopped when Japan invaded China in 1937. Japan had occupied Taiwan way back in 1895. Now imagine Americans surrendering to the Japanese in the Philippines in 1942. That meant virtually the entire coastline of the South China Sea being controlled by a single empire for the fist time in history. The South China Sea had become a Japanese lake.
Not for long; only until 1945. The Japanese did occupy Woody Island in the Paracels and Itu Aba (today Taiping) in the Spratlys. After the end of WWII and the US nuclear-bombing Japan, the Philippines became independent in 1946; the Spratlys immediately were declared Filipino territory.
In 1947 the Chinese went on overdrive to recover all the Paracels from colonial power France. In parallel, all the islands in the South China Sea got Chinese names. James Shoal was downgraded from a sandbank into a reef (it’s actually underwater; still Beijing sees is as the southernmost point of Chinese territory.)
In December 1947 all the islands were placed under the control of Hainan (itself an island in southern China.) New maps — based on Meichu’s — followed, but now with Chinese names for the islands (or reefs, or shoals). The key problem is that no one explained the meaning of the dashes (which were originally eleven.)
So in June 1947 the Republic of China claimed everything within the line – while proclaiming itself open to negotiate definitive maritime borders with other nations later on. But, for the moment, no borders; that was the birth of the much-maligned “strategic ambiguity” of the South China Sea that lasts to this day.
“Red” China adopted all the maps — and all the decisions. Yet the final maritime border between China and Vietnam, for instance, was decided only in 1999. In 2009 China included a map of the “U-shaped” or “nine-dash line” in a presentation to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf; that was the first time the line officially showed up on an international level.
No wonder other Southeast Asian players were furious. That was the apex of the millennia-old transition from the “maritime Internet” of semi-nomadic peoples to the Westphalian system. The post-modern “war” for the South China Sea was on.

Gunboat freedom

In 2013 the Philippines – prodded by the US and Japan – decided to take its case about Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) in the South China Sea to be judged according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Both China and Philippines ratified UNCLOS. The US did not. The Philippines aimed for UNCLOS – not “historical rights”, as the Chinese wanted — to decide what is an island, what is a rock, and who is entitled to claim territorial rights (and thus EEZs) in these surrounding waters.
UNCLOS itself is the result of years of fierce legal battles. Still, key nations – including BRICS members China, India and Brazil, but also, significantly, Vietnam and Malaysia – have been struggling to change an absolutely key provision, making it mandatory for foreign warships to seek permission before sailing through their EEZs.
And here we plunge in truly, deeply troubled waters; the notion of “freedom of navigation”.
For the American empire, “freedom of navigation”, from the West Coast of the US to Asia – through the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean – is strictly subordinated to military strategy. Imagine if one day EEZs would be closed to the US Navy – or if “authorization” would have to be demanded every time; the Empire of Bases would lose “access” to…its own bases.
Add to it trademark Pentagon paranoia; what if a “hostile power” decided to block the global trade on which the US economy depends? (even though the premise — China contemplating such a move — is ludicrous). The Pentagon actually pursues a Freedom of Navigation (FON) program. For all practical purposes, it’s 21st century gunboat diplomacy, as in those aircraft carriers showboating on and off in the South China Sea.
The Holy Grail, as far as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is concerned, is to come up with a Code of Conduct to solve all maritime conflicts between Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and China. This has been dragging on for years now because mostly the Philippines wanted to frame the Chinese under a set of binding rules but was only ready to talk until all ten ASEAN members had agreed on them first.
Beijing’s strategy is the opposite; bilateral discussions to emphasize its formidable leverage. Thus China assuring the support of Cambodia – quite visible early this week when Cambodia prevented a condemnation of China regarding the South China Sea at a key summit in Laos; China and ASEAN settled for “self-restraint.”

