Restructuring the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC): Philippine Prospects for Regional Collective Defense and Stronger Military Relations

The main point of the article is that the ongoing conflict in the South China Sea threatens US-China relations and, if not resolved, will lead to instability in the region. The author’s solution to this is that leaders of both countries work together to achieve a better understanding of the concerns coming from both sides, as well as lay out consequences for certain actions and to commit themselves to avoiding further escalation. This is tricky because neither country wants to look like it is giving in to the other, but at the same time some concessions must be made. Recently, China announced they would be shifting away from the dredging of land towards the construction of military bases and other facilities for civilian use. “China unilaterally started the land reclamation and now China is unilaterally stopping it…China is showing that—as a major power—it can control escalation, that it has the initiative, and that it can do what it sees fit for its interests.” This is a way for them to de-escalate the tension with the US while reassuring their citizens that they did not bow to American military pressure. A Chinese official stated that the reclamation efforts were necessary because China was feeling insecure about enhanced US defense cooperation with other nations such as the Philippines . Allowing Japan to go on joint patrol of the South China Sea has also aggravated China. The article makes a good point that Japan has no territorial claims to the region, and its security

Mr. President it’s been an ongoing territorial dispute between Japan and China over isolated islands and has been going on for decades but lately tensions have escalated. The problems that had manifested are the control for the maritime resources, the military balance of power in Asia. Also, we know the distrust between Japan and China because of activism, and the need for power. We should get involved because these are our allies and we don’t want china to take advance of japan because their military is more strong and advance. Rightful these islands belong to Japan because we took it from them as post during world war 2. China’s leaders are hoping to increase their military more in the east china seas. Because we are the united states of America will have to do something I think we should let these countries share these islands and to make sure one country don’t try to take control one the islands we send more navy sailors to sail the water to make sure these countries are comprosiming. We can’t let them work it out because we did that for years and the situation is getting worse, china military is advance rapidly and because japan changed their constitution, them spend more money on their self-defense force. We can’t sit back and do nothing so we should do something before their military forces get stronger. We already have troops in these islands because alongside with our allies

Since September 2015, China has begun to increase the arming of the islands in the South China Sea on the islands that China claims belongs to them. The claiming of the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands by China are creating panic for its neighbors, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Because, China is ignoring the claims the nations have on the Islands in the South China Sea. Most recently, China has made a political decision to deploy missiles on Woody Island in the South China Sea, an island that is very close to the Philippines and Taiwan. China claims that the island belongs only to China and no one else, but there are Vietnamese, Philippine, and Taiwanese claims on the islands in the South China Sea as well that China is ignoring that is creating unrest in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile in southern part of its territory several maritime dispute disputes began to attract China’s attention. During early decade of 1990s, China had just ratified United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS 1982) in 1992. The ratification is going to allow China to claim 200 nautical miles as its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and could exploit oil and gas located in South China Sea basin. Beside that, the growing tension because of Taiwan’s independence in 1990 had significantly altered China focus to the South and modernization its military force. Geopolitical nature of the potential maritime conflict in the south had forced China to modernize its naval power (Storey 2008: 115).

From the beginning of his presidency, President Obama determined that increasing our strategic focus on the Asia-Pacific Region and rebalance our national power and resources toward this region. This shift from the war footing in Iraq and Afghanistan to an increased peace and stability in East Asia was determined to be in the best national interests of the United States in the 2015 National Security Strategy. This strategic shift would have two major focus areas. First, the United States would focus on peace and stability in East Asia through sustained commitment to our traditional allies; second, we would build a cooperative, constructive relationship with China that addressed our differences. China’s aggressive actions in the East China Sea have tested the viability of this strategy. China declared a zone in this area that included the Senkaku Islands which Japan also claims as its own territory. While the United States has stated that it is a sovereignty dispute and will not take an official position, it stands by our allies in the region directly affected by this action; Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The United States must apply a strategic approach in pursuit our four enduring national interests:

As of today, China has expanded and built over seven artificial islands in the South China Sea since 2014. The South China Sea has recently come to be a major problem in Asia as issues have risen over who has rights of passage and claims in this area. The Chinese of recent have been making territorial claims in the South China Sea that are in areas of free passage for many other Asian countries and the United States. In October 2015, a U.S. guided missile destroyer encountered one of the artificial islands and China’s response was that it would “take any measure” to maintain its security in “their territory”. The Chinese have been questioned in the Permanent Court of Arbitration by the Philippines after claiming rights to historical locations in the South China Sea, which violates sovereign rights of the Philippines, yet China responded to this outcome with refusal and has continued to advance itself in the territory causing huge disputes with its neighboring countries as freedom of navigation has been compromised through China’s actions.. In order to guarantee resolution and maintain the freedom of navigation aspect of international law there needs to be a foreign policy put in place that puts more United States military in the South China Sea with support from disputing countries like Japan and the Philippines as a way to make the issue multilateral and law abiding.

