Throughout a June 17 speech on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research in Washington, U.S. Pacific Fleet commander Adm. Steve Koehler declared that regardless of an ongoing marketing campaign of intimidation towards its smaller neighbors within the South China Sea, “China’s strain will not be working nicely. It has did not intimidate Southeast Asian claimants and make them give up their sovereign rights.”
Koehler detailed examples of Chinese language harassment and violence over the past yr towards Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and particularly the Philippines, however famous that in every case, the Southeast Asian states have refused to again down. The admiral echoed this evaluation the next month in a speech in Manila on the anniversary of the Philippines’ 2016 arbitral victory in The Hague, which dominated most of Beijing’s maritime claims within the South China Sea unlawful.
That China is faltering would possibly shock informal observers of the South China Sea disputes, nevertheless it matches the out there proof. China’s efforts to ascertain management over the ocean have plateaued over the past 4 years. That got here after almost a decade of regular positive factors. The technique that gained Beijing management over a lot of the physique of water, regardless of the illegality of its claims, was centered on a marketing campaign of intimidation and non-lethal pressure, usually dubbed “grey zone” coercion. That marketing campaign is not working however the Xi Jinping regime is unwilling, and sure unable, to just accept that actuality and search compromise with its Southeast Asian neighbors. The result’s a harmful cycle of brinksmanship, however one that isn’t delivering outcomes for Beijing. To assist Southeast Asian companions, particularly the Philippines, stay resilient and deter Beijing from navy escalation, the US ought to observe via with plans to strengthen pressure posture and help the navy modernization of companions within the area.
Successes within the Grey Zone
Shortly after his ascension in 2013, Xi laid out his strategic imaginative and prescient to realize the “China Dream,” or “nice rejuvenation of the Chinese language nation.” In that speech, he emphasised China’s rise as a maritime energy and the significance of recovering what he and different Chinese language leaders deemed “misplaced” territories within the East and South China Seas. A yr prior, Chinese language legislation enforcement and militia vessels seized management of Scarborough Shoal, an atoll that had been underneath Philippine management for many years. As vp on the time, Xi had a significant hand in that effort. In hindsight, these two moments — Xi’s speech and the seizure of Scarborough — signaled vital shifts in Beijing’s pursuit of its territorial and maritime ambitions. Underneath Xi, the Chinese language Communist Get together would deliberately elevate the political salience of the South China Sea disputes, making compromise an ever extra distant prospect, and pursue its claims with a a lot larger urge for food for threat.
The Folks’s Republic of China has claimed sovereignty over all of the islands, rocks, and reefs of the South China Sea, together with the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, and Scarborough Shoal, since inheriting that declare from Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist authorities on the conclusion of the Chinese language Civil Battle greater than seven a long time in the past. However Beijing’s declare to “historic rights” over all of the waters, seabed, and airspace of the South China Sea in clear contravention of worldwide legislation is newer, having developed in phases for the reason that Nineteen Eighties. At the moment, the Chinese language authorities calls for that or not it’s allowed to control all financial, navy, and legislation enforcement exercise throughout the South China Sea to a distance of roughly 1,000 nautical miles from its southern coast.
Since 2012, China’s legislation enforcement, naval, and militia forces have labored hand in glove to increase Beijing’s management over a lot of the waters, seabed, and airspace within the South China Sea. These successes have been made doable by China’s island constructing marketing campaign from late 2013 via 2016. Earlier than then, Chinese language vessels have been a uncommon sight within the southern reaches of the ocean. However by 2017, the naval, air, and sensor infrastructure on the island bases allowed the China Coast Guard and militia to maintain operations 800 or extra nautical miles from the Chinese language coast.
The China Coast Guard has been probably the most seen arm of Beijing’s marketing campaign of coercion towards its neighbors, sustaining an virtually day by day presence at reefs that China deems strategically or symbolically vital throughout the unique financial zones of Southeast Asian claimants. The coast guard makes use of two of those reefs — Luconia Shoals and Vanguard Financial institution — as staging grounds to harass close by oil and gasoline drilling by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Its different most popular patrol areas — Scarborough Shoal, Second Thomas Shoal, and Thitu Island — give attention to harassing the Philippines. It has blocked Filipino entry to Scarborough since 2012, harassed and typically blockaded Filipino troops stationed at Second Thomas since 2014, and has maintained a continuing presence round Philippine-occupied Thitu since 2018.
The coast guard is supported in these efforts by what China calls “maritime militia fishing vessels” (haishang minbing yuchuan). These ships, numbering within the a whole lot, are function constructed, principally state-owned, and totally funded by native, provincial, and central governments. They harass international authorities and civilian ships, deliberately creating dangers of collision and sometimes shouldering and ramming Southeast Asian legislation enforcement vessels, whereas working alongside the Chinese language coast guard and navy. They’re a part of China’s nationwide militia, which China’s Navy Service Regulation defines as a reserve part of the armed forces. China’s different maritime service, the Folks’s Liberation Military Navy, usually lingers behind the coast guard and militia as an implicit menace.
