Geopolitics

China sounds ‘Action Stations’ in South China Sea
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Issue Net Edition | Date : 20 Apr , 2016

While the US DoD posted a clip on the internet showing a Russian SU-24 attack aircraft conducting a simulated attack on USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea flying just 30 feet away from the destroyer, speculation arose whether the Chinese will act similarly against US forces in the SCS. But the Chinese actually did so 15 years back. The incident occurred on April 1, 2001 in international airspace some 112 kms off China’s Hainan Island when a US Navy EP-3E turboprop reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese F-8II jet fighter collided. The US EP-3E made an emergency landing of the damaged plane on China’s Lingshui airfield. China’s F-8II crashed into the sea with the pilot. China detained 24 military crew members of the US EP-3E for 11 days. China claimed the US EP-3 caused the accident but the US assessment was that the PLA pilot, executing a close passes in an apparent attempt to impress or intimidate the EP-3 crew, made a fatal error in judgment.

China had started indication her intentions of stepping beyond her traditional land oriented security paradigm ones it became a net importer of oil in 1993.

The above incident occurred in international airspace, not Chinese. Significantly, it happened during the reign of Jiang Zemin when the PLA leadership was not in so prominent a lead in China as today. China had started indication her intentions of stepping beyond her traditional land oriented security paradigm ones it became a net importer of oil in 1993. Desire of Chinese leadership to adopt hard-line positions with respect to their claims was obvious through the 2001 incident. Later in 2005, Lin Yazhou, then Deputy Political Commissar of PLAAF, went on record to say, “When a nation grows strong enough, it practices hegemony. The sole purpose of power is to pursue power ……. Geography is destiny ……. When a country begins to rise, it shall first set itself in an invincible position”, reflecting China’s ‘Tian Xia’ (under the Heaven) medieval belief which views “all territories” belonging to Chinese; dwarfing combined territorial aims of Genghis Khan, Hitler and Baghdadi.

Simultaneous to the above, China was also displaying her hard-line position on land and water. Witness her standoffs with India along the border, where PLA troops intruded periodically, even attempting jostling at times. Ask Vietnam about China’s proverbial Loch Ness monster (oil rig Haiyang Shiyou) reappearing periodically in Vietnamese waters simultaneous to Chinese vessels attempting to ram Vietnamese Coast Guards vessels from multiple directions with Chinese aircraft hovering overhead and making low level intimidating passes, or two-three Chinese ships surrounding lone Vietnamese fishery-cum-surveillance ship and continuously firing water cannons onto their decks, causing injuries to Vietnam Coast Guard personnel. More recently in March this year, a Chinese coast guard boat entered Indonesian waters far from mainland China and rammed and retrieved a Chinese fishing boat that had been detained by Indonesia for fishing illegally in Indonesian waters. How else do you define an international bully, confident it would not be challenged?

China has identified the first quarter of 21st Century as a period of ‘strategic opportunity’ and the next for ‘strategic expansion’ for becoming a ‘Great Power’…

Significantly, now President Xi Jinping has optimized the prominence of PLA to maximum, taking total charge of it himself. The effect is visible with China’s all round aggression proceeding along predictable lines: pooh-poohing the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration jurisdiction to rule on territorial claims of Philippines filed in 2013 against China over disputed areas in SCS, with ruling on the case by the Arbitral Tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) expected in the next two months; terming freedom of navigation patrols (FONOPS) by US forces as militarization to continue reclaiming more reefs and building military facilities on them, including Zhubi Reef, Mischief Reef and Fiery Cross, adding air strips, hangars, weapon storage facilities and fuel storage tanks. Paracel Islands already house advanced J11BH/BHS fighter aircraft and SAM batteries with modern radars. Little wonder then that Philippines signed the ‘Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement’ with the US this year, opened four air bases to US forces and commenced joint sea patrolling in the SCS.

China has her hackles raised because of the G7 Foreign Ministers Statement on Maritime Security issued at Hiroshima, Japan on 11 April this year which reflected the G7 concern about the situation in East and South China Seas, emphasizing “strong opposition to any intimidating, coercive or provocative unilateral actions that could alter the status quo and increase tensions, and urged all states to refrain from such actions as land reclamations including large scale ones, building of outposts, as well as their use for military purposes and to act in accordance with international law including the principles of freedoms of navigation and overflight”, and adding, “In areas pending final delimitation, we underline the importance of coastal states refraining from unilateral actions that cause permanent physical change to the marine environment insofar as such actions jeopardize or hamper the reaching of the final agreement, as well as the importance of making every effort to enter into provisional arrangements of a practical nature, in those areas”. Bearing the guilt of defying international norms (UNCLOS and global commons included), China feels the G7 statement is aimed directly at her.

Militarization of Scarborough Shoal would throw open challenge to the US and its allies both at psychological and physical levels.

