Asia's maritime disorder

Tensions are rising in Asia as China takes steps to assert its control over the waters of South China Sea after its claims were rejected by an international tribunal at The Hague last month. China’s Defence Minister Chang Wanquan has called for a “people’s war at sea” to push back against threats to Chinese claims. In a speech last week, he warned of maritime security threats and called for increased preparations for what he termed a “people’s war at sea” in order to “safeguard sovereignty.”

More significantly, China is also changing its laws to arrest and jail anyone caught fishing in waters Beijing considers its own, even though many of those waters are precisely the bits that are disputed among China’s neighbours in the South China Sea. Last week, China’s Supreme Court said people caught illegally fishing in Chinese waters could be jailed for up to a year, issuing a judicial interpretation defining those waters as including the country’s exclusive economic zones.

Over the past week, all three Chinese naval fleets have taken to the sea to practice for a “sudden, cruel, and short” conflict. Beijing has also begun to fly bomber and fighter aircraft near disputed islands in the South China Sea. It has also announced that it would hold joint naval drills in the waters with Russia in September, terming the drills “routine” and not directed at any third party. A group of new photographs have revealed the construction of several reinforced aircraft hangars at Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs, all land formations built up by China in recent months, on which the Chinese have also built runways.

China’s neighbours too aren’t keeping quiet.  Reports have emerged of Vietnam secretly fortifying several of its islands in the disputed South China Sea with new mobile rocket launchers capable of striking China's runways and military installations across the vital trade route.

Japan filed a protest with Beijing over recently discovered radar equipment China secretly installed in a gas exploration platform close to disputed waters in the East China Sea. Japan is concerned that the radar could be a signal that China will begin using gas exploration platforms as military outposts. The protest came on the same day an armada of 13 Chinese Coast Guard ships sailed into waters just outside what Japan considers its territorial waters in the East China Sea.

South Korea is now willing to share the US Terminal High Altitude Air Defence (THAAD) system’s radar data on North Korean missile launches with Japan. The move is a sign of growing relations between South Korea and Japan, who have historically tense relations dating back to the Japan's occupation of Korea during the Second World War. It would also be a culmination of some of China's worst fears, as the move would bring South Korea closer into a trilateral alliance involving the US and Japan.

China loudly protested South Korea's decision to welcome THAAD system in the country following repeated ballistic missile threats from North Korea. Beijing has complained that the THAAD radars could reach into Chinese territory.

The US is also responding at both diplomatic and military levels. The USS Benfold, a US Navy guided missile destroyer, docked at the northern Chinese port of Qingdao, becoming the first visit by an American warship since Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea were ripped apart in the Hague.

Ahead of the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi's visit to India, Chinese state media warned New Delhi to avoid “unnecessary entanglement with China over the South China Sea debate” if India “wishes to create a good atmosphere for economic cooperation”. Terming that India and China are partners, not rivals, state-run Xinhua news agency has also suggested that the door for India's admission into the NSG is "not tightly" closed and New Delhi should "fully comprehend" Beijing's concerns over the disputed South China Sea.

High-level visit
Wang Yi's visit was the first high-level visit between the two countries after China blocked India's Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership bid at the plenary meeting of the 48-nation grouping in June on the grounds that it was not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). During his visit, Wang said it was up to India to decide on what position it wishes to take vis-a-vis the ongoing issue.

Wang's visit also came just days after Chinese troops "transgressed" the border on land and by air in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand last month. The India-China bilateral trade which totalled around $70 billion last year tilted heavily in favour of Beijing with over $46 billion trade deficit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in China to attend the G20 summit in Hangzhou next month. Following the ruling by an international tribunal last month which rejected Beijing's claims over much of the disputed sea area, China is campaigning against the issue to be raised in the Summit saying it is a matter to be resolved between parties concerned and outsider has no role. Chinese president Xi Jinping will also visit Goa for the coming BRICS summit scheduled for October.

India will have to carefully assess the implications of the rapidly evolving maritime order in Asia for its own interests and engage with Beijing accordingly. The stakes of what happens in the waters around the South China Sea are as high for India as they are for the regional states.

Global maritime order is under stress and China has done little to assuage concerns about its growing assertiveness. Regional states as well as India should now focus on making sure that China does not upend he regional balance of power to everyone’s disadvantage.

(The writer is Professor of International Relations, King’s College London)