Resolving S China Sea row crucial

China’s endeavours to spread its wings over South China Sea is causing tremendous alarm and tension among neighbouring states which view Beijing’s encroachment towards their sovereign regional waters as an outright use of force to commandeer their regional coasts. Given its strategic location, China, the world’s second largest economy, claims large swathes of one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, pitting it against smaller Southeast Asian states, which also claim parts of the South China Sea.
The strategic dimension of this sea is obvious as more than $5 trillion in seaborne trade passes through it annually.
Therefore, Beijing’s unprecedented land reclamation to build artificial islands for economic and military purposes sends shock waves among the US allies in the region. Scared by China, many of them seek the US help to neutralize China’s expansion.
The US, which has shifted its strategic attention to the region since 2011, decries the Chinese’s bullying tactics in South China Sea. Washington didn’t lose any time to cash in through strengthening military ties with the countries in the region, of which the last was Vietnam whose arms sale sanctions were lifted by Washington to pave way for more cooperation.
The area has become a flashpoint for a broader rivalry between China and the US — which is not a claimant — in the western Pacific, but is only there to back its allies.
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter seized his attendance of a global defence forum in Singapore to warn China that it risks erecting a “Great Wall of self-isolation” in Asia over its actions in the disputed South China Sea”. “There is growing anxiety in this region, and in this room, about China’s activities on the seas, in cyberspace, and in the region’s airspace,” Carter said.
Though each party tries to interpret its action to suit hidden agendas, tension is building. In recent years, China has reclaimed more than 3,000 acres in the waters and beefed up its military presence, while saying its activities in the area are also designed for civilian purposes like search and rescue.
In turn, the US has resumed freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea, where its ships sail near reefs claimed by China and other nations. Washington has been striking military cooperation deals with China’s
neighbours in a manner that made Beijing to doubt its intentions.
Washington warned China against building on the Scarborough Shoal, a prospect raised by chief of US naval operations Admiral John Richardson in March. The uninhabited shoal was seized from the Philippines in 2012.
“I hope that this development doesn’t occur because it will result in actions being taken both by the United States and by others in the region which will have the effect of not only increasing tensions but isolating China,” Carter said.
But this loaded threat is rejected by China, which deems it a “Cold War
mentality”.
The Singapore forum comes ahead of an international tribunal expected to rule soon on a Philippine challenge to China’s South China Sea claims, a verdict China said it would ignore.
To ease the tension, Rear Admiral Guan Youfei, chief of foreign affairs at China’s defense ministry, said in Singapore that China had shown restraint on the South China Sea and the US should treat the issue in a more objective way. He singled out the US over its freedom of navigation operations.
Both Washington and Beijing should work together to resolve this thorny security issue in a manner that addresses rights of each state in the region. Any solution out of this context could jeopardise regional and international security and revive the Cold War ambitions.