From the air to undersea cables, China challenges the US in the South China Sea
From air to undersea cables, China challenges The US in the South China Sea
WRITTEN BY JAMES BORTON
18 June 2020
For over a decade, China has trumpeted plans for an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea. Now more emboldened because of the COVID-19 pandemic, nationwide social protests against racism and a failure of White House leadership, Beijing is challenging Washington and its neighbors in Asia with their air space and underseas fiber-optic cable declarations in the region’s disputed waters.
An ADIZ is a defined area extending beyond a country’s airspace in which unidentified aircraft are liable to be interrogated and, if necessary, intercepted by military aircraft for identification before they cross into sovereign airspace. This is not a concept exclusive to China. As early as the 1950s the U.S. invoked the practice to tap down any post-war threats from the Soviet Union’s bomber formations. In more recent times Washington enforces a vigorous ADIZ in the Gulf of Mexico, monitoring the southern skies for drug traffic flow from South America.
Fast forward to the geopolitical claimants in the contested South China Sea, where Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan compete against China’s expansion of ambition and power. Beijing asserts its ‘historic rights’ to 90 percent of the land, water and seabed that falls within a self-described nine-dash line. A claim that has been rejected by an arbitral tribunal ruling in the Hague in 2016 and the United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
There are no provisions in international law concerning an Air Defense Identification Zone since they are unilaterally declared; nor are there any prohibitions from laying undersea fiber-optic cables even if they pose a clear and present danger to U.S. national security. Just last month, Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense warned of China’s growing threats to impose an ADIZ in the South China Sea. Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and Vietnam all have their own unrestricted ADIZ’s in the region.
“If China declares an ADIZ over the SCS it would have to identify precisely the area covered and the protocol or rules of identification,” says Carlyle Thayer, from the University of New South Wales, Canberra at the Australian Defense Force Academy.
China first declared an ADIZ in 2013 over the East China Sea that overlapped with airspace and islands claimed by Taiwan and Japan. The declaration resulted in tensions with U.S, Japanese and Taiwanese aircraft, but commercial air travel complied without incident. At that time, Washington’s response regarding civilian aircraft was well-tempered and rational since the Obama Administration urged civilian flights to comply with the Chinese identification rules.
But reason and good temperament is not easily found now in the current White House administration of Donald J. Trump, with tensions rising between Washington and Beijing. Most recently this has seen the White House ban on all Chinese commercial passenger flights to the U.S.
Since a South China Sea ADIZ would involve airspace over the Pratas, Paracel and Spratly Islands in the contested waters, the U.S. maintains that China’s unlawful claims in the South China Sea also pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas.
The United States upholds the norms of freedom of navigation (FONOPS). As a result, over the past month, the U.S. has escalated its military presence in the Indo-Pacific region. There are more U.S. Navy ships and Air Force B-1 bombers flying over the area to demonstrate America’s presence to allies and to Vietnam, who has repeatedly felt threatened by Chinese actions taken against the fishermen, repeated violations of their EEZ and standoffs between respective coast guard vessels.
These fears are justified because of China’s reclamations in the Spratly Islands allowing the deployment of combat-ready aircraft, ground-based missile systems for air defense, radars and anti-surface warfare. Furthermore, the contest extends to control of global networks and the undersea cables that ferry the delivery of data and information.
“Most of those who follow the South China Sea most closely see China’s artificial island bases as major game changers in any future Sino-U.S. conflict,” says Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C.
Besides monitoring the skies, as part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) 10-member country early warning system, there’s attention on China’s developing “Information Silk Road.” The undersea cables dual use for gathering scientific and military surveillance information and transferring data poses a potential security threat.
Analysts warn that the Luzon Strait and South China Sea, controlled by the Chinese navy, deliver a networked zone that may also link up Woody, Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief via undersea fiber-optic cables. The implications for the security of sensitive communication links critical to military capability and intelligence collection are fathomless.
“So, while we certainly need to consider the challenges China poses on the surface of the South China Sea, we also need to look down to the murky depths of the bottom of the sea,” writes retired Admiral James Stavridis in a recent opinion article.
There are about 400 underseas cables, many owned by Amazon, Facebook and Google, that propel data down the threads at nearly the speed of light and this trove of data, includes emails, texts and more than $15 trillion of the world’s financial transactions.
Through these two new fronts-- air spaces and undersea cables--ASEAN is quietly increasing its opposition to China’s arrogance in the region. Since these Southeast nations are facing an entrenched Chinese presence on their doorstep, now might be the time for them to band together and face down Beijing’s illegal and dangerous actions in the region.
After all, ASEAN members are already seeking cooperation and support from one another as well as China to combat Covid-19, both in terms of the control of the spread of the virus and its economic impacts. As the 2020 ASEAN chair, Vietnam is safely navigating a diplomatic approach and embracing multilateralism without incident. Hanoi’s effectiveness has included several recent video-orchestrated bilateral meetings between ASEAN Foreign Ministers and the U.S. on the novel coronavirus.
No one wants a confrontation with Beijing, but the best outcome calls for disciplined diplomacy and not disordered impetuous tweets to manage geopolitical threats. At the moment, the U.S. is perceived as a pandemic victim that appears daily to cede its leadership authority.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
James Borton is a senior writer and researcher in Southeast Asia and he has most recently edited Islands and Rocks in the South China Sea: Post Hague Ruling. He’s now writing Dispatches from the South China Sea. He can be reached here. Image credit: rhk111/Flickr.