Most nations understand the simple notion that keeping the peace with their neighbors is essential to create a stable environment that allows all involved parties to prosper.
That concept, however, seems to be lost on the People’s Republic of China, which, under Xi Jinping’s leadership, seems to delight in quarrelling with numerous countries in its proximity, especially in the South China Sea —a coveted domain both for its strategic position and its richness in natural resources such as fishery zones and oil and natural gas reserves.
These disputes may be detrimental for China’s neighbors in the short term, but they do have long-term benefits for these countries and the world.
At least now, the Chinese government’s true colors are displayed out in the open, no longer disguised by the appearance of diplomacy displayed by the ever-smiling Xi, and this glimpse into the real China gives other nations the chance to redefine their relations with an untrustworthy ally sooner rather than later.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had to learn this lesson the hard way, placing all of his eggs in the China basket only to be betrayed by Beijing and left in a vulnerable position domestically.
In July 2016, less than a month after rising to power, Duterte came in opposition to a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration—an intergovernmental organization that solves international disputes— that deemed China’s territorial advances in the South China Sea to be unlawful, basically siding with Xi’s government over the rest of the world.
The case was initiated in 2013 by the former Filipino president and Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Simeon Aquino III, following the military takeover of the Scarborough Shoal territory—previously under the Philippines’ control—by Chinese forces in 2012.
Within the same year of his election, Duterte also took the radical step of severing military ties with the US —a country to whom the Philippines had been a staunch ally since the end of World War II— opting instead for a stronger relationship with China which promised him billions of dollars in investments in his country’s infrastructure.
This shift in allegiances came despite the ongoing rivalry between the two nations over the Spratly islands —located considerably closer to the Philippines than they are to China— which Duterte chose to ignore to secure Beijing’s financial support.
However, these acts of loyalty were rewarded by China with more aggression towards Filipino fishing vessels in the South China sea and more violations of its sovereign maritime territory, the latest of which took place in March 2021 when 200 Chinese militia vessels invaded the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ)—an area that the country has the sole right to exploit, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Even the promised billions of dollars in investment failed to materialize, resulting in a public backlash against the Duterte administration, whose bid for the upcoming 2022 Presidential Election has taken a major blow as a result.
But the internal politics of the Philippines may be the least of the region’s problems, with an ominous 2021 development threatening to agitate the already tense waters of the South China Sea into unprecedented levels of violence.
On January 22, 2021, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress —China’s most powerful legislative body—, approved a bill giving the coast guard permission to use “all necessary means” against anyone who encroaches on what the country perceives to be its own territory, including the authority to open fire on foreign ships deemed to be a security threat.
This measure is the latest manifestation of an intimidation campaign that China has waged for years against certain neighboring nations, aimed at pressuring them through the strength of its military to surrender ownership of some of their territories.
The new law, which went into effect on February 1, even gave the coast guard the green light to demolish constructions built by other nations on reefs in which China has staked a claim.
Overall, the Chinese government has declared ownership of the territory within the so-called “nine-dash line”—and imaginary border line drawn by China itself, covering roughly 90 percent of the contested Sea, including areas currently held by Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
China’s biggest South China Sea menace is undoubtedly the small nation of Taiwan southeast of its mainland.
Despite having its own independent government ever since the end of the Chinese civil war of 1949, Taiwan is still considered by China as a rebellious province that should, in its entirety, fall under Chinese jurisdiction.
As a result, the PRC has persistently exerted its global influence to dissuade other nations from recognizing Taiwan as an independent state, leaving the island with an ambiguous political status to this very day.
While tensions have consistently flared between Taipei and Beijing, with the latter constantly threatening to deploy its military and take Taiwan by force, the animosity between the two nations has witnessed a sharp increase in late 2020, leading up to the inauguration of Joe Biden, the new US president who has been vocal in his support to the Taiwanese cause.
During that period, China ramped up its military presence in Taiwan’s airspace and territorial waters and continued to do so in early 2021 through military drills that involved fighter jets, anti-submarine aircraft, and nuclear-capable bomber planes.
On January 28, Chinese defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian made his country’s stance crystal clear in the following statement: “Taiwan independence means war.”
Vietnam, a country that neighbors China on the southwestern side of its border, is yet another one of its many South China Sea rivals.
The neighborly dispute is centered, in this case, around the Paracels Island, located approximately within the same distance from both countries, along with the Spratly Islands, part of which has also been claimed by four other South China Sea nations, namely Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei.
Staying true to its belief in near-total dominance of the region, China has, on numerous occasions, encroached on Vietnam’s Exclusive economic zone (EEZ)—an area that Vietnam has the sole right to exploit, at times to the latter’s economic detriment.
Such an incident took place in 2019 when Chinese warships entered Vietnam’s EEZ uninvited, leading to a months-long standoff between military vessels belonging to the two nations near a Vietnamese oil extraction operation.
The events damaged both Vietnam’s petroleum sector and its cooperation with energy companies Rosneft and Repsol whose interests had also taken a hit.
Other relatively distant nations in the South China Sea, namely Indonesia and Malaysia, have grown increasingly impatient with Beijing’s attempts to absorb area their lawfully owned domains.
