The East Asia maritime domain presents opportunities for both conflict and cooperation, and the policies that the regional powers pursue will have profound implications for regional and global security and stability. Some of the tensions that have arisen are based on conflicting national strategies and must be controlled, while others can be resolved or avoided by dialogue and confidence building. There are also opportunities for cooperation to promote common goals that could also have positive effects on the overall relations between the countries.

As part of a conference on East Asia maritime issues hosted by the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center and the Institute for Asia Pacific Studies, panelists focused on issues of conflict and potential cooperation mechanisms among the states in the region. They included Hong Nong of China’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Li Nan of the U.S. Naval War College, David Winkler of the Naval Historical Foundation, Xue Chen of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, and other experts from the United States, China, Japan, and South Korea. Admiral Kazumine Akimoto of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces moderated.

Disputes in the South and East China Seas

  • Territorial Claims: The Republic of China asserted its claim over the territory contained within the 9-dash line in 1941, and the People’s Republic of China asserts that it is the successor to that claim and that China has never relinquished it although it has not always been able to enforce it. Chinese participants stated that China asserts sovereignty over the islands and bases its claims over the waters on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)but also expects other countries to recognize Chinese historical rights. Meanwhile, Japan and other claimant states in the South China Sea advance competing interpretations of history and UNCLOS. In 2002, the parties in the South China Sea pledged non-escalation of the disputes.
     
  • Claims of Rights in the EEZs: The Impeccable incident of 2009, when the U.S. ocean surveillance ship was shadowed and harassed by the Chinese navy, brought to the fore the question of what rights freedom of navigation grants when traveling in the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of other states. Chinese participants asserted that China respects freedom of navigation in its EEZs but that such freedom does not include military activities such as exercises and intelligence gathering under UNCLOS. U.S. participants asserted that freedom of navigation in the EEZs, as protected by UNCLOS, includes intelligence collection and peaceful activities, as it does on the high seas.
     
  • The Role of the United States: China perceives U.S. declarations and military exercises since 2009 as evidencing a desire to “internationalize” the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, while the United States asserts it  remains committed to a peaceful solution between the parties. China also perceives a change in U.S. policy in supporting the Japanese side of the Diaoyu/Senkaku dispute, while the United States asserts it sided with Japan as a legal matter years ago and remains committed to peaceful resolution. China rejects a U.S. role in the South China Sea issues and seeks bilateral resolution of the disputes, but the ASEAN countries insist that China treats them as a block for the purposes of resolution, and, faced with China’s refusal to do so, have been receptive the statements by U.S. officials.
     
  • Policy Options for China and the United States: There are real differences in national interest that cannot be solved merely by reducing misunderstandingbut different policies can ameliorate or exacerbate these differences. Xue stated that China could adopt a passive approach of developing counter-intelligence systems to foil U.S. intelligence collection operations and referring disputes to the Strategic Economic Dialogue or some similar body, or it could adopt a pro-active approach such as it employed during the Impeccable Incident. U.S. participant Abraham Denmark stated that harassing ships is a dangerous and unproductive strategy for resolving disputes. South Korean participant Suk-joon Yoon proposed that the United States could unilaterally stop large-scale military exercises in China’s EEZs. U.S. Admiral Eric McVaden emphasized the history of the U.S. commitment to protecting the full range of activities allowed under freedom of navigation.

Areas for Cooperation and Dialogue

  • Non-Traditional Security Threats: China’s contribution to anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden illustrates the potential for multilateral cooperation among the regional actors where their interests are aligned. China participates by protecting its ships, contributing satellite-based tracking and communication, and cooperating with other militaries by sharing information and conducting joint exercises. Li Nan proposed that this might offer a template for multilateral anti-piracy cooperation in the East China Sea, where China could contribute to building the capacity of the littoral states in the Malacca Straights.
     
  • Submarine Collision: Winkler stated that submarine collision between the United States and China is inevitable and that dialogue and confidence-building in advance are necessary to ensure it is handled well. He argued that Soviet-U.S. military-to-military dialogue during the Cold War offered a model for how the United States and China could handle such an incident—through military-to-military exchanges bolstered by training operations to build confidence and prepare for submarine rescue operations.