China's strategy in the South China Sea.

• Author: Fravel, M. Taylor
• Position: Report

In recent years, no international maritime dispute has garnered more attention than the contest over the islands, reefs and waters of the South China Sea. The dispute involves the overlapping claims of six governments to territorial sovereignty and maritime rights, encompasses the main sea lines of communication that con-nect Southeast Asia with Northeast Asia, covers large fishing grounds and may contain vast reserves of oil and natural gas. In the South China Sea dispute, no state attracts more attention than the People's Republic of China (PRC) because of its expansive claim, past uses of force over islands in these waters and its growing naval capabilities.

This article examines China's behaviour in the South China Sea disputes through the lens of its strategy for managing its claims. Since the mid-1990s, China has pursued a strategy of delaying the resolution of the dispute. The goal of this strategy is to consolidate China's claims, especially to maritime rights or jurisdiction over these waters, and to deter other states from strengthening their own claims at China's expense, including resource development projects that exclude China. Since the mid-2000s, the pace of China's efforts to consolidate its claim and deter others has increased through diplomatic, administrative and military means. Although China's strategy seeks to consolidate its own claims, it threatens weaker states in the dispute and is inherently destabilizing. As a result, the delaying strategy includes efforts to prevent the escalation of tensions among the claimants.

The article proceeds as follows. China's claims and interests in the South China Sea, which identify the goals and context for China's strategy, are examined in the next section. Then, the article describes China's use of a delaying strategy since 1949 and two periods when force was used: in 1974 over the Crescent Group in the Paracels and in 1988 over Johnson Reef in the Spratlys. The following two sections then examine the diplomatic, administrative, and military components of China's delaying strategy and efforts to manage tensions since the summer of 2011. Finally, the article examines the implications for cooperation and conflict in the dispute.

China's Claims and Interests in the South China Sea

In the South China Sea, Beijing claims territorial sovereignty over two groups of islands and maritime rights over related waters. The contemporary basis for China's territorial claims is a statement that Chinese premier Zhou Enlai issued in August 1951 during the Allied peace treaty negotiations with Japan. In the statement, Zhou declared China's sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands. (1) In September 1958, China reaffirmed its claim to these islands when it asserted rights to territorial waters during the Jinmen crisis. The 1958 declaration marked the first time that China linked its claims to territorial sovereignty with the assertion of maritime rights, in this case, rights to territorial waters. From the mid 1970s to the present, official government statements have used roughly the same language to describe China's sovereignty claim. The claim is usually phrased as: "China has indisputable sovereignty over the Spratly Islands (or South China Sea islands) and adjacent waters."

As the international maritime legal regime evolved, China began to codify its claims to maritime rights through the passage of domestic legislation. These laws harmonized China's legal system with the requirements of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In 1992, the National People's Congress (NPC) passed a Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone of the People's Republic of China, which reaffirmed the content of the 1958 declaration but contained more specific language. Following this law, China issued baselines for its territorial waters in 1996. In 1998, the NPC passed a Law on the Exclusive Economic Zone and the Continental Shelf of the People's Republic of China, in which it claimed additional maritime rights beyond those contained in the 1992 law. (2) The EEZ law did not refer to the Paracels or the Spratlys, but, when combined with the 1992 law on territorial seas, it provides a basis for claiming maritime rights in the South China Sea. In April 2011, China affirmed this interpretation in a note verbale to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (the Commission or CLCS) by stating that the Spratly Islands were "fully entitled" to territorial waters, an EEZ and a continental shelf. (3)

The scope of China's claims to maritime rights or jurisdiction, however, remains ambiguous. First, many of the land features that China claims in the South China Sea would not qualify as islands under Article 121(3) of UNCLOS and thus could not serve as the basis for a claim to an EEZ. China could probably claim a large portion of the South China Sea as an EEZ from the five largest of the Spratly Islands as well as Woody Island in the Paracels and Pratas Island (currently controlled by Taiwan). (4) Such claims, however, would only represent a maximal position, as UNCLOS requires that states resolve disputes when EEZ claims overlap.