In the case of Malaysia, the country’s leadership reported in 2020 that Chinese coastguard and navy ships had intruded into its territorial waters 89 times between 2016 to 2019 alone.
A particularly high-profile incident occurred in May 2020, when Malaysia’s EEZ experienced the unwelcome presence of a Chinese research ship near an oil extraction operation conducted by Malaysian state oil company Petronas, leading to yet another military standoff between China and a neighboring South China Sea nation.
As for Indonesia, the source of its quarrel with China lies in the Southern edge of the area defined by the nine-dash line, in parts of the waters surrounding the Indonesia-held Natuna Islands.
The sea area, which falls within Indonesia’s EEZ, is viewed by China as one of its own traditional fishing grounds and has been breached by Chinese commercial vessels on multiple occasions, some of which required the Indonesian naval forces to open fire as a deterrent.
Faced with endless provocations, the Indonesian government opted for a more forceful approach in January 2020, following the entry of Chinese fishing boats into the contested maritime domain.
The intrusion was met with the deployment of an additional eight navy warships, six aircraft, along with 600 troops, and resulted in yet another naval deadlock involving Chinese vessels that have illegally trespassed in a sovereign nation’s waters.
The situation prompted a visit from Indonesian President Joko Widodo to one of the islands in the disputed region to emphasize the country’s unwavering stance on the issue despite constant Chinese pressure.
However, finding the delicate balance of keeping Beijing’s advances in check while preventing an incident that might trigger an all-out conflict has become more challenging than ever following China’s new coast guard law, which may lead, according to security experts, to the disputes spilling over to new areas that had not previously been in contention.
And the threat that this development poses is not exclusive to countries in the South China Sea.
Japan is also struggling to maintain its hold on the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea against a relentless Chinese bid to annex the territory.
In its quest to wrestle control of what it refers to as the Diaoyu Islands and considers to be its rightful property, the PRC has pursued the strategy of bullying the Japanese forces by flooding the area with an overwhelming number of vessels that its weaker neighbor could not hope to match.
A particularly flashy display of strength took place in 2016 when 15 Chinese Coast Guard ships escorted over 200 fishing boats that entered the waters near the islands—a violation that Japan had neither the political influence nor the military capability to counter.
Due to the lack of any proper opposition, China’s conduct near the Senkaku Islands has grown increasingly bold, going as far as to expel Japan’s own fishing boats from the area.
According to the Japan Coast Guard website, Chinese vessels entered the territory a record-breaking 333 times during 2020 and maintained presence near the islands for 111 consecutive days—a figure that is also unprecedentedly high.
The situation promises to become even more volatile in 2021 in light of the loosened restrictions on China’s Coast Guard, which, according to Japan’s Coast Guard, has been accompanied by a surge in the number of Chinese Coast Guard vessels entering the contested region from twice a month in 2020 to twice a week in February of this year.
But China’s insatiable appetite for creating regional conflict is not satisfied with just maritime disputes.
As if it does not already have enough on its plate in terms of disgruntled neighbors, the PRC has managed to sour its relations with India, another rising Asian superpower southwest of its borders.
The two nations have been locked in a military stalemate since June 2020 over parts of the China-adjacent yet India-held Ladakh region.
The border crisis began with small confrontations between the opposing troops in April of the same year before taking a violent turn that resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers, along with an undisclosed number of casualties on the Chinese side.
In what India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar described in December 2020 as “the most difficult phase” of Sino-Indian relations in the last three to four decades, the two neighbors pointed the finger blame at one another for the unfolding hostilities at the border and exchanged accusations of violating as Line of Actual Control (LAC), an agreed-upon border roughly separating their jurisdictions.
As for the reasons that led to these brutal encounters, experts have provided several explanations, with some viewing them as yet another manifestation of China’s “salami-slicing” strategy that favors slowly diminishing its rivals’ power over outright military conflicts.
And Beijing’s moves in recent years suggest there is truth to this claim: the PLA has deployed more military weapons and personnel to the Tibetan Plateau area which separates the two nations following a 2017 military standoff in the border region of Doklam that lasted 73 days, and China has sought to strengthen its ties to countries such as Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, with whom India has not always seen eye to eye.
However, other experts have also criticized India’s failure to secure its own borders and to keep the ambitions of its power-hungry neighbor at bay.
The last thing that India, or any of the countries within China’s physical reach, would want to do is underestimate the threat of the Xi-led Beijing government and its willingness to violate the sovereignty of other nations to reach its geopolitical ends.
After all, the unstable environment that these ongoing confrontations have created in the region benefits neither the economic development of the smaller nations that have to devote precious resources to their military defense, nor China’s ultimate goal of becoming the world’s sole superpower, which would be better served by building strong alliances rather than burning bridges over petty disputes.
However, this shift from a previously prudent China whose nefarious conduct used to fly under most of the world’s radar to a more overt China that shamelessly flaunts its outlaw behavior has woken up countries in the region to the true colors of their neighbor, gives them an idea of what to expect in the future, and will hopefully get the international community to open its eyes and take swift action against the rising giant to the east before it becomes unstoppable.
