The Politics of South China Sea Disputes

Nehginpao Kipgen

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781032173948
• eBook ISBN: 9781000043013
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book is a comprehensive political study of the South China Sea (SCS) disputes. With over US $5 trillion worth of trade passing through it every year and a history of military flashpoints, the SCS is invariably a hotbed of great power rivalry.

This book:

• Traces the history of the disputes from the 19th century until recent developments;

• Examines recent arbitrations including the ruling on the case filed by the Philippines at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at the Hague, the Netherlands;

• Studies these disputes in a theoretical framework, utilising international relations theories, particularly realism, liberalism and constructivism;

• Explores how the ASEAN states approach the SCS disputes, and analyses dispute settlement under international law.

Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews with experts and those directly involved with the disputes, this book is indispensable for students and researchers of maritime studies, security studies, politics and international relations, geopolitics and Asian studies.

1 A general overview of the disputes

The precolonial and colonial times

The SCS had a different purpose than to simply claim resources that were available on the islands. It used to serve as a mode of communication, calling on the ports of many great dynasties. The SCS had two sailing routes that went in opposite directions. The main route flowed from Taiwan to Luzon and down to Palawan, Borneo. Ships avoided the central area and instead sailed along the inhabited coasts. It was essential for the ships navigating these routes to avoid the continuous zone of danger, now known as the Spratly and Paracel Islands (Gungwu 1998). Earliest trading records dates back to the 8th century when Sri Vijaya, a maritime and commercial kingdom, largely based in what is now known as Indonesia, ruled the Straits of Malacca till the 12th century. It was only after this that the Chinese commercial and naval forces expanded under the expeditions of Admiral Zheng He (Levathes 1994). Trading ships from the West arrived in the region in the 16th century to capitalize on regional trade and profit from their skills. European merchant companies also took home spices and ceramics from the locals, and slowly took control over ports and cities from the Arabs who had been key in making Malay the official language for communication over long distance trade (Blussé 1996).

In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Europeans advanced their explorations in three main areas: the Atlantic basin from the Atlantic islands and coastal western Africa to the hinterlands of the American continents; the northern seas stretching from the Baltic Sea to the White Sea and the Siberian coast and to the coasts of Canada; and then to the Oriental seas and northern Asia. The Pacific region came under European control during the 18th century following the occupation of islands and coastal areas of the western Pacific such as Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and the Pacific islands. When the Europeans arrived in Southeast Asia in the 15th century, the region was open, wealthy and vibrant. The context and situation changed as the intention of the Europeans shifted from acquiring trade concessions in the huge markets of Southeast Asia and China to extracting minerals and growing crops for export, further encroachment into Asia and the prestige of political and legal legitimacy. By the end of the 19th century, the Europeans had already established their footprint across the globe economically, militarily and culturally as well as through religious activities. By the mid-19th century, the effort to establish international cooperation and management in maritime affairs took on new momentum with the Declaration of Paris of 1856. The International Convention for the Protection of Submarine Cables was signed in 1884 by 26 states to regulate international communication and vessel operations. Subsequently in 1889, a conference on safety at sea was convened in Washington to deliberate on important but difficult issues, such as the rules to determine the worthiness of vessels and compulsory sea lanes in frequented waters, and the idea of creating a permanent international maritime committee, a predecessor of today’s the International Maritime Organization (Tseng 2017).

Maritime claims often involve sovereignty dispute. Stein Tønnesson discussed three ways of understanding a sovereignty dispute. The first is a national perspective which goes back as far as possible in history to find evidence that the area in question has been part of its territory and how sovereignty has been maintained through prescription, occupation and utilization. The second is about presenting the chronology of the conflicting claims and accordingly exploring a possible solution through international law. The third option is to treat the dispute as part of international history and analyze it on the basis of the changing international system and the balance of power. Historical records play vital role in addressing a sovereignty dispute. It is important and in fact normal for states to present critical dates when there are competing states asserting or reiterating their claims. In the case of the SCS disputes, particularly the Spratlys and the Paracels, the critical years of the different claimants are 1877, 1909, 1933, 1946–1947, 1951–1952, 1956, 1971, 1974, 1982–1983 and 1988. The history of the dispute started in the 19th century with the European colonial powers dividing territories among states which enjoyed full sovereignty. Mapping and demarcation of land borders between the Southeast Asian states started in the mid-19th century, but maritime delimitation is more of a recent development. Historically, the function of the SCS was mainly about communication. Both small and large ships from many countries passed through the sea for more than 2,000 years and had called on ports controlled by several dynasties and states. Income generated from trade passing through the SCS had helped sustain many of the powerful states, such as Funan, Angkor, Sri Vijaya, Ayutthaya, Champa and the Melaka Sultanate. For the mainland Southeast Asian states, the trade route passing through the coast of China past Taiwan and Hainan, down the coast of Indochina, and then across the Gulf of Thailand to the Malacca Straits was hugely vital for economic sustenance. The rulers were able to collect taxes from ships that passed by (Tønnesson 2002).

