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While the world was watching Kabul, Beijing set the scene for the next US humiliation
Peter Hartcher
September 7, 2021 — 3.00am
One of Joe Biden’s main justifications for pulling out of Afghanistan was that America needed to concentrate its resources on China. The US, he said, had to win the “competition for the 21st century”. So how’s that going?
Two weeks ago, while Biden was sweating on the evacuation of Kabul, his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, travelled to south-east Asia to affirm American solidarity: “We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims.”
A new Chinese law empowers the country’s coast guard to fire on vessels sailing through waters it claims.CREDIT:AP/FILE
Not fast enough. Just a few days later, while the world was still busy debating the last US humiliation in Afghanistan, Beijing quietly was constructing the next. Thumbing its nose at the US, at its neighbours, at the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. And daring the world to do something about it.
China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced the unilateral imposition of a new law requiring foreign shipping to give notice before entering any waters that it claims as its own. It purports to apply not only to military but also commercial shipping in all of China’s “territorial waters”.
The co-ordinates of such waters were not published as a matter of “deliberate ambiguity”, according to Professor Stuart Kaye of the Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at Wollongong University, “because then they would have to justify what they are claiming”.
But we do know that China’s definition includes vast swathes of the South China Sea, including territory claimed by five of its neighbours and one of the world’s most valuable commercial arteries, the shipping routes that are the trading lifeline for many nations including Australia, Japan, South Korea and China itself. Beijing also claims the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which it calls the Diaoyu, in the East China Sea.
China’s new law “would involve Beijing exercising a law where it shouldn’t under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”, says Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Another law promulgated by Beijing this year authorised China’s coast guard vessels to open fire on foreign vessels. It has yet to be used.
In the meantime China has used a range of tactics to bully smaller neighbours, such as the massing of more than 200 large steel-hulled “fishing” vessels, lashed together in line formation while conducting no actual fishing, to occupy the Whitsun Reef that falls within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. For months, Beijing ignored repeated demands from Manila that it end its “incursion”.
These are all part of Xi Jinping’s “grey zone” approach for conquest using all measures short of war.
Some have called it “salami slicing”. A Chinese proponent of the technique, Major-General Zhang Zhaozhong, described it as territorial acquisition “wrapped layer by layer, like a cabbage”, first by commercial vessels, then administrative ships, coast guard and ultimately China’s navy, buttressed by legal claims.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
In July, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that “nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea. The People’s Republic of China continues to coerce and intimidate south-east Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.”
So what is the US doing about the new law, which China says will be enforced by fining foreign-flagged shipping and by other, unspecified means?
The Pentagon has signalled that it will ignore it. “Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims, including in the South China Sea, pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded lawful commerce,” said a spokesman last week.
Australia’s Defence Department, in effect, also shrugged off China’s demand: “It is important that any such requirements are consistent with international law, particularly UNCLOS,” said a spokesperson.
But that’s about it. Where does that leave the world’s shipping and trading industries? “Commercial shipping will have no alternative – they will have to accept it,” says the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings. “Particularly if they’re not getting any backup from regional governments. It’s just another consolidation of [China’s] sovereign control.
“After Afghanistan, everything is now going to be seen as a test of the Biden administration to go beyond words to back up US security interests. Right now, everyone is holding their breath – just how serious are the Americans? I wish I could be more confident.”
He said that the annual Australia-US ministerial talks, AUSMIN, due in the next couple of weeks, would be “a litmus”. If there was no clear rejection of Beijing’s claim, it would become a fait accompli. Just as all its other incursions since 2015 have become.
At the same time, Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg implicitly has accepted China’s politically motivated trade sanctions as a permanent new feature.
He called on companies to better diversify exports. Not to rely on China but to export to “China plus” other markets. Australia, he said in a Monday speech, needs “to continue to find new ways to reinforce … resilience. Not just for now, but for the long term.”
The Biden administration said repeatedly that it would “not leave Australia alone on the field” in its confrontation with China. Comforting words. Yet US companies are taking advantage of China’s trade bans. As Australian sales of coal, beef and wine have slumped, American businesses are stepping theirs up.
What about the arena where the US and China were expected to co-operate – climate change? Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, spent two days in China last week attempting to persuade Xi’s regime to hasten plans to curb carbon emissions. China’s Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi turned him down: “It is impossible for China-US climate co-operation to be elevated above the overall environment of China-US relations.”
In other words, we will engage on our terms, not yours. Biden’s America has yet to establish an effective way of dealing with Xi’s China. If this is indeed “the competition for the 21st century”, the US is going to have to get a lot more competitive.
www.watoday.com.au
Peter Hartcher
September 7, 2021 — 3.00am
One of Joe Biden’s main justifications for pulling out of Afghanistan was that America needed to concentrate its resources on China. The US, he said, had to win the “competition for the 21st century”. So how’s that going?
