America Challenges Beijing’s Ambitions in the South China Sea

Editorial Board / New York Times | 30 October 2015

Credit Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch

America has long considered freedom of navigation a vital national interest. Since 1982, that right has been recognized under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which guarantees countries unimpeded passage on the high seas for trade, fishing, oil exploration and other purposes and sets rules for how they should operate.

Those rights, responsibilities and benefits apply to China as much as anybody else. China ratified the treaty; the United States has not, but accepts its provisions. Yet Beijing has been trying to rewrite the rules by claiming 90 percent of the South China Sea and turning reefs and rocks into more substantial land masses, including some with military capabilities, as a way to reinforce its claims.

Such dangerous and unnecessary provocations have alarmed much of Asia. But China seems intent on moving ahead. The United States was therefore justified in sending a guided missile destroyer on Monday within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, one of the artificial islets China has created in the Spratly Island group. China not only claims the reef but the 12 miles of water that surround it. It was the most significant American challenge yet to China’s territorial claims around the disputed islands it controls.

Beijing denounced the naval patrol as a “deliberate provocation.” In fact, the Obama administration planned the maneuver with care, made sure it was not provocative and warned China in advance of its plans. The destroyer also traversed waters surrounding disputed islands claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam.

The move was a sign that America will not acquiesce in China’s attempt to assert international rights that don’t exist. Under the treaty, the 12-mile zone doesn’t apply to places like Subi Reef, which in their original state were submerged.

While insisting it is acting without malign intent, China has been warning planes and ships, including commercial vessels, not to enter what it calls security areas in waters near the islands. After a confrontation between Chinese ships and the Filipino Navy in 2012, China took control of a rich fishing ground called Scarborough Shoal that lies within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.

China is rapidly building up its navy and coast guard. It is, of course, perfectly natural for a rising power to take a growing interest in its region. But the question that China’s behavior has raised is whether it will eventually seek to limit the ability of the United States and other countries to operate freely in the sea.

Finding a solution that protects freedom of navigation and avoids a military clash is essential. One path is the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. On Thursday, the court ruled against China and asserted its right to hear a case brought by the Philippines, which has competing claims to islands and reefs in the South China Sea.

China says the court has no jurisdiction and refuses to participate in the proceedings. The law of the sea treaty, however, says the tribunal’s verdicts are binding. Now that the court has decided the procedural question, it will examine the substantive merits of China’s sweeping claims to most of the South China Sea. Whether China accepts the outcome will say a lot about how it views its commitments under international law.