OPINION:
The Permanent Court of Arbitration, an agency at the United Nations that listens to disputes about the UN’s Law of the Sea, has agreed to hear the Philippines’ case against China for building military bases on reefs in the South China Sea a thousand miles south of its Mainland. To no one’s surprise, China indicates that it will reject the court’s jurisdiction, which is all the more reason belated American naval patrols in South China sea must continue.
The Obama administration has finally, after pleas from the U.S. Navy, challenged China’s attempt to take over one of the world’s most important naval arteries. China argues that vague 1947 maps of the South China Sea validate its territorial claims to reefs lying athwart the world’s third most important seaway, a lifeline between Asia and the Middle East and Europe. Indeed, the oil traffic alone from the Middle East makes it one of the world’s most critical sea routes.
The Pentagon finally acknowledged the problem is a serious one, dispatching the USS Lassen, a guided missile destroyer, to sail through the contested waters. The U.S. Navy has two aircraft carriers in the area, shifted from the Middle East as part of the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia.” The USS Theodore Roosevelt only recently sailed to resupply in Singapore, adjacent to the South China Sea. The USS Ronald Reagan is based in Japan.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that the “Freedom of Action” operations, as the Navy calls the Southeast Asian patrols, would continue. “We will fly, sail and operate wherever international law permits,” he declared. “There have been naval operations in that region in recent days and there will be more in the weeks and months to come.”
The secretary declined to put on record the exact details of the passage, leaving this to the newspapers, which is odd, since the idea was to openly support international law which America has upheld since the earliest days of the republic. Attacks against international shipping persuaded President Thomas Jefferson, after a decade of unsuccessful attempts to persuade the European naval powers to defend commerce in the Mediterranean, to dispatch the U.S. Marines in 1801 to “the shores of Tripoli” to “chastise the insolence” of Tripoli and the Barbary pirates.
China says it “shadowed and warned” the USS Lassen to be careful, sending its missile destroyer Lanzhou and patrol vessel Taizhou, and called the American patrol illegal. Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui, with a little insolence of his own, told the American Ambassador Max Baucus that the United States should “cherish the hard-won momentum of development” of ties between Washington and Beijing.
The reclamation of the reefs has created 2,900 acres of solid land, according to the Pentagon. China says it is building airstrips for civilian purposes, but it has put artillery in place. There’s concern that China may declare the reefs an air defense identification zone as it in the East China Sea facing Japan. Japan and other nations have rejected Chinese claims of sovereignty over the area but pilots of foreign aircraft are staying away.
U.S. credibility is at stake, and American resolve is watched closely. One symbolic sail past the reefs won’t reassure anyone. The patrols must be regular and robust, asserting a consistent presence within the 12-mile limits China has proclaimed.
Australia is now considering sending warships through the area, which may be followed by aircraft. This is all to the good, and other nations, particularly the Philippines, must follow. The freedom of the seas is crucial to the maintenance of peace, which will be beneficial to all. If China wants to be the bully in Southeast Asia, the bullying must be answered, loud and clear.
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