The history of the SCS disputes actually began in the 19th century. By introducing the concept of national sovereignty to a region that had not developed the idea of legal claims, the British and the French led the colonial movement, fundamentally changing the political geography of Asia. By dividing sovereign states on the basis of territory, new colonial states were constructed. The Opium War against China (1839–1842), the acquisition of Hong Kong as a colony, the establishment of protectorates in Malaya and Borneo and the construction of a port city called Singapore were all in tandem with the British conquest. After the British took Melaka from the Dutch in 1975, it prompted the latter to strengthen and integrate the states it had occupied, and to name it the Netherlands Indies, which later became Indonesia. After witnessing Britain become a leading merchant of the era, Spain tightened its hold on the Philippines. France, in its ambition to become a global hegemon, chose to colonize Indochina (1863–1884) in order to compete with the British in their trade with China and also to protect Christianity. The end of the 19th century saw the establishment of new colonies around the SCS by two formidable powers: Japan and the US. Japan’s victory in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 ceased China’s attempt to establish itself as a naval power and acquired Taiwan in the peace settlement that followed. The Spanish-American War of 1898 resulted in the ouster of the Spanish from the Philippines (Wu and Zou 2016).

The Europeans and the Americans at first saw the small islets in the central part of the SCS as a source of danger and did not show much interest in them. New maps were drawn in Europe, Japan, Korea, and America which showed that the Spratlys and the Paracels were two separate archipelagos. The eastern half of the Spratlys was marked off on the British maps as a dangerous area. While the commercial and naval ships avoided the two archipelagos, oceanographers were sent to conduct surveys and found that the islands were inhabited during some parts of the year by fishermen, most of whom spoke Hainanese dialects and lived some parts of the year in Hainan itself. Captain Spratly gave the island his own name. The British made formal claim on the Spratlys and Amboyna Cay in 1877, which was probably the first time any state made a modern legal claim to any of the Spratly or Paracel Islands. From 1891 to 1933, both the Spratlys and Amboyna Cay were mentioned annually in the British colonial office list, although little was done to exploit them or assert their sovereignty. Though the Paracels were larger and occupied a more strategic shipping route from Singapore to Hong Kong, no European state made any formal claim before the 1930s. In 1909, it was the Chinese that showed an interest in the islands by sending a mission there. But during the next three decades, the Qing dynasty succumbed to the Chinese revolution; China fell apart, and as a result, it was in no position to maintain its claim on the Paracels and other smaller islands such as the Pratas and reef in the southwest of Taiwan and the southeast of Hong Kong. Following the invasion of Manchuria in 1932, Japan became the rising power in the SCS region. Though Japan did not make any legal claim, the Japanese merchants competed with the Europeans and the Americans. Between 1930 and 1933, France formally claimed the Spratlys and occupied some of them. After the Sino-Japanese War in 1938, France formally claimed the Paracels and established a permanent presence alongside the Japanese forces who had already established a base there. Though the British did not oppose the French actions, they did not abandon the Spratly Islands and Amboyna Cay (Tønnesson 2002).

The SCS disputes, which have existed for over 80 years, involve both maritime boundaries and islands which have gone through different twists and turns. France invaded the Paracel Islands in 1925, which resulted in a territorial dispute over the Paracels between France and China in 1931. It was then followed by a dispute over the Spratly Islands among China, Japan and France starting in 1933. In December 1934, the Review Board of the Water and Land Map of China passed a resolution confirming that the Spratly and Paracel Islands belonged to China and published a formal map of four island groups in the SCS. Japan then dispatched its troops to occupy the Spratly Islands in January 1939. The government of France demanded that the International Court of Arbitration handle the disputes, but the proposal was rejected by Japan. In March 1939, Taiwan stated that the Spratly Islands were under the administration of the Office of the Governor-General of Taiwan and were named the Shinnan Islands district, Kaohsiung city, Kaohsiung country. On March 31, 1939, the Japanese government informed the French embassy in Japan of its annexation of the Spratly Islands, but France and the UK opposed the announcement. Later in December 1947, the Chinese government proclaimed the reintegration of the Spratly and Paracel Islands into its administrative jurisdiction (Chen 2014).

On June 7, 1933, when there were rumors about the French taking control of the Spratlys, China established the R...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 A general overview of the disputes
• 2 China’s claim and activities
• 3 Other claimant states and ASEAN’s challenges
• 4 The July 2016 arbitral tribunal award
• 5 The role of the United States and others
• Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index