How to make the South China Sea more secure – for both China and its neighbours

The recent United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ruling favouring Philippine over Chinese claims in the South China Sea has highlighted ongoing tensions between neighbours in the region. In public, these discussions often highlight sovereignty and rights to resources. While such interests cannot be discounted completely, “access” is less a matter of national sovereignty over a specific region than it is to capital, technology and markets. In fact, the deeper concern in the South China Sea has less to do with resources and more with national security and perceptions of growing threats to the same.

While many believe Chinese assertiveness dates to around 2007-8, in fact decisive changes were afoot when Chinese leaders reassessed the US as a dangerous “two-handed” strategic competitor in 1999 (one hand extended, the other drawn back in a fist), with ambitions to extend Nato, weaken Russia, push deeper into the Persian Gulf, and onward into Central Asia. Consequently, China decided to advance military reforms and new weapons developments.

Realistic expectations must guide China-US relations

These fears were reinforced in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US and the American penetration of Central Asia, with airbases reputedly capable of hitting strategic second-line Chinese targets quickly with conventional weapons. These threats were mitigated in part with Russian support via the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, now likely being superseded by the Belt and Road initiatives.

China and US in silent fight for supremacy beneath waves of South China Sea

Along the way, US involvement in Ukraine was unnerving. More directly, America’s “pivot towards Asia”, the exclusion of China from the international space station and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, America’s new security agreements with the Philippines and deployment of the THAAD missile-defence system in South Korea, and so on, have only reinforced Chinese threat perceptions.

These developments require China to deploy better detection systems, like the so-called “Great Undersea Wall” and the “Great Wall of Sand”. China also needs breakout points to the Pacific and the ability to dodge US detection when leaving the Sanya ( 三亞 ) base on Hainan Island ( 海南 ). Naval experts believe, for example, that American hunter submarines sit on China’s coast and track all PLA Navy activities, which hampers Chinese abilities to mitigate local security threats and those further afield.