Beijing has accused Washington and other Western powers of turning the disputed South China Sea into a “fighting arena” and “hunting ground”, and urged nations in the region to help ward off foreign interference.
The appeal was made in a recorded message by Chinese Chancellor Wang Yi and sent to the ten member countries of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). It marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of a treaty between the club and Beijing to try to normalize relations in the maritime area that the communist dictatorship sees as a strategic backyard.
Wang avoided naming the US, saying that “some outside powers are deliberately escalating conflicts and provoking tensions, jeopardizing the legitimate rights and interests of coastal countries and the normal order at sea.”
“China and ASEAN must make their position clear: if you came in peace and cooperation, we welcome you; if you came for disruption and destruction, please leave,” he added, according to Chinese media.
Disputes over the South China Sea are at the heart of the Cold War 2.0 launched by the US to try to contain Chinese assertiveness in Asia-Pacific in 2017. Since then, so-called freedom of navigation operations have multiplied, according to which Western warships use routes in the region that Beijing considers its own.
Since 2014, the Chinese have militarized small atolls and islets in the sea, thus claiming ownership and consequent rights to territorial waters. Two years later, a complaint from the Philippines was accepted in a United Nations maritime court denying such a claim, but Beijing does not recognize the decision.
Already in the light of the War in Ukraine, NATO, the western military alliance, has put China at the center of its concerns for the first time by disclosing its new Strategic Concept for the next decade.
Since 2017, the alliance has been sending ships to the South China Sea in support of the US position – the UK is the most vocal of these allies, having even sailed its new aircraft carrier there last year. Earlier this month there was the most recent incident, with an American destroyer passing close to Chinese islands three times in a week.
Beijing and Washington periodically exchange accusations about the international status of the region’s waters. But the Chinese appeal will struggle to be heard by half of ASEAN members: the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam have disputes with the Chinese over parts of the region, particularly rich fishing and oil extraction areas.
The importance of the South China Sea is enormous for Beijing: about 80% of the oil and gas it consumes passes through the region’s sea lanes, as do most of its imports and exports. To lose control over it is to risk economic strangulation.
That is why moves such as the US military agreement with Australia and the UK, which aims to strengthen Canberra’s naval position with nuclear-powered submarines on the southern Chinese flank, are denounced by Beijing as unacceptable, for example.
At the other ultrasensitive point in the region’s seas, the Taiwan Strait, tension continues between the autonomous island and mainland China, which considers it its own and works for an absorption that could come by force.
On Monday, the largest annual simulation of a Chinese invasion began, the Han Kuang military exercise, which involves a high degree of realism, such as the use of live ammunition at sea. Dozens of F-16V fighter jets took off in simulated intercepts, an expanded version of what they already do every week against incursions by Chinese planes, which increasingly test the alertness of local defenses.
On Tuesday (26), President Tsai Ing-wen will oversee the live action aboard the destroyer Keeling, which commands another 20 ships in the island’s northeast region. The exercises coincide with the annual Wan An airstrike simulation. The thing is taken so seriously if someone is caught outside shelters while the sirens are on, they can pay fines of up to R$25,000.
