China Sea And Chinese Foreign Policy

In the past decade, China’s foreign policy has alarmed their neighbors prompting the United States to take a proactive role in the Asia-Pacific. Nonetheless, China continues to test the waters with the United States. The 2010 Senkuku Boat Collision Incident revealed how effective Chinese economic sanctions were in compelling Japan to release the Minjinyu 5719 crew. Consequently, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leadership remains confident that their economic clout will insulate China from retaliation as they continue to advance their national interest.

The writer believes the United States should act urgently against China due to recent and past events. The only U.S. action mentioned was to cancel China’s invitation to the Rim-of-the-Pacific (RIMPAC) naval exercise. The writer went on to identify reasons why he thinks this cancellation should happen as soon as possible. He cites the near collision of aircrafts from the two nations and the seven new artificial islands built by China, regardless of U.S. opposition, as points to support his position. He offered a different perspective by pointing out U.S. warships and aircrafts are still able to operate in the South China Sea in spite of China’s ill intent. I am unconvinced the writer sufficiently supported his claim and call to action. The lack of substantial, logical evidence in support of his position and the presence of a logical fallacy, allowed for a great deal of guessing and speculation as to the true intent of the article.

The disputes of SCS (South China’s Sea) are a perpetual issue on the conflicting licit claim for territorial land and who has the authority to sovereign it. The dispute arises, since SCS contains precious natural resources, which the surrounding nations wish the gain, as it would boost their economy, as a liberalist would think. However, realistically these resource would provide funding for more military power, as countries are looking to expand their horizons across the sea.This ‘Great Debate’ impacts the world as there is a theoretical aspect of what would occur if a certain nation was given sovereign over the territory. Liberalism allows us to understand that nations have different intentions and one doesn’t know what the other desirers. While realism allows us to understand the true nature of this dispute over power, since the territory allows nations to create air carrier, therefore vastly improving and expand their military.

Beijing’s One China version, stating that Taiwan is part of the PRC, has never been accepted by foreign states. While foreign governments recognize the PRC as the legal government of China, they almost uniformly disagree with the PRC’s territorial claim over Taiwan. That is why, in their respective the US and the UK simply “acknowledge,” Canada “takes note of,” and Japan “understands and respects” the PRC’s position that Taiwan is part of China.11 These carefully chosen terms, used instead of the word, “recognize,” as well as negotiations history, directly refute the RPC’s claim of an “international consensus” that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China. These foreign countries’ positions also imply that the ROC’s loss of recognition does not extinguish its statehood (Hsieh, P., 2009).

Under the Obama administration, the term rebalancing has been stated when it comes to the relationships in the South China Sea. The point of rebalancing has come up when speaking about the confrontation in the South China Sea. The idea is that the United States wants to restore the original agreement by UNCLOS in order to give its allies a fair piece of the South China Sea and its resources. China views this not as rebalancing, but as suppression. China has stated that the United States just wanted to subdue China in the South China Sea and stop it development so it cannot compete. This along with other factors has created greater tension between these two powerful nations.

China's neighbors complained about the islands, too. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam all dispute sovereignty of several island chains and nearby waters in the South China Sea.

In July 2013, Wenweipo - the pro-PRC Chinese-language newspaper published an article titled “Six Wars China is sure to fight in the next 50 years”. According to this article, after unification of Taiwan (year 2020 to 2025), China will take the second war: Reconquest of Spratly Islands (year 2025 to 2030) and “China will send the ultimatum to countries surrounding the Islands with the deadline of 2028. The countries having disputes on the sovereignty of Islands can negotiate with China on preserving their shares of investments in these Islands by giving up”. In 1999, two Chinese military colonels – authors of the book namely “Unlimited War” suggested using an “unlimited war” to solve the disputing in the South China Sea. These authors said that, to avoid a war does not mean that not using military force and a conflict is indispensable. However, there is one more important thing that to control the intensities of conflict that. It is necessary to conduct some special activities to prove the sovereignty of China in the disputing Spratly Islands but do not let this activities increase to the total war. These things prove that the potential war between Vietnam and China in the future could be come true.

