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OPINION:
Transforming the South China Sea conflict
The current disputes over sovereignty and jurisdiction
of the waters and islands of the South China Sea have
been called the "mother of all disputes". This
is because of their complexity in terms of the number
of parties involved (six including China, Taiwan, the
Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei), the presence
of military forces of various claimants all over the
area, and the various layers of interests involved (political,
economic, security, and environmental interests). Thus
far, the violent incidents that have taken place as a
result of the disputes have been limited to a few of
the parties, and were relatively small in scale and of
short duration. The worst of these were the armed clashes
between China and Vietnam in the Paracels in 1974 and
in the Spratlys in 1988. Tensions again rose in 1995,
this time between Beijing and Manila, after Chinese occupation
of a previously unoccupied feature -- aptly named Mischief
Reef -- close to the Philippines. Among the various claimants,
there have also been occasional stand-offs between navies
at sea; harassment, arrest and detention of fishermen
on the grounds of straying into exclusion zones, illegal
entry or poaching; seizure and destruction of fishing
vessels and properties; and verbal wars among political
leaders. Otherwise, no armed forces of rival claimants
in the area have seriously engaged in the actual use
of force against another since 1988.
Tensions have somewhat subsided since 1999, when China
and ASEAN decided to work together to draft a regional
code of conduct that would presumably play a role in
conflict avoidance and confidence-building in the area.
After three years of negotiations, a non-binding China-ASEAN “Declaration
on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” was
recently signed. The document expressed the parties’ commitment
to refrain from further inhabiting new features, and
pledged to explore functional co-operation and continuous
dialogue on the issue pending the final settlement of
the disputes. If the parties indeed abide by even this
minimalist Declaration, then a window of opportunity
may have arisen for them to work together, not just to
prevent the eruption of new violence, but to begin transforming
the South China Sea from a region of potential conflict
to one of co-operation for common peace and prosperity.
Transforming the South China Sea conflict requires zeroing
in on its roots or structural causes, not just its symptoms.
This means looking into the grievances, needs and problems
of all the parties concerned, the processes by which
fears and perceptions develop into decisions to use force,
and the thresholds at which the costs of conflict themselves
become unbearable to the parties. Only by so doing will
it become possible to turn the disputes into a constructive
force that may progressively reduce or remove the conditions
from which conflict and violence have arisen, and therefore
bring about a just and lasting peace.
Each of the claimant states has a different assessment
of its national interests and stakes in the dispute,
and the task of finding common ground among them is not
easy. It appears that sovereignty, security and access
to the ocean’s economic resources are common basic
needs, but whether one is more valued than another by
any particular country is not clearly articulated. Yet
only by identifying common basic needs and fears among
the parties, and understanding if a hierarchical order
of priorities exists or may be developed, can we derive
insights on the areas of potentially transformative agreements
among them.
Thus far, the ASEAN-China consultations have led to greater
transparency between the two sides, enhancing sensitivity
to each other’s concerns, strengthening the commitment
to peaceful settlement and political negotiations, and
testing the efficacy of a regional solution to the problem.
The multilateral approach has also given the individual
Southeast Asian claimants greater confidence to engage
China, by producing agreement on a number of important
issues such as the need for self-restraint, common interest
in the joint development principle, the need to ensure
freedom of the sea lanes, and agreement not to allow
the disputes to dominate or affect the normal development
of their relations.
However, there is clearly a need to move beyond statements
or reiteration of principles. To date, there has been
no official discussion on the modalities or specific
priority areas of functional co-operation. Neither has
there been serious official discussion of what joint
development could mean. The prevailing fear is that when
any country proposes joint development, it is in the
spirit of "what is mine is mine; what is yours we
can jointly develop." Among the questions are: What
area shall be developed? What resources shall be the
subject of co-operation? Who shall have principal management
responsibility? Given the asymmetry in size, power, and
capability of the claimants, will the biggest claimant,
China, accede to an equitable arrangement?
There are other shortcomings in the multilateral consultations
that have already taken place. For one, it is doubtful
if the dialogues have really prevented provocative incidents
or potential "triggers of conflict" from occurring,
as unilateral actions by claimants of potentially provocative
nature continue to take place. Another is the tendency
to over-emphasize ASEAN's engagement with China while
not devoting adequate attention to the need for intra-ASEAN
co-operation and co-ordination.
Competing needs and interests among ASEAN claimants have
not even been formally or sufficiently acknowledged,
thus making it impossible to develop a consensus definition
of "ASEAN interests" vis-à-vis China
on this issue, even if the issue is currently being managed
as a China-ASEAN matter.
On the other hand, the main problem in claimants pursuing
bilateral discussions is that it ignores the interests
and perceptions of third parties who have claims to the
same area, possibly fomenting mutual suspicions of accommodation
and deal making. ASEAN may try to avoid this by co-ordinating
and exchanging information on their respective bilateral
dealings with each other and especially with China, despite
its fears of being perceived by China as "ganging
up" on it.
For ASEAN and China to work together in transforming
the South China Sea into an area of common peace and
prosperity, there are many more tasks that they must
confront. For the short term, efforts such as the following
are in order: (1) agreeing on an operational definition
of "self-restraint", "non use of force", "shelving
sovereignty", "joint development", thus
leaving little room for misunderstanding; (2) preventing
the escalation of disputes by setting in place specific
and verifiable conflict-avoidance and conflict-prevention
measures; and (3) exercising transparency in bilateral
dialogues to avoid suspicion by third parties, and co-ordinating
bilateral initiatives with multilateral processes.
For the longer term, claimants share the responsibility
for building their respective domestic constituencies
for peaceful settlement and regional cooperation, in
order to counter excessive nationalism surrounding this
issue and to discount the appeal of resorting to military
solutions. They must also expand agreement on the proper
constructive role that non-claimants may play in the
conflict transformation process, possibly including major
powers and organizations such as the ASEAN Regional Forum
and the United Nations. Of course, the intractable issue
of how to deal with Taiwan’s claims also remains.
Moving from a conflict management to a conflict transformation
framework means encouraging more reflective study into
the root causes of the disputes, and emphasizing the
need of parties for articulation, co-ordination, accommodation
and harmonization of their respective interests and aspirations.
Ultimately, its goal is to search for a strategic initiative
that could transform the South China Sea from a sea of
strife into an ocean of opportunity.
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