Carl Thayer, strategic analyst recently wrote in his article ‘Australian Intelligence: China Poised to Take ‘Decisive and Provocative’ Action in the South China Sea’ published in ‘The Diplomat’ on April 15 that both US and Australian intelligence agencies are concerned about China’s recent moves in the SCS (air defence beefed up on Woody Island in the Paracels, additional JH-7 fighter-bomber aircraft (total about 10 military aircraft including J-11s and Xian JH-7s) and AESA radars placed on Woody Island, and major construction activities at Scarborough Shoal), developments suggesting China is preparing to take preemptive action in SCS in advance of issue of ruling by the Hague based PCA. Quoting US intelligence sources and Australian media, Thayer writes that China is poised to take “decisive and provocative action” in the Spratly Islands; China may dynamite Scarborough Shoal to build an artificial island to house military facilities or declare an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) similar to the ADIZ announced in the East China Sea in November 2013.

If China converts Scarborough Shoal into an artificial island with an airfield and harbor, it would: prevent Philippines from operating in the waters of Spratly islands; be in better position to monitor move of US vessels in Subic Bay, and; US and regional navies would be at risk in a crisis situation in SCS. China’s militarizing Scarborough Shoal would thus present fait accompli to findings of the Arbitral Tribunal.

China has identified the first quarter of 21st Century as a period of ‘strategic opportunity’ and the next for ‘strategic expansion’ for becoming a ‘Great Power’, Thayer’s assessment, being in line with China’s Great Power ambition may well unfold shortly beginning with militarization of Scarborough Shoal. China’s seeks domination over SCS for her SSBNs to quickly submerge in these deep waters and eventually getting to the Pacific Ocean. Militarization of Scarborough Shoal would throw open challenge to the US and its allies both at psychological and physical levels. China would pit her economic triggers against possible rally of international community. Chinese scholars privately appear pretty confident the US will desist from physical action when the chips are down.

China under Deng, decided to proliferate nuclear technology to communists and radical Muslims in the third world based on the strategy that if west started getting nuked by Muslim terrorists or another communist country without Chinese fingerprints, it would be good for China…

Chinese speakers at international forums have been brazen about telling the US to get out from Asia-Pacific – one example being the Asan-China Forum 2012 held at Seoul. China under Deng Xiaoping, decided to proliferate nuclear technology to communists and radical Muslims in the third world based on the strategy that if west started getting nuked by Muslim terrorists or another communist country without Chinese fingerprints, it would be good for China, as brought out by Thomas Reed, former US Air Force Secretary in his book ‘The Nuclear Express: A Political History of the Bomb and its Proliferation’. This is how rogue countries like Pakistan and North Korea were transformed into China’s nuclear talons.

So far Beijing has been deflecting international arbitration in all its illegal claims but if China takes a decisive and provocative action in SCS as mentioned above, she would be sounding ‘Action Stations’ with ball in court of the US, its allies and the international community at large. Obviously, any action / reaction by either side would have far reaching strategic implications, given Chinese propensity in the game of nerves and in backdrop of international community not having developed the fault-lines and soft underbelly of China as counter pressure points.

At the same time, the international community needs to focus equally on the next phase of China’s ‘Great Power’ ambition unfolding in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). China plans to build 18 “Overseas Strategic Support Bases” (read military bases) in the IOR under three categories: fueling and material supply bases for peacetime use (Djibouti, Aden, and Salalah); relatively fixed supply bases for warship berthing, fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft and the naval staff ashore rest (Seychelles); and fully functional centers for replenishment, rest and large warship weapons maintenance (Gwadar in Pakistan) which gives immense strategic advantage with proximity to Straits of Hormuz. China has also invested heavily in Colombo and Hambantota besides port development projects in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Chinese nuclear submarines have been frequenting the IOR and while her first CBG would be based at Hainan Islands, subsequent ones would get deployed in the IOR. Sure these would require land based air support. That is why behind the facade of developing hydel projects and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) China has developed 22 tunnels and missile silos in Gilgit-Baltistan and Pakistan will have no compunctions if Gwadar eventually becomes a naval base of PLAN. Construction of China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti has already begun. Taking a cue from sale of two Egyptian islands to Saudi Arabia, it is natural that China will be looking for purchasing islands in the IOR, including from a country like Maldives straddling strategic SLOCs and having over 1000 uninhabited islands.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Lt Gen Prakash Katoch

is Former Director General of Information Systems and A Special Forces Veteran, Indian Army.

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One thought on “China sounds ‘Action Stations’ in South China Sea

  1. Continued…

    I was, at that time, based in Nairobi working on bringing the Internet to Africa. Chinese plans have fructified, inexorably,including the highway from China ending with a Chinese Port on the Arabian Sea in Pakistan. Pakistan selected Balochistan for this in order to secure Chinese help to control Baloch rebellion which is now being brutally suppressed with Chinese help. India, with characteristic stupidity, is not fishing in the troubled waters of Pakistan. The US has shoved Russia towards China by escalating the William Lewinsky Clinton begotten Cold War with its Ukraine mischief. Which allows the China-Pakistan axis a stronger hand while weakening India even further. Pakistan has successfully locked in the US while moving closer to China than the US-NATO-Sunni Axis might wish. This is why the “Strategic” Long term plans for the People’s Liberation Army that was approved by China’s National People’s Congress (Parliament) more than a decade ago needs to be taken very seriously. Lebensraum it is.

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