China ‘not credible’ on South China Sea claims

CHINA’s position on its territorial claims in the South China Sea is not credible, and it needs to rethink its strategy, says Gareth Evans, who watches world events as President Emeritus of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Of all potential major conflicts, he says, the India-Pakistan situation remains the most volatile . . .

AS GARETH EVANS casts his seasoned eyes across the region and the globe, he sees potential conflicts, but the optimism in him believes increasing inter-dependence will dictate peaceful co-existence.
Evans sees many hot spots — territorial disputes between China and its neighbours in the South China and East China Seas; Indo-Pakistan tensions; ethnic conflict in South Asian and Southeast Asian countries and beyond.
But he is convinced that, today, the world genuinely understands the virtues of inter-dependence and economic integration — and is unwilling to put those advantages at risk.
“The notion that advantages could be achieved by going to war — a consuming ideology for centuries — is something that we are beginning to get over psychologically at an international level,” says Evans, who for 25 years has been involved in international affairs at the very top level.
“That, of course, should not ever lead to complacency,” he adds, “because human nature is what it is — irritants can arise, then over-reaction can occur and this can ricochet into reciprocal over-reaction. Out of small events, very large consequences can grow.
“We do have to be alert to the possibility of things going wrong. There are a number of flashpoints, and you do have to analyse these.”
Evans is President Emeritus  of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG), now regarded as the world’s leading non-government source of information, analysis and policy advice on the prevention and resolution of potential deadly conflicts, which he led from 2000-09. He persuaded George Soros, to provide an initial grant of US$2.5 million to help turn the ICG into a global organisation.
As Australia’s Foreign Minister (from 1988 to 1996), Evans played a key role in developing the UN peace plan for Cambodia, and in initiating new Asia-Pacific regional economic and security architecture. He returned from Brussels to Australia in 2009 to chair the International Advisory Board of the Canberra-based Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He also became Co-Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Global Centre for the
Responsibility to Protect.
His main role today is in academia — he is Chancellor of the Australian National University in Canberra — but that has not diminished his consummate passion for international affairs. Unsurprisingly, he is active in what he calls “second track” diplomacy.
ATI sought his views on the future role of the United States in Asia, and potential regional security issues in the region . . .

•  On China and Southeast Asia — territorial claims in the South China Sea:

(China is embroiled in territorial claims and counterclaims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei in the South China Sea. This body of water provides 10 per cent of the global fisheries catch and sea lanes for half of the world’s shipping tonnage.
Tensions between Beijing and Manila are particularly acrimonious.)
 Says Evans: “It is a serious issue. China’s position is not credible at the moment. It has to amend it very rapidly.
“For the last 18 months, I have been taking every opportunity to say to Chinese friends and colleagues that, really, China does have a problem here, and that, fundamentally, it needs to rethink its strategy.”
He explains that China outlines the scope of its claims based on a so-called “nine-dashed line map” which takes in about 90 per cent of the 3.5 million-square-kilometre South China Sea.
(The nine-dashed-line was originally an “eleven-dotted-line” first indicated by China‘s then Koumintang Government in 1947 for its claims to the South China Sea. After the Communist Party took over China in 1949, the line was adopted and
revised to nine by the then-Premier, Chou-En-lai.)
The Chinese nine-dashed-line is not expressly a territorial claim, he points out. Rather, it is “an identification of historical waters”. Such a claim, says Evans, has no foundation whatsoever in international law, and does put China at odds with its two propositions — that it is fully respectful of the sovereignty (of others) and not in the business of dispute, or that it wants to resolve disputes through peaceful negotiated diplomatic means.
Evans believes that within the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is a clear understanding that the 9-dashed-line claim cannot be used as a credible position in any court against the Philippines.
It is one thing, he adds, to say that it is premature to go to court and that this issue can be resolved by negotiation. It is another thing to say that you are unprepared to make claims based on international rules when you are party to the Law of the Sea Convention.
The situation within China over these territorial claims is complex, he says, with more than one player involved – and each party holding a different perspective.
China’s State-owned resources organisations, its adjacent provinces and its maritime, customs, and fisheries agencies all have their own interests and fiefdoms to protect.
Nevertheless, Evans says, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and State Council seem to recognise that, sooner or later, China will have to pursue its claims according to international law. And he warns that the Law of the Sea will not resolve territorial claims. “You have to independently establish your sovereignty.”
Evans suggests that Australia’s own experience with Indonesia over the resource-rich East Timor Gap could offer a precedent to resolve China’s South China Sea territorial disputes. Australia and Indonesia agreed to joint exploitation of the resources, putting aside sovereignty claims.
But taking such a position would likely result in internal ructions in China, he suggests, with those who don’t want to concede the full reach of their supposedly historical position.
Evans says anyone who is in a position to do so should continue to place constant pressure on China in any available context — through Government tracks or a second track — to
resolve the impasse. Evans himself has been actively involved in the second track, and is making it very clear to Chinese policymakers that the disputes are doing China’s reputation no good. The territorial claims, he says, are at odds with the general posture that China is trying to promote as an image that it is utterly content not to be expansionist.

