{"id":166188,"date":"2020-08-03T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2020-08-03T11:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=166188"},"modified":"2020-08-03T09:24:29","modified_gmt":"2020-08-03T08:24:29","slug":"the-heart-of-the-matter-in-the-south-china-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/08\/the-heart-of-the-matter-in-the-south-china-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"The Heart of the Matter in the South China Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

The battle for the contested maritime region is over before the shooting even begins and China has won.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier (C) sailing during a drill in the South China Sea, April 18, 2018. Photo: AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

30 Jul 2020 – <\/em>When the USS Ronald Reagan and USS Nimitz carrier strike groups recently engaged in \u201coperations\u201d in the South China Sea, it failed to\u00a0<\/strong>escape cynics that the US Pacific Fleet was doing its best to turn the\u00a0infantile\u00a0Thucydides\u00a0trap theory<\/a>\u00a0into a self-fulfilling prophecy.<\/p>\n

The pro forma official spin, via Rear Admiral\u00a0Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz, is that the ops were conducted to \u201creinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, a rules-based international order, and to our allies and partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nobody pays attention to these clich\u00e9s, because the real message was delivered by a CIA operative posing as diplomat, Secretary of State Mike \u201cWe Lie, We Cheat, We Steal\u201d Pompeo.\u00a0\u201cThe PRC has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region,\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>he proclaimed, in a reference to\u00a0the\u00a0nine-dash line<\/a>\u00a0that lays claim to most of the disputed sea.<\/p>\n

Once again, nobody paid attention, because the actual facts on the sea are stark.\u00a0Anything that moves in the South China Sea \u2013 China\u2019s crucial maritime trade artery \u2013 is at the mercy of the PLA, which decides if and when to deploy their deadly DF-21D and DF-26 \u201ccarrier killer\u201d missiles.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s absolutely no way the US Pacific Fleet can win a shooting war in the South China Sea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Electronically jammed<\/h3>\n

A crucial Chinese report, unavailable and not referred to by Western media<\/strong>, and translated by Hong Kong-based analyst Thomas Wing Polin, is essential to understand the context.<\/p>\n

The report refers to US Growler electronic warplanes rendered totally out of control by electronic jamming devices positioned on islands and reefs in the South China Sea.<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the report, \u201cafter the accident, the United States negotiated with China, demanding that China dismantle the electronic equipment immediately, but it was rejected. These electronic devices are an important part of China\u2019s maritime defense and are not offensive weapons. Therefore, the US military\u2019s request for dismantling is unreasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It gets better:<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the same day, former commander Scott Swift of the US Pacific Fleet finally acknowledged that the US military had lost the best time to control the South China Sea. He believes that China has deployed a large number of Hongqi 9 air defense missiles, H-6K bombers, and electronic jamming systems on islands and reefs. The defense can be said to be solid. If US fighter jets rush into the South China Sea, they are likely to encounter their \u2018Waterloo.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The bottom line is that the systems \u2013 including electronic jamming \u2013 deployed by the PLA on islands and reefs in the South China Sea, covering more than half of the total surface, are considered by Beijing to be part of the national defense system.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have previously\u00a0detailed<\/a>\u00a0what Admiral Philip Davidson, when he was still a nominee to lead the US Pacific Command (PACOM), told the US Senate. Here are his Top Three conclusions:<\/p>\n

1) \u201cChina is pursuing advanced capabilities (e.g., hypersonic missiles) which the United States has no current defense against. As China pursues these advanced weapons systems, US forces across the Indo-Pacific will be placed increasingly at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

2) \u201cChina is undermining the rules-based international order.\u201d<\/p>\n

3) \u201cChina is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios short of war with the United States.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Implied in all of the above is the \u201csecret\u201d of the Indo-Pacific strategy: at best a containment exercise, as China continues to solidify the Maritime Silk Road linking the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

Remember the\u00a0nusantao<\/em><\/h3>\n

The South China Sea is and will continue to be one of the prime geopolitical flashpoints of the young 21st\u00a0century, where a great deal of the East-West balance of power will be played.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have addressed this elsewhere in the past in some detail, but a short historical background is once again absolutely essential to understand the current juncture as the South China Sea increasingly looks and feels like a Chinese lake.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start in 1890,<\/strong>\u00a0when Alfred Mahan, then president of the US Naval College, wrote the seminal\u00a0The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783.\u00a0<\/em>Mahan\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

That is the embryo of the US Empire of Bases \u2013 which remains in effect.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was Western \u2013 American and European \u2013 colonialism that came up with most land borders and maritime borders of states bordering the South China Sea: Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam.<\/p>\n

We are talking about borders between different colonial possessions \u2013 and that implied intractable problems from the start, subsequently inherited by post-colonial nations.<\/p>\n