Watch Hillary pivoting

In 2011 the US State Department was absolutely terrified with the planned Obama administration withdrawals from both Iraq and Afghanistan; what would happen to superpower projection?  That ended in November 2011, when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coined the by now famous “pivot to Asia”.
“Six lines of action” were embedded in the “pivot”.  Four of these Clinton nicked from a 2009 report by the Washington think tank CSIS; reinvigorating alliances; cultivating relationships with emerging powers; developing relationships with regional multilateral bodies; and working closely with South East Asian countries on economic issues.  Clinton added two more: broad-based military presence in Asia, and the promotion of democracy and human rights.
It was clear from the start – and not only across the global South — that cutting across the rhetorical fog the “pivot” was code for a military offensive to contain China.  Even more seriously, this was the geopolitical moment when a South East Asian dispute over maritime territory intersected with the across-the-globe confrontation between the hegemon and a “peer competitor.”
What Clinton meant by “engaging emerging powers” was, in her own words, “join us in shaping and participating in a rules-based regional and global order”.  This is code for rules coined by the hegemon – as in the whole apparatus of the Washington consensus.
No wonder the South China Sea is immensely strategic, as American hegemony intimately depends on ruling the waves (remember Mahan).  That’s the core of the US National Military Strategy.  The South China Sea is the crucial link connecting the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and ultimately Europe.
And so we finally discover Rosebud — the ultimate South China Sea “secret”.  China under Clinton’s “rule-based regional and global order” effectively means that China must obey and keep the South China Sea open to the US Navy.
That spells out inevitable escalation further on down the sea lanes.  China, slowly but surely, is developing an array of sophisticated weapons which could ultimately “deny” the South China Sea to the US Navy, as the Beltway is very much aware.
What makes it even more serious is that we’re talking about irreconcilable imperatives. Beijing characterizes itself as an anti-imperialist power; and that necessarily includes recovering national territories usurped by colonial powers allied with internal Chinese traitors (those islands that The Hague has ruled are no more than “rocks” or even “low-tide elevations”).
The US, for its part, is all about Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny.  As it stands, more than Russia’s western borderlands, the Baltics or “Syraq”, this is where the hegemon “rules” are really being contested.  And the stakes couldn’t be higher.  That’ll be the day when the US Navy is “denied” from the South China Sea; and that’ll be the end of its imperial hegemony.


SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN

If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

16 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
pauldalleyD
pauldalleyD
Aug 30, 2016 8:01 AM

Everyone is missing the overall picture.
The United States successfully brought down Communist Russia.
It will likewise bring down Communist China.
Communist China will collapse internally due to military overextension.
Just as Communist Russia did.

Admin
Admin
Aug 30, 2016 11:55 AM
Reply to  pauldalleyD

Military over-extension? How does that apply to the SU or to China? Does it also apply to the US/NATO?

Eric_B
Eric_B
Aug 30, 2016 1:56 PM
Reply to  pauldalleyD

China isn’t really a Communist country any more and is scarcely expanding much militarily.
But regardless, given the now gigantic size of China’s economy I doubt the heavily indebted USA can beat China long term in a military spending match.
Where will China be in 10 years economically? Much bigger. Where will the US be? Slightly bigger but essentially stagnating economically, as it has been for the last 10 years.

bryce elmore
bryce elmore
Aug 31, 2016 12:05 AM
Reply to  pauldalleyD

Great trolling, Paul. You earned a free “happy” meal from McDonalds in Langley.
Try sometime to do some business in Russia, or China.
My hyper-capitalist Russian friends went to China to create a business in translating the literature, but were scared away by the aggressive mega-capitalist Chinese.
Money, money, money, Paul. All they think about; those pesky Russians & Chinese.
Enjoy your “freedom fries”, & Cheers !