•  China/Japan conflict over the Senkaku/Daioyu Islands in the East China Sea:

(The territorial stakes involved are very small. The dispute flared up again late last year after the Governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, offered to buy the islands.)
Evans suggests it was probably defensible for Japan to buy the islands, but, unfortunately, this fed into Chinese angst over Japan. “This was clearly an attempt to calm the situation rather than inflame the Chinese. But these things can be very hard to handle if emotions takes over — and there is plenty of emotion in China, particularly about Japan.”
Fierce nationalistic pride is involved on both sides. Evans says neither has shown much restraint so far. And Japan is not now helping to cool the situation through its own actions.
However, he says, both Chinese and Japanese leaders realise what is at stake if the situation gets out of hand. They seem to heed the concerns of the business community, which worries that something could go wrong. In  his view, “the dispute will prove containable”.

•  On China and Taiwan:

“We’ve every reason to hope that Taiwan will not become a military flashpoint. With the ever-increasing intensity of relationships across the Taiwan Straits, it is reasonable to believe that the relatively stable status quo will continue.” Aside from problematic domestic politics, Taiwan is a good news story, he says.

•  On North Korea’s nuclear threats:

Evans dismisses Pyongyang as a mouse roaring to protect its own political  existence, rather than constituting an existential threat to anyone else. North Korea is not as erratic as people think, he says. Indeed, its strategy is
deliberately erratic.
There are questions about the capacity of the new leader (Kim Jong-un) to fully understand the implications of what he does and says to maintain a steady walk along the precipice. “So long as nobody is crazy enough to seek regime change, the threats will remain just that.”

•  On Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula:

“I don’t think it is impossible that, with China’s active engagement, we could get complete denuclearisation over time, although it is getting harder with each further development”, says Evans. (He was involved as Australia’s Foreign Minister in the original 1990s Framework Agreement negotiations.  He believes this did set a sustainable denuclearisation path, and that it  fell apart was due to missteps on the part of the US as well as the DPRK itself).

•  On Afghanistan, Pakistan and India:

 “Afghanistan and Pakistan are still extremely fragile States. God only knows what will happen when the Americans leave Afghanistan and the Taliban re-assert themselves. Nobody has any confidence whatsoever in the long-term durability of the Karzai Government.”
Evans says the India-Pakistan situation remains the most volatile of any potential major conflict, with particular concern that   another Mumbai-style major terrorist incident could lead to nuclear catastrophe. Political pressure in India would be such that it could be forced to mount some kind of incursion into Pakistan. “The ricochet -effects of that, full of potential for miscalculation and over-reaction,  could  quickly career out out of control.”

•  On the Islamisation of Asia:

“It is dangerous to inflate the anxiety here, particularly with countries like Indonesia, which is quintessentially moderate. Indonesia has a huge distaste for the kind of extremism shown by Jemaah Islamiyah.” Evans accepts that some Islamic conservatism has reared its head in Indonesia in various ways, but he does not think any of that is of fundamental concern so far as Indonesia is concerned.
“Indonesia will remain generally a force of stability in the Islamic world,” he says. “Nevertheless, you do have to understand the internal dynamics, and deal with the manifestation of Jihadist sentiments that have appeared.”
Of the wider region, he says: “Over the last decade, some Islamic groups have set up networks in Southeast Asia. We do know about the inter-connections, but let’s not exaggerate (their influence).
“Sometimes it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy if you talk this threat up too much.
“Islamic threats tend to generate over-reaction. We have seen this from the Buddhists in Myanmar, and this in turn generates reactions and issues which become an Islamic cause célèbre. So you get external interest in what are internally-containable situations. These things can develop their own momentum.”
Evans says he “hates” the whole Huntingdon notion of clashes of civilisation. “I hate the notion that there is anything that is inherently unmanageable about cultural and religious difference. We have learned an enormous lot about inflammation of this kind. I am reasonably confident this phenomenon in this region will be containable.”

•  On the US role in Asia:

“So long as the US insists on using P words — primacy, predominance and pre-eminence — its relationship with China  could certainly end in tears. There is some real truth in the proposition that America is going to have to find a way of giving a rising China not just economic space but strategic space of its own.
“China will become the number one economy quite soon.
“In this environment, the notion that, in East Asia, America can maintain total military predominance indefinitely will be challenged.
“The best expression of how the US should approach this reality was in remarks I heard from Bill Clinton,  at a private gathering in 2002 after he left the Presidency, which unfortunately I have never seen quite as explicitly put in anything he has said on the public record:
“America has two choices about the way in which we exercise this great and unrivalled economic and military power that we now have. Choice No 1 is to try to use that power to stay top dog on the global block in perpetuity. Choice No 2 is to try to use that power to create a world in which we are comfortable living  even when we are no longer  top dog on the global block.”
Evans says: “That second choice, which Clinton clearly embraced to me, is absolutely pitch perfect. That is where I think America should be. That is where I think Obama’s head is, but the trouble is that no American leader is prepared to risk domestic criticism by saying so in public.”

• On the future:

“We are already now looking,” says Evan,” at a G-2 world.  
“I think that there is every prospect that, over the next decade and beyond, China and America will have reached the kind of strategic accommodation that Clinton was talking about. America would accept that kind of reality, and  China won’t feel the need to further show its muscles on territorial issues.
The US and China are joined at the wallet, says Evans. “It is difficult to see that being any less of a reality in the years ahead.”