In July 2013, Wenweipo - the pro-PRC Chinese-language newspaper published an article titled “Six Wars China is sure to fight in the next 50 years”. According to this article, after unification of Taiwan (year 2020 to 2025), China will take the second war: Reconquest of Spratly Islands (year 2025 to 2030) and “China will send the ultimatum to countries surrounding the Islands with the deadline of 2028. The countries having disputes on the sovereignty of Islands can negotiate with China on preserving their shares of investments in these Islands by giving up”. In 1999, two Chinese military colonels – authors of the book namely “Unlimited War” suggested using an “unlimited war” to solve the disputing in the South China Sea. These authors said that, to avoid a war does not mean that not using military force and a conflict is indispensable. However, there is one more important thing that to control the intensities of conflict that. It is necessary to conduct some special activities to prove the sovereignty of China in the disputing Spratly Islands but do not let this activities increase to the total war. These things prove that the potential war between Vietnam and China in the future could be come true.

The dispute over the South China Sea denotes the process of power rebalancing while China rising as a hegemony in East Asia. China craves for more resources and power and decides to effectuate that by controlling more maritime territory. This act impelled the United State to align with the Philippines to balance with China. In a realism world, U.S. has adequate reason to intervene for fear for China becoming too strong a power.

The territorial and maritime disputes over the South China Sea (SCS) have been ongoing for decades. The disputes have been considered to be one the fiercest-contested in Asia. The South China Sea is an enclosed sea surrounded by several different states. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Taiwan, and Malaysia all surrounded the South China Sea. The main cause of tension in this dispute is because China claims to have “historical sovereignty” over all of the South China Sea. Associations of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have come up with different discussions and suggestions on how to end the disputes with favorable conditions for all contending states. They use the principles of the United Nation Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and form the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). The states surrounding the South China Sea possess 12 nautical miles territorial sea and 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zones (EEZs). Thus, the South China Sea is not only international waters, instead, it is also overlapping exclusive economic zones. According to UNCLOS, disputes over exclusive economic zones must be resolved through negotiations by the contending states. Many of these contending Southeast Asian states have negotiated their maritime boundaries, however, China fails to comply. China claims that it owns all of the South China Sea, and therefore, has no need to

The ongoing dispute in the South China Sea between the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the various littoral states (Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines) has been a topic of intense debate and observation in the international community. While each of the littoral states attempts to enforce and control the 200 nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) allotted to them by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the PRC is claiming much of the South China Sea for itself—roughly 90 percent—on the basis of a Kuomintang map from 1947 (Fensom, 2016). This “nine-dash line” extends well beyond the 200-nm limit and into the EEZ’s of the respective littoral states. These claims include the Paracel Islands, which the PRC clashed with Vietnam over in the 1970s; Scarborough Shoal, a coral atoll and lagoon west of the Philippines; and the Spratly Islands, a large collection of small, uninhabited islands, reefs, and sandbars on the southern edge of the South China Sea. Additionally, the PRC claims EEZs on its occupied features, despite the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s (PCA) ruling that all the Spratly Island features are “rocks” and therefore are not entitled to EEZs (Permanent Court of Arbitration, 2016). Chinese control of these features would allow them to effectively control the entire South China Sea. A third of all global maritime trade—over 5 trillion dollars annually—passes through this region, along with over 60% of Japan’s

In modern times, the Philippines has been a central ally in the United States’ Asian and Pacific policies. The government structure is similar to that of the United States, including a legislative, judicial, executive branch that independent in their roles. Since becoming a nation independent from the United States, the Philippines has seen its share of success and failure. In the past three years the government has dealt with natural disasters, terrorism, and Chinese aggression. While the Philippine and United States governments have generally been cordial and cooperative, the Philippine president is currently weighing the decision to cut ties with the United States and align his country with China.

In the Western Pacific, the South China Sea is a global crossroads that holds strategic importance for many nations world wide. The South China Sea stretches from the Taiwan and Luzon Straits in the north to Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca in the south with Vietnam on the west and the Philippines and Borneo on the east. In total size, the South China Sea surpasses the Mediterranean Sea. However, unlike this Near-Eastern comparator, territorial disputes and conflicting claims threaten the movement of global trade through the South China Sea, thus unbalancing regional stability in the Asia-Pacific. Claimants include the bordering coastal countries of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan), the

The maritime claims and sovereign claims of China in the South China Sea through the nine-dash line must comply with the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (Rapp-Hooper, 2016, 78). “China had historic rights to the South China Sea through the nine-dash line until it ratified the UNCLOS in 1996” (Rapp-Hooper, 2016, 78). China is bound to follow the international law to defend its sovereign rights despite the tribunal in the Hague ruling in favour of the Philippines (Rapp-Hooper, 2016, 81).

The following section will discuss what key drivers that have caused China to initiative the OBOR initiative. The next section will analyse the kind of implications OBOR has on the security in the Southeast Asia region, in particular the South China Sea. The final section will tie in the South China Sea discussion to examine the responses of CLMV. This essay will argue that the OBOR initiative can only go so far as to what other countries allow it to do, since without their authorisation China will be limited in what the Initiative can do.

Although the South China Sea is located between many countries that claim parts of its waters, it is generally agreed that the sea covers the Spratly islands and the waters surrounding them. The South China Sea lies home to many lucrative resources such as fish and the possibility of oil, but perhaps its most powerful and compelling resource is its location and status as a popular transportation route for trade vessels. A recent study by the SAIS review of International Affairs