Beijing has to date restricted its Coast Guard and militia vessels to the “grey zone” beneath the usage of deadly pressure. China assesses that it may obtain management of the South China Sea via strain and non-lethal coercion alone. This may keep away from the unpredictable escalation dynamics and worldwide condemnation more likely to observe any intentional use of deadly pressure towards one other claimant. And for almost a decade this technique labored: Southeast Asian claimants buckled underneath strain time and again.
The China Coast Guard expelled Southeast Asians from conventional fishing grounds, particularly within the case of Filipino business fishers round Scarborough Shoal, whereas state-backed Chinese language fishers freely operated as far south as Indonesia. Threats of pressure compelled the Philippines to forego offshore oil and gasoline exploration whereas a lot of the international operators in Vietnam’s offshore power trade deserted their tasks or noticed them canceled by Hanoi. Chinese language authorities survey ships, in the meantime, mapped the seabed belonging to its neighbors with impunity because of coast guard and militia safety.
Regardless of all this exercise, China’s sample of grey zone success within the South China Sea has stalled, and in some circumstances reversed, since 2021.
A Faltering Technique
China is in no larger management of the South China Sea in the present day than it was 4 years in the past. In some areas, it has even misplaced floor to different claimants. The disputes are actually centered on areas of specific symbolic, strategic, or financial worth to Southeast Asian governments, and at which they’re keen to just accept a point of threat to face as much as China. And so they have found that they will, in truth, stand as much as grey zone strain. China, a minimum of to date, stays unwilling to escalate to deadly pressure regardless of its setbacks within the grey zone. The end result has been a cycle of escalations, during which Chinese language commanders ordered to keep away from navy pressure confront Southeast Asian counterparts with ever-more harmful and supposedly non-lethal ways, together with ramming, high-pressure water cannons, dazzlers (military-grade lasers), and acoustic gadgets. Upon failure, they partially de-escalate solely to have the cycle start anew elsewhere.
Oil and gasoline exploration is a crucial however missed instance of Southeast Asia’s current successes, as Koehler highlighted. Within the latter half of 2021, Indonesia performed exploratory drilling within the Tuna block, an oil and gasoline concession on the southern edges of the South China Sea. Beijing responded by deploying coast guard vessels to stymie the operation, the primary time Chinese language forces had bodily harassed Indonesian oil and gasoline actions. Jakarta deployed its personal legislation enforcement and naval ships to guard the drilling. The standoff lasted three months however Indonesia accomplished the operation as scheduled.
Additionally in 2021, Vietnam started to push again extra forcefully on the oil and gasoline entrance. It greenlit new drilling within the Nam Con Son subject close to Vanguard Financial institution, which supplies a considerable quantity of electrical energy for Ho Chi Minh Metropolis. As with Indonesia, the China Coast Guard deployed to harass the operations. Vietnam despatched its personal vessels to guard the drilling, which proceeded as scheduled. The continued operations at Nam Con Son and the Tuna block are why the China Coast Guard now maintains an virtually day by day presence at Vanguard Financial institution. Nevertheless, China has nothing to indicate for that effort. In October 2024, Indonesia started exploratory drilling at one other close by subject with the identical end result: the China Coast Guard deployed, Indonesian ships sailed out to guard the operation, and the drilling went forward.
Malaysia has by far the most important and most worthwhile offshore oil and gasoline trade within the South China Sea. China Coast Guard vessels have been patrolling Luconia Shoals to harass these operations since late 2013. That had some successes, for example in disrupting drilling operations on the Malaysian prolonged continental shelf in 2020. However Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas has since launched into an bold growth of its offshore operations, most significantly at a gasoline subject known as Kasawari. Together with day by day coast guard patrols, a diplomatic letter leaked in September 2024 revealed that China has been placing appreciable political strain on Kuala Lumpur to halt this work. Malaysia however drilled a report 25 offshore wells in 2023 and one other 15 in 2024.
Current Chinese language-Philippine tensions present Beijing’s technique failing in a extra spectacular, and harmful, style. After years of accommodating Chinese language calls for, the Philippine navy and coast guard are patrolling disputed waters extra and the federal government is talking up publicly when confronted with Chinese language harassment. The administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., which took energy in July 2022, has reestablished coast guard patrols close to Scarborough Shoal for the primary time since 2012. The Philippines has additionally bolstered its navy posture within the Spratlys, particularly round Thitu, by upgrading infrastructure each within the islands and at bases in Palawan and Luzon that facilitate surveillance, patrol, and resupply missions. This navy modernization and political willingness to step up patrols has prompted pushback from the China Coast Guard and militia, together with extra frequent ramming, unsafe air intercepts, and non-lethal pressure measures corresponding to water sprayings and dazzlers. Regardless of this, the Philippines has been undeterred.
