Shannon Ebrahim
It becomes tiresome to continue unravelling stories of the US meddling in regions far away from its shores, trying to weaken other countries in order to maintain its global dominance.
The more one delves into the reality of the conflict in the South China Sea, it becomes clear that the US actually thinks it has a right to manipulate regional dynamics in China’s backyard so as to encircle it as a rising superpower.
What is more incredible is that the US believes it has the right to send 60 percent of its naval fleet and 60 percent of its overseas air force into the South China Sea by 2030. If this is not the ultimate display of arrogance, then I don’t know what is.
What would the reaction of US policymakers be if China decided to redeploy the bulk of its navy and air force into the Caribbean? What if such a deployment could be used in a future war to enforce a blockade against the US by choking a strategic shipping route that carried 80 percent of US trade and energy supplies?
The answer without a doubt is that no country would ever be allowed to endanger US national security interests in such a way. So why does the US think it can get away with doing the same thing to China?
The South China Sea is a pathway of strategic importance to China, as it relies on this route for 70-80 percent of its trade and energy supplies. It is also an important passage for the Chinese navy to sail to the wider sea.
For any group of nations to attempt to position themselves strategically in this sea, thereby encircling China, is something that China will naturally seek to prevent.
The US says it is concerned about freedom of navigation in the sea, considering that $1.2 trillion (R18.9 trillion) worth of US trade passes through this important conduit annually. But China is equally committed to this principle, and has never attempted to hinder trade navigation in any way.
In this case, China has international law on its side, as it has territorial sovereignty over the main four archipelagos in the South China Sea. Despite attempts by neighbouring countries to encroach onto the islands and take them over, China has proof of its sovereignty over them, going back centuries. The Nansha Islands were initially discovered by China under the Han Dynasty almost 2 000 years ago.
China was the first to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over the islands during the Yuan Dynasty, and marked these islands on its maps under the Qing Dynasty. It was only in the 20th century that Western colonial powers coveted the Nansha Islands.
From the mid-1950s, the Philippines and Vietnam started to encroach on the islands, more particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, with the discovery of oil and gas in the South China Sea. It was in the later 1990s that the claimants became increasingly aggressive, with the Philippines’ navy blowing up Chinese survey markers and monuments on some reefs and islands, as well as raiding Chinese fishing vessels. The Philippines even ran two of its warships aground at strategic locations in order to maintain a presence in the area.
Vietnam has flexed its muscles by initiating commercial tours to the Nansha islands, initiating bidding rounds for oil blocks, and announced plans to build gas pipelines. In 2007 it went so far as to hold elections for National Assembly representatives for the Nansha islands.
Despite the tug-of-war, the situation was under control prior to 2009, with China seeking dialogue with its neighbours and advocating joint development of the South China Sea. The US Asia-Pacific re-balancing strategy that President Barack Obama introduced in 2009, however, has escalated the tension. Vietnam and the Philippines have felt empowered to act on their claims, believing they have US political and military cover.
In a very real sense the US has been the invisible hand behind the rising tension, conducting joint naval exercises with claimants, orchestrating confrontational incidents with Chinese naval vessels, and even giving partial recognition to the Philippines’ unilateral renaming of the South China Sea to the West Philippines Sea.
The US has encouraged claimants to step up their efforts to take over the islands, engaging in joint exercises with the Philippines on “retaking islands” and “oil rig defence”.
It seems that US provocations have not reached their zenith, but are just getting started.
The US keeps sending its ships to sail 12 nautical miles off the Nansha Islands, and it has said it will send warships to the South China Sea twice a quarter.
Let’s face it, if China was sending its warships off the coast of Cuba twice a quarter, and mobilising the countries of the Caribbean to stake their claim to islands under US sovereignty, World War III would likely have started already.