Historically, it had always been a completely different story. The best anthropological studies (Bill Solheim\u2019s, for instance) define the semi-nomadic communities who really traveled and traded across the South China Sea from time immemorial as the\u00a0Nusantao<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 an Austronesian compound word for \u201csouth island\u201d and \u201cpeople\u201d.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Nusantao<\/em>\u00a0were not a defined ethnic group. They were a maritime internet. Over centuries, they had many key hubs, from the coastline between central Vietnam and Hong Kong all the way to the Mekong Delta. They were not attached to any \u201cstate\u201d. The Western notion of \u201cborders\u201d did not even exist. In the mid-1990s, I had the privilege to encounter some of their descendants in Indonesia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n

So it was only by the late 19th\u00a0century that the Westphalian system managed to freeze the South China Sea inside an immovable framework.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Which brings us to the crucial point of why China is so sensitive about its borders; because they are directly linked to the \u201ccentury of humiliation\u201d \u2013 when internal Chinese corruption and weakness allowed Western \u201cbarbarians\u201d to take possession of Chinese land.<\/p>\n

A Japanese lake<\/h3>\n

The Nine Dash Line is an immensely complex problem.\u00a0<\/strong>It was invented by the eminent Chinese geographer Bai Meichu, a fierce nationalist, in 1936, initially as part of a \u201cChinese National Humiliation Map\u201d in the form of a \u201cU-shaped line\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The Nine Dash Line, from the beginning, was promoted by the Chinese government\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 remember, at the time not yet Communist \u2013 as the letter of the law in terms of \u201chistoric\u201d Chinese claims over islands in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

One year later, Japan invaded China.<\/strong>\u00a0Japan had occupied Taiwan way back in 1895. Japan occupied 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.<\/p>\n

Well, that lasted 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 and the Spratlys immediately were declared Filipino territory.<\/p>\n

In 1947, all the islands in the South China Sea got Chinese names.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And in December 1947 all the islands were placed under the control of Hainan (itself an island in southern China.) New maps duly followed, but now with Chinese names for the islands (or reefs, or shoals). But there was a huge problem: no one explained the meaning of those dashes (which were originally eleven.)<\/p>\n

In June 1947 the Republic of China claimed everything within the line \u2013 while proclaiming itself open to negotiate definitive maritime borders with other nations later on. But, for the moment, there were no borders.<\/p>\n

And that set the scene for the immensely complicated \u201cstrategic ambiguity\u201d of the South China Sea that still lingers on<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 and allows the State Dept. to accuse Beijing of \u201cgangster tactics\u201d. The culmination of a millennia-old transition from the \u201cmaritime internet\u201d of semi-nomadic peoples to the Westphalian system spelled nothing but trouble.<\/p>\n

Time for COC<\/h3>\n

So what about the US notion of \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In imperial terms, \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d, from the West Coast of the US to Asia \u2013 through the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean \u2013 is strictly an issue of military strategy.<\/p>\n

The US Navy simply cannot imagine dealing with maritime exclusion zones\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 or having to demand an \u201cauthorization\u201d every time they need to cross them. In this case the Empire of Bases would lose \u201caccess\u201d to its own bases.<\/p>\n

This is compounded with trademark Pentagon paranoia, gaming a situation where a \u201chostile power\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 namely China \u2013 decides to block global trade. The premise in itself is ludicrous, because the South China Sea is the premier, vital maritime artery for China\u2019s globalized economy.<\/p>\n

So there\u2019s no rational justification for a Freedom of Navigation (FON) program.<\/strong>\u00a0For all practical purposes, these aircraft carriers like the Ronald Reagan and the Nimitz showboating on and off in the South China Sea amount to 21st\u00a0century gunboat diplomacy. And Beijing is not impressed.<\/p>\n

As far as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is concerned, what matters now is to come up with a Code of Conduct (COC) to solve all maritime conflicts between Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and China.<\/p>\n

Next year, ASEAN and China celebrate 30 years of strong bilateral relations. There\u2019s a strong possibility they will be upgraded to \u201ccomprehensive strategic partner\u201d status.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of Covid-19, all players had to postpone negotiations on the second reading of the single draft of COC. Beijing wanted these to be face to face \u2013 because the document is ultra-sensitive and for the moment, secret. Yet they finally agreed to negotiate online \u2013 via detailed texts.<\/p>\n

It will be a hard slog, because as ASEAN made it clear in a virtual summit in late June, everything has to be in accordance with international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS).<\/p>\n

If they can all agree on a COC by the end of 2020, a final agreement could be approved by ASEAN in mid-2021. Historic does not even begin to describe it \u2013 because this negotiation has been going on for no less than two decades.<\/p>\n

Not to mention that a COC invalidates any US pretension to secure \u201cfreedom of navigation\u201d in an area where navigation is already free.<\/p>\n

Yet \u201cfreedom\u201d was never the issue.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0In imperial terminology, \u201cfreedom\u201d means that China must obey and keep the South China Sea open to the US Navy. Well, that\u2019s possible, but you gotta behave.\u00a0That\u2019ll be the day when the US Navy is \u201cdenied\u201d the South China Sea. You don\u2019t need to be Mahan to know that\u2019ll mean the imperial end of ruling the seven seas.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for <\/em>Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – asiatimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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