Two weeks ago, while Biden was sweating on the evacuation of Kabul, his Vice-President, Kamala Harris, travelled to south-east Asia to affirm American solidarity: “We need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims.”
A new Chinese law empowers the country’s coast guard to fire on vessels sailing through waters it claims.CREDIT:AP/FILE
Not fast enough. Just a few days later, while the world was still busy debating the last US humiliation in Afghanistan, Beijing quietly was constructing the next. Thumbing its nose at the US, at its neighbours, at the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. And daring the world to do something about it.
China’s Maritime Safety Administration announced the unilateral imposition of a new law requiring foreign shipping to give notice before entering any waters that it claims as its own. It purports to apply not only to military but also commercial shipping in all of China’s “territorial waters”.
The co-ordinates of such waters were not published as a matter of “deliberate ambiguity”, according to Professor Stuart Kaye of the Centre for Ocean Resources and Security at Wollongong University, “because then they would have to justify what they are claiming”.
But we do know that China’s definition includes vast swathes of the South China Sea, including territory claimed by five of its neighbours and one of the world’s most valuable commercial arteries, the shipping routes that are the trading lifeline for many nations including Australia, Japan, South Korea and China itself. Beijing also claims the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which it calls the Diaoyu, in the East China Sea.
China’s new law “would involve Beijing exercising a law where it shouldn’t under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea”, says Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Another law promulgated by Beijing this year authorised China’s coast guard vessels to open fire on foreign vessels. It has yet to be used.
In the meantime China has used a range of tactics to bully smaller neighbours, such as the massing of more than 200 large steel-hulled “fishing” vessels, lashed together in line formation while conducting no actual fishing, to occupy the Whitsun Reef that falls within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea. For months, Beijing ignored repeated demands from Manila that it end its “incursion”.
These are all part of Xi Jinping’s “grey zone” approach for conquest using all measures short of war.
Some have called it “salami slicing”. A Chinese proponent of the technique, Major-General Zhang Zhaozhong, described it as territorial acquisition “wrapped layer by layer, like a cabbage”, first by commercial vessels, then administrative ships, coast guard and ultimately China’s navy, buttressed by legal claims.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
In July, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said that “nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea. The People’s Republic of China continues to coerce and intimidate south-east Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.”
So what is the US doing about the new law, which China says will be enforced by fining foreign-flagged shipping and by other, unspecified means?
The Pentagon has signalled that it will ignore it. “Unlawful and sweeping maritime claims, including in the South China Sea, pose a serious threat to the freedom of the seas, including the freedoms of navigation and overflight, free trade and unimpeded lawful commerce,” said a spokesman last week.
Australia’s Defence Department, in effect, also shrugged off China’s demand: “It is important that any such requirements are consistent with international law, particularly UNCLOS,” said a spokesperson.
But that’s about it. Where does that leave the world’s shipping and trading industries? “Commercial shipping will have no alternative – they will have to accept it,” says the director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Peter Jennings. “Particularly if they’re not getting any backup from regional governments. It’s just another consolidation of [China’s] sovereign control.
“After Afghanistan, everything is now going to be seen as a test of the Biden administration to go beyond words to back up US security interests. Right now, everyone is holding their breath – just how serious are the Americans? I wish I could be more confident.”
He said that the annual Australia-US ministerial talks, AUSMIN, due in the next couple of weeks, would be “a litmus”. If there was no clear rejection of Beijing’s claim, it would become a fait accompli. Just as all its other incursions since 2015 have become.
At the same time, Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg implicitly has accepted China’s politically motivated trade sanctions as a permanent new feature.
He called on companies to better diversify exports. Not to rely on China but to export to “China plus” other markets. Australia, he said in a Monday speech, needs “to continue to find new ways to reinforce … resilience. Not just for now, but for the long term.”
The Biden administration said repeatedly that it would “not leave Australia alone on the field” in its confrontation with China. Comforting words. Yet US companies are taking advantage of China’s trade bans. As Australian sales of coal, beef and wine have slumped, American businesses are stepping theirs up.
What about the arena where the US and China were expected to co-operate – climate change? Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, spent two days in China last week attempting to persuade Xi’s regime to hasten plans to curb carbon emissions. China’s Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi turned him down: “It is impossible for China-US climate co-operation to be elevated above the overall environment of China-US relations.”
In other words, we will engage on our terms, not yours. Biden’s America has yet to establish an effective way of dealing with Xi’s China. If this is indeed “the competition for the 21st century”, the US is going to have to get a lot more competitive.
While the world was watching Kabul, Beijing set the scene for the next US humiliation
China has imposed a new law that challenges freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
