Andrew Chubb
Fellow – Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program
As we will see, the theme that China has pursued its maritime claims more assertively under Xi is accurate. Yet it is besides potentially deceptive, for China was already on such a trajectory long earlier Xi took exponent. It was from 2006 that Beijing began using law enforcement ships to expand its command of large swathes of challenge waters, withdrew from the quarrel resolution procedures in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS ), started production of disputed offshore gas fields, and launched unilateral energy explorations and a campaign of compulsion against rival claimants who sought to do the same .
What has in truth changed in China ’ second maritime policy since Xi Jinping took baron ? How has this compared with China ’ sulfur policy commission over the preceding years ? And what is the probably function of the CCP ’ s “ Chairman of Everything ” in the observe changes ?
Declarative policy
China ’ s stated nautical policy under Xi Jinping has contained three celebrated elements. The first is the goal of building China into a “ nautical big power ” ( 海洋强国 ), which appeared for the first clock time in the CCP ’ s most authoritative political document, the political work report, at the 18th Party Congress in 2012, and was reaffirmed at the 19th in 2017.
This finish was in fact put forward by Jiang Zemin at the “ Two Meetings ” back in 2000. Jiang stated that “ constructing a nautical great power is an authoritative historic task, for which we must seriously conduct research. ” Since that time, it has increasingly been upgraded in party-state documents, notably in the programmatic 2008 State Council text file titled “ Planning Outline for the Development of National Maritime Activities. ” Evidently, building China into a nautical ability has not been an inaugural of Xi Jinping, but a methodically follow through party-state program date back at least seven years before eleven was even transferred to Beijing .
The second element of Xi Jinping ’ mho declared nautical policy addresses the tension between advancing China ’ south claims and avoiding military escalation. In the CCP ’ s dialectic policy-speak, this is known as the “ oneness of rights department of defense and stability care ” ( 维权维稳相统一 ). Xi ’ sulfur remarks in a July 31, 2013, Politburo report seance on nautical disputes—vowing never to compromise and calling for “ coordinated planning of the two overall situations ( 两个大局 ) of rights department of defense and stability sustenance ” —have much been taken as an expression of Xi ’ s more assertive maritime policy preferences .
But PRC policy statements have featured the rights-defense-stability-maintenance conceptualization since 2008 at the latest. What ’ s more, Xi ’ s phrasing explicitly referenced a signature extraneous affairs directive of his harbinger, Hu Jintao : “ coordinated plan of the domestic and international overall situations. ” Hu issued this directive in 2006 with the goal of reining in uncoordinated policy actors that were harming China ’ sulfur effigy. once again, then, Xi ’ s hard-line policy grandiosity seems to reflect long-run consensus ideas preferably than his distinct personal preferences .
The third feature of China ’ s indicative mood policy in the Xi earned run average has been the indignant “ no-acceptance, no-participation, no-recognition, no-implementation ” response to the arbitration character brought on by the Philippines under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS ). In the July 2013 Politburo meeting, eleven declared that while China was peaceable, it “ absolutely will not give up its legitimate rights, much less sacrifice its national congress of racial equality interests. ” This presaged an uncompromising response to the Philippines ’ request for arbitration, which had been made six months earlier in January 2013 .
But while the chair credibly paid close attention to the font, it is hard to imagine Beijing ’ s response being significantly different under another leader. As note above, the PRC had withdrawn from the UNCLOS ’ s compulsory dispute resolution procedures in 2006, showing its purpose to avoid external legal processes in regard to its maritime claims. even more tellingly, in 2009 the PRC attached its ill-famed nine-dash line map to an official diplomatic document for the first clock time, suggesting—as had its 1998 Exclusive Economic Zone ( EEZ ) Law, which made reference book to unspecified “ historic rights ” in accession to those ascribed by the UNCLOS—that the PRC did not consider its maritime claims to be bound by international law. As such, the PRC ’ south policy of non-acceptance and non-participation in the arbitration is besides improbable to have reflected the clear-cut influence of Xi Jinping as drawing card. rather, it is credibly estimable seen as a path-dependent, default reception to what appeared from within party circles to be a serious attempt to delegitimize China ’ mho claims .
Unilateral administration
Xi-era China ’ s most consequential move has been the massive expansion of its outposts in the Spratly Islands. The PRC ’ s artificial islands now dwarf the area of all the naturally formed features in the disputed archipelago. Two years of confirm farming reclamation works turned once-precarious outposts perched atop submerged reefs into 1,300 hectares of newfangled land, at enormous fiscal and ecological cost. This has been followed by construction of an align of infrastructure, including 3,000-meter military-grade runways, aircraft hangars, and deployment of anti-ship cruise missiles.
