With Western countries including, France, Germany, Britain and the United States, conducting a series of Freedom of Navigation exercises in an area of the sea China has claimed as its own, Beijing has vowed to shadow the ships and possibly even hold live-fire drills, said analysts.
At least eight countries have indicated plans to send their navies to sail through the resource-rich South China Sea, which stretches from Hong Kong to Borneo Island, in support of keeping it open for international access rather than cede it away to China.
British destroyer, HMS Defender, part of a British carrier strike group, joined navies from France, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, Canada, and the United States for joint exercises in the area claimed by China.
New Delhi plans on sending four ships over two months to conduct Freedom of Navigation exercises in the South China Sea, according to India’s Ministry of Defence.
Earlier this year, on August 2, Germany’s Bayern warship set out for six months voyage in Asia, which includes the South China Sea, said German defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
“The message is clear: we are standing up for our values and interests together with our partners and allies,” she tweeted.
These Freedom of Navigation exercises have pushed back Beijing’s claim on the resource rich South China Sea, with China intent on showing that it is a strong maritime power, even as it struggles to pursue its maritime interest as a coastal State. China has been alarmed by the pushback especially after a 2016 world arbitration court ruling that Beijing had no legal basis for its “nine-dash line” that it uses to back its claim for about 90% of the 3.5 million-square-kilometre waterway.
Beijing has rejected the court’s ruling and reacts to every Freedom of Navigation exercise by diplomatic protest or through articles through its state-backed domestic media Global Times, said Derek Grossman, senior analyst with the US-based Rand Corp.
“That’s easy to complain about it in public through official and unofficial channels,” said Grossman. “There’s going to be some complaining, but I think sort of at the higher end of the spectrum you can see Chinese ships tailing German and Indian, British ships in the South China Sea.”
The South China Sea is contested by China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Brunei, and Vietnam. China has enforced its claims by building artificial islands strengthened by military installations. Beijing routinely sends its vessels into the maritime exclusive economic zones of other countries.
European countries as well as India and Japan have followed the US lead in sending warships in the area to conduct “Freedom of Navigation Operations”. In 2019, the United States doubled the number of ships that conducted such an exercise.
In a statement, India’s Defence Ministry said, by deploying its warship in the area it “seeks to underscore the operational reach, peaceful presence and solidarity with friendly countries towards ensuring good order in the maritime domain.”
It is only reasonable that Chinese defence planners view the passage of these foreign ships as “shows of flag” rather than a direct military threat, said Alexander Huang, a professor of strategic studies at Tamkang University in Taiwan.
“They may try again the anti-ship ballistic missile firing, since they have a pretty huge range, but I don’t see the gathering of Chinese navy assets in those areas [as foreign ships pass],” opined Huang.
Despite its belligerent military aggression with all its neighbours, and its wolf diplomacy, China routinely accuses Washington of going too far and says it is doing everything to avoid a conflict.
“In the regional waters, there is no room for confrontation, zero-sum games, or bloc rivalries,” states an article in China’s state-backed Xinhua News Agency. “The so-called ‘China threat’ is merely one of the many tricks adopted by Washington to deliberately smear China, sow discord between regional countries, and contain China’s development.”
Despite such propaganda, officials in Beijing are wary of a “forceful response,” since many countries participating in such Freedom of Navigation exercises are its major trading partners, including the UK, France and Germany.
“I think what China would do is to very carefully have differentiated responses to all these different countries,” opined Oh Ei Sun, a senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. “But, of course, China could not do too much as well because these are major trading partners.”
Earlier in August, two Indian navy warships along with a Vietnamese navy frigate held exercises which began at a Vietnamese port and extended into firing drills and helicopter moves further at sea, reads a post on the website of India’s Defence Ministry. The exercises were “in continuation with ongoing deployment of Indian Navy ships in the South China Sea” and “would be another step towards strengthening India-Vietnam defence relations.”
China fears that frequent passages of foreign vessels in these waters will make them “internationalized” and it will lose its clout to discuss sovereignty disputes on one-on-one basis with Asian states, opined Yun Sun, a senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
The South China Sea is valued for its fisheries, undersea fossil fuel reserves and marine shipping lanes.
“The more foreign vessels, the more need that China will identify for military exercises to show it’s not scared [and] it’s vigorously using military capability to define and defend national interests,” said Sun.
“What happens after these [foreign] ships come into the South China Sea really depends on China’s reaction, because always China tends to overreact to every vessel passage in the South China Sea,” said Jay Batongbacal, a professor of international maritime affairs at the University of the Philippines.
With countries pairing their navies with those from outside the region, reduces Beijing’s leverage in the region.
Claimants to the South China Sea now “have some leverage” and are “not taking on China alone,” said Sun while adding, Vietnam for example might now feel “emboldened” to step up its drilling for undersea oil and gas. “It is gradually offsetting China’s dominance in the region and also offsetting or attacking China’s hegemonic desire in that part of the world,” said Sun.
While Beijing continues to react diplomatically and continues to spew out propaganda through its state-backed news agencies, it is likely to avoid a wider conflict, said Shariman Lockman, a senior foreign policy and security studies analyst with the Institute of Strategic and International Studies in Malaysia.
“They will make a lot of noise,” said Lockman. “They will react. But I think they are also wary about prompting anything bigger.”
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