Max
Max
Aug 29, 2016 10:39 PM

The US will continue to flex it bully muscle till a point that they realized they are no longer capable to block others just to make themselves superior.
They made the most stupid mistake by trying to block China with it so-called 1st and 2nd islands chains.
This gives China the opportunity to develop and expend it military present in SCS, China will takes few more years to match US military superiority but it won’t take long with the money and resources China far exceeds US.
The only solution is US withdraw from SCS and back to 2nd islands chain, before China counter them by placing military present at central and South America and it will be too late.
The day of Western power control the world is over, US and it alliance has to learn to accept this fact, like it or not.

ptol
ptol
Aug 29, 2016 7:16 PM

Nobody will win if this turns into a shooting war.

Tony
Tony
Aug 29, 2016 3:02 PM

There is no happy ending to this. China’s arms buildup will continue for as long as it can afford it or until it matches the USA. China and the USA have already taken their relationship down an adversarial path. From a Chinese perspective it has little choice. It wants the United States out of Asia. The South China Sea, Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands are simply symptoms of that goal. China will continue to arm until it is able to establish control of these despite US and other objections. The eventual removal of the United States beyond the second island chain is a prerequisite to resolving matters to the PLA’s satisfaction. China’s press and politicians make no secret of their objectives. I am afraid John Mearsheimer (The Tragedy of Great Power Politics) and Alderic Au (China: The Aztlan Protocol), in their very different ways, have seen the future with clarity. It presents the US with some uncomfortable choices. The rub is they won’t get any easier; time is on China’s side. At some point in the next few years, we may expect a ‘doctrine’ and it will not be Monroe’s.

ptol
ptol
Aug 29, 2016 7:22 PM
Reply to  Tony

Maybe that could give the US something to give. The US could pull back some of its forces to facilitate a compromise between China, Philippines and Vietnam that also ensures continuing free trade routes. Better to avoid a fight that could leave the US and China much weaker for a long time.

The WEDA Coalition
The WEDA Coalition
Aug 29, 2016 1:35 PM

Reblogged this on The WEDA Coalition.

joekano76
joekano76
Aug 29, 2016 1:15 PM

Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.

writerroddis
writerroddis
Aug 29, 2016 9:35 AM

I travel frequently to Vietnam and agree that territorial rights in the South China Sea are an extraordinarily sensitive issue for the reasons Escobar sets out. I agree too that America and China are headed for serious confrontation in the region. What I am less sure about are Escobar’s opening and closing statements. Much as I respect his work he is rather given to florid turns of phrase. In itself that’s no big deal – we’re not running literary beauty contests here – but I see it as linked to a more serious problem, a tendency to hyperbole.
The South China Sea is not “way ahead of the Middle East or Russia’s western borderlands” as potential flashpoint for WW3. All three arenas qualify as joint ‘favourites’ in that respect. Even more important, the challenge to US imperialism comes from China and Russia both and cannot easily be separated for severity rating when Washington’s decisions push those two powers ever closer.
Here’s an example. In 2013 Russia made a loan to Yanokovitch. It was not huge by international standards but was significant, and on very favourable terms – for obvious reasons – when Ukraine’s credit status left it unable to borrow on international markets except at punitive rates. The loan was due for repayment last December. By IMF rules (i.e. US rules) that held for decades, no nation which stiffs a sovereign lender may qualify for an IMF loan. This held for Greece last summer. But with that little problem put to bed, IMF rules changed. Now Ukraine may indeed borrow from the IMF without repaying Russia – nay, not doing so is a de facto condition of loan eligibility! Why? Because China and Russia are coming together – the one with its vast surplus, the other its vast energy reserves – to challenge a dollar hegemony going back to Bretton Woods and expanded after the fall of the USSR. That fiscal challenge is part of a wider challenge that may indeed lead to thermonuclear confrontation. It is good and proper that Escobar reminds us of the seriousness of the situation in Asia, of the US Empire’s plethora of bases, and of the fact it will do all in its considerable power to maintain its rule over the sea lanes. It is unhelpful though to prioritise any one of the three flashpoints over the others according to greater or lesser severity when the whole sitch is (a) deeply interwoven and (b) seriously fucking scary

