SAMMY JULIAN
ALTHOUGH Beijing’s precise plan remains speculative, the international community should seriously consider the short- and medium-term implications of China’s large-scale “island building” in the disputed South China Sea, as it could trigger an arms race as rival claimants also fortify features under their respective control with sand, structures, and ships.
The warning was aired by Dr. Andrew S. Erickson, an associate professor in the Strategic Research Department at the United States Naval War College and a core founding member of the department’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI).
In a new article he coauthored, titled “Pandora’s Box,” published by multiplatform media organization Foreign Affairs, Erickson noted that unlike Beijing’s recent temporary deployment of oil rigs in regions disputed by China and Vietnam, “island building” will eventually support permanent civilian and military infrastructure.
This will enable China to diversify its strategy for asserting territorial claims in South China Sea, Erickson said.
Some of the structures in question lie within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claimed by the Philippines, and are situated just 300 to 400 kilometers from the Philippines and Vietnam.
Chinese efforts center on Kagitingan Reef (Fiery Cross Reef) which is also claimed by the Philippines. This reportedly serves as a base for China’s reclamation efforts and already boasts an eight-square kilometer artificial structure with a wharf, helipad, coastal artillery, and garrisoned marines.
Erickson, who also serves as an expert contributor to the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report, noted that China, currently rumored to be in the process of adding an airstrip and enlarging the harbor, may eventually transform Kagitingan Reef into a military base twice the size of Diego Garcia, a key United States military base in the Indian Ocean.
He said it could become a command-and-control center for the Chinese navy and might anchor a Chinese air defense identification zone (ADIZ) similar to the one it announced over the East China Sea in 2013.
Arguably more discomfiting for other countries, Erickson said a “mature network of military facilities” in South China Sea, including an expanded Kagitingan Reef presence, would effectively extend China’s ability to project power by over 800 kilometers, particularly through Chinese Coast Guard patrols in contested areas and potentially even air operations.
The co-founder of China SignPost — a research newsletter and web portal that covers key developments in Greater China with particular focus on natural resource, technology, industry, and trade issues — declared that similar to its relative economic supremacy, China’s relative advantages in military size, modernization, and professionalism suggest that it is the only South China Sea claimant that is potentially capable of establishing de facto air and sea denial over tiny islet networks in a maritime setting as vast as the disputed region.
Another concern is that the creation of “facts of ground” might spur China’s announcement of one or more ADIZ in the South China Sea.
However, if that is China’s goal, Erickson said there are plenty of reasons for it to exercise restraint.
First, he said, antagonizing multiple neighbors and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) simultaneously is “a far greater price to pay.” Second, declaring an ADIZ over the full extent of its claims in the South China Sea would presumably require Beijing to define, for the first time, the precise geographical coordinates of the “9-dash line” it draws on maps to claim the vast majority of the South China Sea, or at least provide more clarification than it has to date.
Such transparency, together with China’s declaring a second ADIZ in general, would increase pressure on Beijing to specify the basis for its claims in the area — something it has declined to do, presumably because there is no consistent legal basis for all of them, said Erickson.
“In addition, declaring an ADIZ over the full extent of China’s claims in the South China Sea might expose Beijing’s still-limited ability to monitor and patrol the southernmost part of its claim, which is far from Chinese land-based radars and major airfields,” he stressed. “Although bulking up islands could help Beijing enhance its surveillance capacity, it will take time to develop the ability to patrol the entire South China Sea, a prerequisite for being able to establish an enforceable ADIZ in the future.”
Finally, and “arguably most disconcerting,” Erickson said China’s “large-scale digging could lead to an arms race of augmentation in an already-sensitive sea.” (To be continued/PN)
