Pragmatic Leaders Can Defuse Maritime Tension in Asia Pacific Region BA Hamzah

With the deteriorating maritime security environment in Northeast Asia and the South China Sea there is very good reason to view the volatile maritime disputes in Asia Pacific region with some pessimism. Like Richard Hass who has advanced the theory that the world is in disarray, I believe any the discussion on maritime security must account of the newly transformed geo-political equations in the region.

Richard Hass calls the current international operating system as World Order 2.0. The world, in his view, needs to quickly adjust to the new regional order or risk confrontation as America- led world global operating system ONE begins to show signs of weakening global influence. The need for adjustment is most pertinent in the Asia Pacific region that has witnessed the rise of China and a Japan abandoning its long-standing Pacifist Constitution in favour of bearing arm.

In his recent National Security Strategy policy statement, President Donald Trump reaffirms America needs a strong military to counter the revisionist rival powers like Russia and China as well as defeating the threats from ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and North Korea. President Trump promises the military $700 billion budget to upgrade its capabilities. Enhancing the US military will have a significant influence on how the Asia Pacific region manages its maritime security issues, the focus of this article.

Maritime disputes between states and among international stakeholders in the region are not always about the ownership of territories. The disputes can be over access to the maritime space including access through the sea-lanes of communication for international commerce. For example, some coastal states have disputed the right and freedom of others to use part of the sea under their jurisdiction without permission. There are stakeholders who have expressed unfounded fear that China could interdict international trade through the South China Sea in peace time.

States also compete to protect resources at sea.  Indonesia and Malaysia are concerned with rampant illegal fishing in their respective exclusive economic zones. Since 1999, China has imposed restrictions for fishing in the South China Sea between May and August each year for purposes of conservation and sustainability. These policies have not gone unchallenged and have created their own security dynamics.

The disputes also revolve around the interpretation of specific laws. For example, many states in the region do not share the United States’ definition of “excessive maritime claims” under the Freedom of Navigation Programme. Washington refers to illegal claims “to sovereignty, sovereign rights or jurisdiction over ocean areas” inconsistent the law of the sea conventions. While not being party to the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the US makes no bone to hide the real purpose of its FON programme in the South China Sea is to prevent the “emergence of a regional hegemon”, a point that that has not lost on China.

While the US uses law of the sea as the basis for determining the excessive maritime claims it does not recognise the division of the ocean space beyond the territorial sea and the continental shelf.  Under UNCLOS, the ocean is divided into internal sea, territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone and the high sea. Washington divides the ocean space into national waters and international waters. This definitional discrepancy has caused enforcement nightmares of US vessels in many coastal states’ waters.

Many of the territorial disputes in Asia Pacific region are the legacy of colonial history. For example, the modern-day disputes over the Northern Territories/Kuril could be traced to the aftermath of WW 11. It was the victorious powers that wrote the surrender terms for Japan that surrendered these islands to Russia under the Yalta agreement (February 1945), the Potsdam Declaration (July 1945) and the Treaty of San Francisco (September 1951).

Similarly, the dispute between Japan, China and Taiwan over the ownership of Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai Islands has its roots in history. Claiming that the islands were originally theirs, since 1534, China is further incensed by Japan’s administrative control of the islands since 1972, courtesy of the US. Japan claimed China ceded the Islands under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, one of many unequal treaties, after the Qing dynasty lost the war in 1895.

The disagreement over the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai Islands is not only over the issue of the ownership but also over sovereign rights.  The dispute further enraged China when Japan nationalised the islands by buying them from a private owner in 2012. China has responded to Japan’s nationalisation of the disputed features by staging big demonstrations against Japanese investments on mainland China as well as stopping the exports of rare earth to Japan. China also deployed warships surrounding the disputed islands on regular basis. Chinese fighter jets are also sighted over the disputed features.

In 2013, China established an air defence identification zone over the East China Sea — including the airspace over the disputed islands. To avert possible miscalculations, in November 2014, Tokyo and Beijing reached a four-point agreement calling for the development of a “strategic relationship of mutual benefit” and the establishment of a crisis-management mechanism between the two countries. However, due to some intervening domestic and international factors, the effort has not produced any positive result; both parties remain deeply suspicious of each other’s motivations.

Tokyo views Beijing’s militarisation of features in the South China Sea as a threatening precedent that does not bode well for its security in the East China Sea. Beijing, on the other hand, is wary that Tokyo not keen to settle the bilateral dispute amicably so long as in clings to the US-Japan Security Treaty. Article V of the Treaty mandates the US to come to the defence of Japan if any of its territories (including the disputed Senkaku) is attacked.

The nature of the disputes in the South China Sea (SCS) is quite identical to the situation in North East Asia (NEA), described above with one major difference: the SCS is claimed by a number of parties. China and Taiwan claim the entire SCS vide its nine-dash- line. In fact, the original nine- dash- line that was drawn in 1947 by the retreating Nationalist Government (under General Chiang Kai Shek) has thirteen dashes!

Besides China and Taiwan, the other claimants are Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia. China’s nine - dash –line claim also intrudes into Brunei’s maritime space. Indonesia contests the current nine-line dash line off the Natuna and it has taken steps to strengthen its claim to the EEZ by deploying its Navy and renaming the overlapping sea as the North Natuna Sea. Indonesia is not the first country to rename part of the South China Sea. Vietnam refers to the body of water as the East Sea. In January 2011, the Philippines renamed the waters as the "West Philippine Sea" and two years later took the territorial dispute before an international tribunal at the Arbitration Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague.

In July 2016, the Tribunal (boycotted by China) ruled that the nine-dash- line has no basis under international law and it rejected China’s historical claim. China simply ignored the ruling and continued to build artificial islands within the nine-dash line limit. Following the Tribunal ruling, many worried China and the Philippines were heading for a military showdown in the South China Sea. However, the pragmatism of the tough- talking newly elected President of the Philippines saved the day.

President Rodrigo Duterte was quick to defuse the tense political situation by extending an olive branch to China. During a state visit to China in October 2016, to the delight of his hosts, President Duterte announced his “separation” from the United States which, he accused of interfering in the domestic affairs of his nation. Such declaration was welcome music to the ears of leaders in China on the look- out for a peaceful way out from the political impasse in the South China Sea (since the ruling) without being labelled as a bully. President Duterte called on Beijing to put aside their differences and instead work together with Manila to improve relations and predictability in the South China sea.

Elated, Beijing has responded to Rodrigo Duterte’s pragmatic gesture of friendship with promises of a generous cheque-book diplomacy.

The Philippines-China bilateral concord on their overlapping territorial claims in the South China sea is an example of how pragmatism politics can help defuse tension. It also offers some fresh hopes and a possible precedent for Tokyo and Beijing to amicably manage their long-standing albeit acrimonious bilateral squabble over the ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai Islands.

President Duterte’s pragmatism pays off.

The rest is history.