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The island-building crusade is possibly the strongest candidate for a policy change with Xi ’ s personal stamp. indeed, Xi implicitly claimed the credit in his report to the 19th Party Congress when he lauded “ South China Sea island construction ” among the key achievements since the previous party congress—the one at which he took ability .
so far even in this lawsuit it is far from clear that Xi made the deviation, preferably than the PRC state ’ mho increasing fiscal and technical means—particularly the dozens of bombastic dredgers that performed the job. not merely does Beijing ’ s avocation of this capability date back to the early 2000s, the island-building crusade was the latest in a long telephone line of measures China has taken since the early 1980s to expand its presence in the Spratly Islands.1 Without doubt, this particular attempt was on an wholly new scale—but Beijing ’ s intention to do what it can to strengthen its beachhead in the Spratlys long precedes the stream earned run average. eleven has had far greater capabilities to draw upon in advancing that finish than his predecessors .
Another winder model of unilateral action in Xi Jinping ’ s nautical policy has been even Coast Guard patrols within 12 nautical miles of the Diaoyu ( Senkaku ) Islands. Although Japan still controls the challenge islands themselves, China ’ s new patrol patterns have created a position of overlapping presidency of the territorial seas—a sovereign maritime space under international law .
The new model of patrol was initiated in September 2012 in reply to Japan ’ s transfer of three of the islands to cardinal government control. multiple sources have said that Xi Jinping personally oversaw China ’ sulfur reaction to the crisis. however, evening if we assume these anonymous reports to be truthful, there are well reasons to doubt whether Xi ’ s own policy preferences made a difference .
first, China ’ sulfur policy toward the Diaoyu/Senkaku issue had been increasingly hardening since 2006.2 This vogue was manifest in August-September 2010 when, amid a major surge in state-sponsored PRC fishing near the quarrel islands, a chinese trawler rammed a japanese Coast Guard ship. Beijing responded with promote escalation, sending PRC fisheries patrols to linger just outside the territorial sea, even after Japan released the trawler ’ mho captain and dropped legal proceedings against him .
In the 12 months leading up to the 2012 crisis, taiwanese patrol boats had entered the disputed territorial seas an unprecedented three times ( Figure 1 ), and officials had spoken of the desirability of a regulate presence in the disputed waters. This suggests the raw patrols, which have become regularized since 2012, may well have been part of China ’ south answer to Japan ’ s nationalization of the islands even if another drawing card had been in charge.
Read more: Maritime search and rescue – Documentary
Coercion at sea
New strands of coercive policy in China ’ s nautical disputes in the Xi era have been amazingly rare, and most of the PRC ’ s coercive activities since Xi took might have continued Hu-era patterns of behavior.3 One model is the HYSY-981 oil trailer truck operation, which followed an established pattern of unilateral offshore explorations in disputed waters, enforced by coercive on-water escorts. The PRC conducted this type of operation in alike areas in 2006 and 2007, leading to intense on-water clashes with Vietnam, and again in 2010. The difference in 2014 was that the PRC now possessed a elephantine bore fishing gear and dozens more law enforcement ships to police the area .
Some Hu-era coercive activities at sea have actually been absent under Xi, notably the numerous cases of hindrance with vietnamese and Philippine energy survey projects between 2007 and 2012. still, two meaning new policies of this type from the Xi era deservingness attention .
One was the November 2013 announcement of an Air Defense Identification Zone ( ADIZ ) in the East China Sea, accompanied by threats of a military response for non-compliance.4 Hu Jintao reportedly refused the PLA Air Force ’ randomness proposals for an ADIZ during his tenure, but Xi Jinping was more receptive, according to chinese analysts interviewed by the International Crisis Group ( ICG ). If thus, this would make the East China Sea ADIZ a probable exemplar of Xi Jinping ’ mho impact .
still, other PRC analysts told ICG that prior to 2013, the PLA Air Force did not possess sufficient capabilities to monitor and enforce the zone. If so, then like the massive island-building program, the ADIZ only become a viable policy option after Xi took office, so the impingement of the leader on China ’ s policy may have been incorporeal .
Another distinctly Xi-era coercive policy has been the threat to blockade the Philippines ’ outstation on Second Thomas Shoal, in the form of a changeless patrol gravy boat presence at the shoal, from May 2013. This was probably intended as retaliation for the Philippines ’ trigger of arbitration proceedings under the UNCLOS, possibly in the hope of pressuring Manila to drop the subject. As argued above, it is improbable that the CCP would have accepted the Philippines ’ arbitration and cooperated with the court, regardless of the drawing card in charge. But unlike many of the cases examined above, it is conceivable that a more moderate leader would have refrained from taking the legal challenge onto the water in this manner. This leaves second Thomas Shoal as a plausible example of Xi ’ s determine .
