The South China Sea Disputes and the US–China Contest

The following sections are included:

• About the Author
• Contents
• Table of Acronyms
• Table of Cases Cited
• Introduction

The South China Sea (SCS) may, by common sense, be assumed to be part of the Pacific Ocean. But, in this book, we treat it as a separate body of waters in its own right, due to its distinctive status arising from a combination of four peculiar factors: (a) its vital importance as a hubbub of trade, since one-third of the world’s shipping (valued at $5.3 trillion in 2015) sails through its waters; (b) its abundant resources, including oil and natural gas; (c) the wide attention it commands because of the clashes arising from the neighboring nations’ overlapping sovereign claims; and (d) post-2010 U.S. geopolitical interests in the region as a strategic site of rivalry with the rerising China, although largely dressed as a freedom of navigation dispute…

The creative idea of likening China’s position vis-à-vis the South China Sea (SCS) to America’s position vis-à-vis the Caribbean Sea in the 19th and early 20th centuries came originally from Robert D. Kaplan. “It was,” he added, “domination of the Greater Caribbean Basin that gave the United States effective control of the Western Hemisphere.” I must hasten to add, though, that even until today, the U.S. control of the Caribbean remains unchallenged, unlike China’s besieged leadership over the SCS region. The difference, I surmise, is due to the fact that with the sole exception of Cuba, the Caribbean is not populated by states nearly as formidable or assertive as some of the states that loom on the periphery of the SCS. One commonality, admittedly, is that states in both regions, the SCS and the Caribbean, are postcolonial creations. However, in the Caribbean, there are no likes of Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which could count on the support of the U.S. superpower in their disputes with China. The Philippines even has an alliance treaty with the United States, a feature not similarly found among the Caribbean states. None of the latter is allied with a mighty ex-regional patron comparable to the United States…

On the subject of the law of the sea, most analysts, even many experts, look to the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III) as if it was the sole authoritative guide, to the neglect of norms in the broader general (customary) international law. It follows therefore that, as the 1982 Convention is totally silent on the question of “historic waters,” almost all extant discussions on the South China Sea (SCS) disputes touched on all other legal issues, to the exclusion of historic waters, which is rooted in the Chinese claim over the SCS. This book is an attempt to fill the unfortunate gap; or, to put it more bluntly, to correct the common blunder. And this chapter is devoted to a full explication of the concept and theory of historic waters, in general international law (as opposed to, and much broader than, treaty law)…

The following sections are included:

• Rectification of Names
• The Background of the Case: Genesis of China’s Nemesis
• The Tribunal’s Initial Award: Jurisdiction and Admissibility
• The Tribunal’s UNCLOS-Based Final Award Against China: A Critique
• Recourse for China Following the Negative Arbitral Award: Damage Control Needed

Amidst the ballyhoos over the current contest between the rising China and the reigning U.S. superpower, which was rendered more acute under the Presidency of Donald Trump, many Western analysts have begun to sound their alarm that the two powers are “destined for war.” In fact, that is the title of a new book by Graham Allison, a seasoned political scientist at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. The book’s subtitle — Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? — catches a wide concern of all peace-loving people…

In order to fully comprehend the origins and implications of the gathering storm over the post-2010 U.S.–China contest, we need to tackle two totally different ways of interpreting the perceived reality, between Washington and Beijing. Here, let us recall an adage made famous by Immanuel Kant, that the facts we perceive may not be the same as the facts-in-themselves. The word “vision” here refers, specifically, to the idiosyncratic perception of the facts, respectively from the U.S. and the Chinese standpoints. This point merits special attention because decision makers react only to their perceived reality, as exists in their vision, not to the true reality, the facts-in-themselves…

I put a question mark after “Thucydides Trap” in the chapter’s title to register my skepticism about the supposed similarity between the current China–U.S. face-off and the Athens–Sparta contest preceding the Peloponnesian War. There are, to me, at least three substantive reasons why the two situations are totally incompatible: (a) China is not a first-time upstart, but is on its second rise after a century and a half of decline, during which it learned that the world needed social justice and safeguards against the encroachments by the powerful against the weak, as discussed in Chapter 6. (b) The system of states in which China and the United States find themselves today, wrapped in a relationship that Richard Rosecrance depicts as “vulnerability interdependence,” is qualitatively different from the ancient Greek system of states where such interdependence was unknown between Athens and Sparta. (c) China’s clout thus far is derived predominantly from its surging economic expansion; but its military might is not up to a level that would instill the sort of “fear” that the rising Athens did in Sparta, as Thucydides observed…

This book is about the threats to peace due to the long, drawn-out disputes over the South China Sea (SCS) between the competing claimants, but culminating in a gratuitous crisis over the U.S.–China contest, sustained by Washington’s geopolitical instincts. Although it advances no claim to any part of SCS, the United States is alarmed by the rise of China, and the attendant “China threat” scare trumpeted by many International Relation (IR) neorealists and media gurus alike…

The following sections are included:

• References
• Index