In the Western Pacific, the South China Sea is a global crossroads that holds strategic importance for many nations world wide. The South China Sea stretches from the Taiwan and Luzon Straits in the north to Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca in the south with Vietnam on the west and the Philippines and Borneo on the east. In total size, the South China Sea surpasses the Mediterranean Sea. However, unlike this Near-Eastern comparator, territorial disputes and conflicting claims threaten the movement of global trade through the South China Sea, thus unbalancing regional stability in the Asia-Pacific. Claimants include the bordering coastal countries of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan), the

In order to better understand the dispute of these islands and this body of water, geography plays a role considering the area sea is located to borders on many different regions. According Chmillier-Gendreau (2000), the south-west of the Indian Ocean, the sea connects with the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. To the north-east, the sea connects with the Sea of Japan and the Strait of Korea. The position of this body of water is interconnected with many other bodies of waters which coincide with many countries. The islands residing in the middle of this sea therefore lies in the middle of many different countries. The two islands, Spratly and Paracel Islands lie in the middle of the maritime zone. Since it is in the middle, no neighboring country is really physically connected to these islands by geography (Chemillier-Gendreau, 2000, p. 16). Despite that fact, China and Vietnam both claim sovereignty over these islands based on historical and

The South China Sea is one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, as much as 50 per cent of the global oil tankers shipments pass through its waters. It also holds rich fishing stock and large oil and gas reserves. The territorial dispute over the group of islands is considered to be one of the most complex political and legal dispute in Asia as it involves the concept of sovereignty. The geographical nature of the area in dispute has been categorised as a semi-enclosed sea which is surrounded by China, Taiwan and most of the ASEAN

The dispute over the South China Sea denotes the process of power rebalancing while China rising as a hegemony in East Asia. China craves for more resources and power and decides to effectuate that by controlling more maritime territory. This act impelled the United State to align with the Philippines to balance with China. In a realism world, U.S. has adequate reason to intervene for fear for China becoming too strong a power.

In as much as China’s increasingly assertive claims in the South China Sea to various islands are a way to bolster their reach territorially for rights related to fishing and other resource rights, but more importantly they also extend beyond that to exhibit China’s global ambitions.

As of today, China has expanded and built over seven artificial islands in the South China Sea since 2014. The South China Sea has recently come to be a major problem in Asia as issues have risen over who has rights of passage and claims in this area. The Chinese of recent have been making territorial claims in the South China Sea that are in areas of free passage for many other Asian countries and the United States. In October 2015, a U.S. guided missile destroyer encountered one of the artificial islands and China’s response was that it would “take any measure” to maintain its security in “their territory”. The Chinese have been questioned in the Permanent Court of Arbitration by the Philippines after claiming rights to historical locations in the South China Sea, which violates sovereign rights of the Philippines, yet China responded to this outcome with refusal and has continued to advance itself in the territory causing huge disputes with its neighboring countries as freedom of navigation has been compromised through China’s actions.. In order to guarantee resolution and maintain the freedom of navigation aspect of international law there needs to be a foreign policy put in place that puts more United States military in the South China Sea with support from disputing countries like Japan and the Philippines as a way to make the issue multilateral and law abiding.

Somewhere off the coast of Southeast Asia in the South China sea lies a string of 14 islands and reefs. These reefs and islands are the center of an international dispute of sorts. Six surrounding countries lay claim to at least a few of the islands, but China claims them all. Including the sea surrounding them. All the Spratly Islands are claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, while parts of them are claimed by Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. But according to China, their territorial rights to the islands and sea date back over 2,000 years from ancestors who discovered, named and explored the South China sea (The World Factbook: Spratly Islands) (Livingstone).

The territorial and maritime disputes over the South China Sea (SCS) have been ongoing for decades. The disputes have been considered to be one the fiercest-contested in Asia. The South China Sea is an enclosed sea surrounded by several different states. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia all surrounded the South China Sea. The main cause of tension in this dispute is because China claims to have “historical sovereignty” over all of the South China Sea. Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have come up with different discussions and suggestions on how to end the disputes with favorable conditions for all contending states. They use the principles of the United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and form the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). The states surrounding the South China Sea possess 12 nautical miles territorial sea and 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Thus, the South China Sea is not only international waters, instead, it is also overlapping exclusive economic zones. According to UNCLOS, disputes over exclusive economic zones must be resolved through negotiations by the contending states. Many of these contending Southeast Asian states have negotiated their maritime boundaries, however, China fails to comply. China claims that it owns all of the South China Sea, and therefore, has no need to