leruscino
leruscino
Aug 29, 2016 1:49 PM
Reply to  writerroddis

In a word “NO” ! Let not paint this doom & gloom of WW3 & distract from what’s really going on.
The West’s Elite only care about their back pocket & global control which they can’ truly achieve. The danger they face right now is the time it takes from today to inevitable US bankruptcy. The military game is just a stall & bully rouse that’s had its bluff called by Russia & China as both can obliterate the US in any conflict but will suffer intolerable damage too so it NEVER going to happen unless S500 is as good as they say & if the new hypersonic weapons can deliver neutralising pay-loads.
Watch & see as what the Elite are doing is in plain sight.
Tactic One
Scare the Taxpayer to fund ludicrously over priced military contracts for what in the main is failed technology – In this way the Elite rip as much cash out of the system as quickly as possible – look at the graph of US debt that does not include the un-secured liabilities – Real US Debt is closer to $200T which is easy to substantiate & prove with a little research – Where did the money go?
Tactic Two
Force the Taxpayer to pay for something imaginary that they never got & call it AUSTERITY. Boyle’s Law of Energy applies to “Value” – it cannot disappear but changes from one form to another! Or one pocket to another? Did the Greeks get €30,000 for each man woman & child that they now refuse to pay back ?
Tactic Three
Install puppet leaders such as Obama/Clinton, Merkel, Cameron, Hollande etc to obey hidden instructions such as that issued in 1956 to Harold MacMillan in the Suez Crisis by Eisenhower – which is we will crash your economy if you don’t do what you are told.
Tactic Four
Colour Revolutions etc & even blatant coups to remove those leaders that won’t obey.
Tactic Five
Hide money in certain places such as Saudi Arabia (AKA Exxon) with $8Trn hidden. Buy physical gold & Learn Chinese and/or Russian.
Tactic Six
Crash stock-markets selectively as in Beijing $1Trn sell off in January 2016 by Exxon (AKA Saudi Arabia)
Tactic Seven
Control of the West’s Military AKA NATO to make the threats to prolong the inevitable collapse.
Tactic Eight
Control the Medai for which we thank Off-Guardian, Julian Assange & others for exposing.
I’m sure I missed some thing but these are the visible points for now.

writerroddis
writerroddis
Aug 29, 2016 2:34 PM
Reply to  leruscino

I agree with most of your points, which I see as laws of capital accumulation playing out. But your comment strikes me as too reliant on a variant of the mutually assured destruction doctrine. There are those in the US ruling class and Pentagon who believe a ‘limited’ nuclear war can be fought and won.
In any case, I’d urge you to leave room for the possibility that as those laws of accumulation – and falling rates of profit, and an intensifying of inter-imperial rivalries – play out, things may get out of control. My own view of the ruling class, while Marxist rather than conspiracist, is that at least some of its leading lights are not your bog standard sociopaths but criminally insane. Neither component of that two word designation should be underestimated.

michaelk
michaelk
Aug 29, 2016 8:26 AM

The Chinese are trying to get around the ability of the Americans to ‘strangle’ China by controling the sea lanes through the South China Sea, by rapidly developing the New Silk Road project, which would bypass the South China Sea completely, allowing China to export produce and import oil and gas without regard to the Americans. They’ve even talked about extending the Silk Road even further, through Africa to the West Coast and the Atlantic. This would give China, potentially, access to Africa’s markets and resources, and, then, those of South America too. The Silk Road project has the potential to radical alter the balance of trade and economics, creating a vast trading block outside of US control and one that’s land based. This is what the US is afraid of, which is why they want to crush the idea of a New Silk Road and maintain control of the world’s economy and trade for themselves. This is why they are so deeply involved in Afghanistan and Syria. It’s a conflict, or war, about who’ll control the Silk Road.

Johan
Johan
Aug 29, 2016 5:15 AM

An unusually well researched and contextualised article. Thanks!

archie1954
archie1954
Aug 29, 2016 6:33 AM
Reply to  Johan

I am so much waiting for the US to be denied its imperial edicts. Please make it as soon as possible!