The United States approach in handling the situation in the South China Sea is not wise. It is actually worrisome or damaging. As the only superpower in the world, the US has exercised hegemony in the world for years. It is understandable that the US finds it very difficult to refrain from playing a “leadership role” or getting involved in the changing situation in the South China Sea. However, it would make the matter worse and cause great damages to the peace and stability in the region, and to the Sino-US relations if the US intentionally gets more and more involved in the territorial disputes in the South China Sea and makes no efforts to restrain its unreasonable and hegemonic statements and actions over those disputes as part of its rebalance strategy in Asia.
Wu Zurong
The last three years or more have witnessed the US trying its best to play a “leadership role” in the situation in the South China Sea. Despite the fact that China has repeatedly declared that it has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha islands and the adjacent waters, the US has not demonstrated the minimum respect for China’s sovereignty. It seems that its knowledge of and position on the issue are not based on historical facts and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but on its own Asian policy needs and selfish interests. In recent years, especially since its implementation of its rebalance strategy in Asia, the US has rarely or never talked about China’s jurisdiction, for the last hundreds of years, over the Nansha islands in the South China Sea, but has emphasized the so-called “US national interests” in safeguarding the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea at a time when there has been no problem at all with the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Although the US is not a party to any of the disputes in the South China Sea, it has repeatedly tried to exert influence on, or even to set unreasonable rules for the resolution of those disputes. When China and the ASEAN countries are working together to build a close community of common destiny, pursuing good-neighborliness and friendship, the US has time and again talked strangely at great length about its opposition to “coercion, the use of force or threat of force” in the South China Sea. It is ridiculous that the US has recently proposed that all activities to change the islands’ configuration be frozen in the South China Sea. It is common sense that such a proposal is a clear violation of China’s lawful right to conduct economic, public welfare and other activities on its own territories and in its own territorial waters in the South China Sea.
It is obvious that US public statements and positions on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea come from its outdated and rigid approach, which requires the US to draw a clear line of demarcation, with the Cold War mentality, between its military allies and other countries in the region. Because the Philippines is a military ally of the US, the US supports whatever it says or does, making no distinction of right and wrong, with regard to its territorial disputes in the South China Sea with China. The US even goes so far as to give it tacit consent and all kinds of support when it is stirring up troubles or making provocations in the South China Sea. The so-called official position that the US does not take a position on the territorial disputes in the South China Sea has already vanished like smoke. So far, what the US has said and done has offered no help to the solution of the disputes, but rather has exacerbated the differences and tension there, disrupting peace and stability in the region.
In the larger picture, almost all international observers have seen that the US has been alarmingly increasing its military presence around the South China Sea. By strengthening bilateral defense cooperation with the Philippines, Japan and Australia, the US is planning to station more troops or to deploy more military equipment in the three countries on a long-term basis. Military cooperation with Vietnam, Singapore and other countries is being enhanced. The second fleet of the US aircraft carrier is sent to where it is close to the South China Sea. US surveillance of China and the South China Sea is being carried out in a sustained and intense manner. What is the US up to by concentrating its military forces in Asia? Most Chinese observers and analysts cannot draw other conclusions, but believe that the US is trying to contain China by its superior military forces. It is worrisome, or even dangerous that the US is doing so under the slogan of “welcoming China’s rise” in beautiful words.
In the face of the wrong direction in which the US is heading intentionally, it is advisable for China to give the US unequivocal loud warnings so as to help the US policy-makers realize that the current US approach to the situation in the South China Sea is totally wrong and that it can only lead the US to a dead end. Times have changed. China is not the Soviet Union, and the Sino-US relations are vastly different from the US relations with the former Soviet Union. The probable US movement in the direction towards conflict and confrontation with China would be so costly that the prolonged accompanying attrition could make the US feel the unbearable burden. Only by getting to know China in an entirely new light and working with China in a truly sincere manner, can the US formulate its right China policy and help produce a win-win situation for both China and the US through increased cooperation with China in the South China Sea.
Wu Zurong is a research fellow at the China Foundation for International Studies.