Policy implications
This article has argued that—so far—Xi Jinping ’ south leadership has made relatively little dispute to China ’ second policy in the South and East China Sea disputes. This is counterintuitive because, as we have seen, China has become more assertive in a variety of ways since eleven took baron. But it had already been on such a trajectory since 2006, and the current drawing card has had numerous significant capabilities at his disposal that his predecessors did not. This discover raises three policy implications for the United States if it seeks to help maintain peace and constancy in East Asia .
chinese maritime policy has been following a largely path-dependent logic that is less susceptible to carrots and sticks than foreign policymakers may believe .
first, it suggests that, preferably than reflecting individual politicians ’ preferences, chinese nautical policy has been following a largely path-dependent logic that is less susceptible to carrots and sticks than foreign policymakers may believe. As I have noted elsewhere, legal-administrative changes and capacity-building projects have had profound lagged effects on PRC policy in the South China Sea. In turn, this suggests the overall direction of the PRC ’ sulfur policy in this domain has credibly had less to do with United States policy—particularly its widely-perceived lack of “ pushback ” in the South China Sea—than normally assumed .
second, this analysis does not imply that xi lacks the capability to influence PRC ’ s assertive behavior—it means his function has credibly been more akin to a doorkeeper than an architect of China ’ randomness expansion of command over nautical East Asia. This suggests any undertake by Washington to use disincentive signaling to shape China ’ s demeanor in this area will need to capture the attention of Xi himself, and convert him that the undesired naturally of action is against China ’ s, and his own, interests .
This would besides imply that unplayful efforts to deter especial PRC behaviors will besides need to consider ways of minimizing the costs to Xi ’ sulfur personal authenticity of complying. Proffered consequences for particular courses of potentially destabilize PRC action—such as enclosure of some or all of the Spratly Islands within territorial sea baselines, or the occupation of any extra reef or rocks—should be raised privately and directly in meetings of individual leaders, rather than conveyed publicly and left to be inferred by lower levels of the PRC bureaucracy .
There are signs that the Trump administration may be using increases in the frequency of Freedom of Navigation Operations ( FONOPs ) —and promotion thereof—to imperativeness the PRC on other issues. A static baseline of FONOP patrols provides valuable reassurance of U.S. committedness to constancy in the area, but attempting to use FONOPs as a coercive joyride would be a err, based on this newspaper ’ sulfur analysis. For one thing, such patrols are not peculiarly provocative, and sol may not attract the top drawing card ’ s care. And for the like reason, the PRC ’ s on-water responses may be decided on at relatively low points in the PLA chain of command, raising risks of local accidents and miscalculations. As such, generating leverage for influence on china policy in early areas is a determination for which intensified FONOP patrol is ill-suited .
… Attempting to use FONOPs as a coercive cock would be a error
Read more: How Maritime Law Works
ultimately, while this article has questioned the meaning of Xi ’ mho shock on China ’ s nautical policy over the first six years of his rule, his influence is likely to increase over clock, pushing China ’ south policy in a ruffianly, but more coordinated direction. The meaning lag between past policy decisions and their effects on the PRC ’ s maritime conduct—such as Jiang Zemin ’ s launch of the “ maritime world power ” concept in 2000—implies that the current tyrant ’ mho influence over particular aspects of policy in this area may accumulate and gather momentum over time .
In this involve, one of Xi ’ sulfur legacies could stem from his amalgamation of China ’ mho nautical police forces. Throughout the 2000s, chinese experts and officials identified a pressing need to unify China ’ s disparate maritime police enforcement fleets. In March 2013, five months into Xi ’ s tenure, the State Council last announced the formation of the China Coast Guard via the unite of four nautical law enforcement agencies. The amalgamation unsurprisingly encountered inter-agency resistance and dysfunction, but has advanced to the indicate where the CCG is now trusted with an increasingly knock-down suite of weaponry. This presages more forceful, but besides more organize and effective, PRC maritime challenge behavior in the future—assuming xi remains in baron .
xi ’ s domestic collection of office has created a site in which the functional parts of the party-state that implement front-line policy are particularly bang-up to avoid displeasing the leader. This development carries a bifurcate logic angstrom far as maritime assertiveness is concerned. On one hand, the chauvinistic political atmosphere Xi has cultivated probably makes agencies inclined to err on the side of formidability where central policy leaves board for interpretation. At the like time, however, it besides probably makes agencies more conservative in their interpretation and execution of any instructions they are given. The likely effect of Xi ’ s influence over the long term, then, will be to move China ’ south policy in a tough, yet besides more coordinate management .