A second source of ambiguity concerns the question of historic rights that China might claim in the South China Sea. Article 14 of the 1998 EEZ law states that it "shall not affect the historic rights [lishixing quanyi] that the PRC enjoys". Although some Chinese policy analysts have suggested that the South China Sea are historic waters, the 1998 law did not define the content or spatial scope of these historic rights. (5) Moreover, no other Chinese law has described what these rights might encompass. (6)

The "nine-dashed line" (jiuduanxian) that appears on official Chinese maps of the region creates a third source of ambiguity. The line was initially drawn in the 1930s, first appeared on an official Republic of China (ROC) map in 1947, and has appeared on PRC maps since 1949. Neither the ROC nor the PRC has ever defined what type of international legal claim the line depicted. To this day, the line remains undefined. For example, although China included a map with the nine-dashed line in a note verbale to the CLCS in May 2009, it never defined the line or claimed historic rights that some scholars argue that the line indicates. (7)

If China's official statements and laws are taken at face value, then only one interpretation of the line may be possible: it depicts China's claim to the islands and other features contained within the line, namely, the Paracels and the Spratlys. When China issued its baselines in 1996, it drew baselines around the Paracels but not the Spratlys. This act suggests that China intends to proceed with its claims to maritime rights (but not territorial sovereignty) in the South China Sea through UNCLOS, fulfilling foreign minister Qian Qichen's 1995 pledge." If the "nine-dashed line" represented anything other than a claim to the enclosed land features from which China claims maritime rights, then China would had have no need to claim territorial waters in 1958 or to draw baselines around features such as the Paracels that were located within the dashed line. As Daniel Dzurek has observed, the delimitation of baselines around the Paracels is "logically inconsistent" with a claim to historic waters or other interpretations of the line. (9)

The unwillingness or inability of the Chinese government to define the line, however, creates space for various actors to offer competing interpretations of the line. (10) The South Sea Regional Fisheries Administration Bureau (SSRFAB), for example, describes its operations to protect Chinese fishermen as occurring within a "traditional boundary line" (chuantong jiangjie Man)." The People's Liberation Army's (PLA) official newspaper, the Jiefangjun Bao, occasionally refers to China's "traditional maritime boundary" (chuantong haijiang xian) in the South China Sea. (12) Since the 1980s, various maritime actors, including the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the State Oceanographic Administration's Marine Surveillance Force, have all dispatched vessels to Johnson Shoal, a submerged feature that is viewed as the southern tip of China's claim in the South China Sea. In fact, states under UNCLOS cannot claim sovereignty over subsurface features independent of a land feature. Nevertheless, the symbolism of this act was consistent with a broad interpretation of the "nine-dashed line".

China pursues several interests through its claims to territorial sovereignty and maritime rights in the South China Sea. As former PLAN Commander Admiral Liu Huaqing observed, "whoever controls the Spratlys will reap huge economic and military benefits". (13) Economically, jurisdiction over these waters would give China access to the maritime resources of the South China Sea, especially hydrocarbons and fish. Chinese sources indicate that there may be 105 billion barrels of hydrocarbon reserves around the Spratlys, while the South China Sea accounts for a substantial portion of China's annual catch of fish. (14) The majority of Chinese trade also flows through these waters, including 80 per cent of China's oil imports. (15) Militarily, the South China Sea forms a maritime buffer for the provinces of southern China and would be a key theatre of operations in a conflict over Taiwan with the United States. Any effort to blockade China in wartime would also occur in these waters.

Whether China has labelled the South China Sea as "core interest" equivalent to Tibet or Taiwan attracted a great deal of attention in 2010. The New York Times reported in April 2010 that China had described the South China Sea as a core interest. (16) Although it was discussed in several private meetings between US and Chinese officials, no senior Chinese leader has ever publicly described the South China Sea as a core interest, unlike Tibet or Taiwan. (17) The only exception appears to be an...