From February 2023 to August 2024, the China Coast Guard and militia tried to blockade Second Thomas Shoal the place the Philippines maintains a tenuous navy presence aboard the grounded BRP Sierra Madre. The Philippines had decided that the ship was in determined want of restore and started bringing in building provides, giving an excuse for the blockade. The variety of Chinese language ships across the shoal grew to round 50 by December 2023 and their ways grew progressively extra violent. Coast guard and militia vessels have a monitor report of navigating recklessly round international fishing, legislation enforcement, naval, and oil and gasoline vessels within the South China Sea, deliberately creating dangers of collision. At Second Thomas, that escalated to intentional shouldering and ramming on a month-to-month foundation in 2023 and early 2024, at instances by a number of Chinese language vessels directly, and it focused each Philippine authorities and civilian ships. The coast guard additionally employed deck-mounted excessive strain water cannons. Positioning two coast guard ships to hit a Philippine vessel from either side concurrently turned a favourite tactic, usually shattering home windows, injuring crew (together with, in a single case, an admiral) and drowning the focused vessel’s engines. The coast guard and militia additionally made occasional use of dazzlers and acoustic gadgets to blind and disorient Filipino sailors. However regardless of the intimidation, each month-to-month Philippine resupply mission to the Sierra Madre made it via the blockade.
In June 2024, this experimentation with grey zone ways got here to a head. The Philippine navy deployed inflexible hulled inflatable boats to maneuver round China’s vessels and ship provides to the Sierra Madre. The China Coast Guard dispatched its personal inflexible hulled inflatable boats to deliberately ram the Philippine vessels after which threatened the Filipinos with knives and different weapons. Through the incident, a Filipino sailor turned pinned between two boats and misplaced his thumb. Discussions with senior U.S. and Philippine officers point out that China realized how shut its supposedly “non-lethal” grey zone ways had come to triggering potential U.S. intervention underneath its Mutual Protection Treaty with the Philippines. Quickly after, China and the Philippines agreed to a provisional association to deescalate tensions across the shoal. Manila agreed, having completed its major objective of repairing the Sierra Madre. Beijing completed nothing.
Its conduct at Second Thomas additionally worsened the strategic atmosphere for China. It accelerated the once-in-a-generation modernization of the U.S.-Philippine alliance, which has been underway since late 2021. The standoff facilitated larger Philippine integration into an rising regional safety structure. Manila and Tokyo concluded a Reciprocal Entry Settlement in July 2023 to permit joint coaching and workouts. Comparable agreements have been accomplished in early 2025 with New Zealand and Canada. And one other with France will quickly observe. A brand new trilateral framework among the many United States, Japan, and the Philippines has emerged alongside a quadrilateral association, typically dubbed the “Squad,” together with Australia. And on the diplomatic stage, Manila has leveraged the aggression it endured to influence 28 international locations and counting to publicly demand Beijing adjust to the 2016 arbitral award that threw out most of China’s maritime claims.
Tough Seas Forward?
China is unlikely to regulate its technique as long as Xi is in energy. He has embedded a maximalist interpretation of maritime claims — that every one the South China Sea belongs to China by historic proper — and made (re)claiming that supposedly “misplaced” territory a key part of his China Dream. That makes compromise unlikely, which is especially harmful as a result of as he has consolidated energy, Chinese language authorities determination making has grown more and more rigid. Nobody within the Chinese language authorities has any incentive to provide sincere suggestions to the middle if issues go south. And until Xi himself realizes that and orders a shift in technique, the more than likely path for China within the South China Sea is one among inertia. That can imply an ongoing cycle of grey zone escalations that may, finally, result in mounting dangers of the lack of life, as averted solely narrowly at Second Thomas final June. Ought to that occur to a Filipino, Manila would possibly name on Washington to behave to “meet the frequent hazard” as required by their alliance. Whereas this needn’t entail quick armed battle between China and the US, it will require some American response. This might contain naval patrols close to the Spratlys or elevated deployments to the Philippines, probably frightening a counter-response by China.
Even worse can be for China to find out that grey zone coercion had failed and that escalating to navy pressure can be a suitable threat. That’s solely possible if Beijing deems U.S. involvement unlikely or infeasible. So within the quick and medium time period, it is going to be incumbent upon the US and Philippines to strengthen the credibility of their alliance. The U.S. authorities ought to proceed to reiterate that the treaty applies to any assault on Filipino forces, together with the coast guard, within the South China Sea. It ought to observe via on plans to improve Philippine navy services and rotate U.S. forces, together with intermediate vary fires, via the archipelago. And it ought to improve bilateral patrols with the Philippines and multilateral patrols alongside Australian, Japanese, and different allied forces within the South China Sea, whereas offering ongoing help for the modernization of the Philippine armed forces. That’s the finest hope of sustaining the delicate establishment till Xi or, extra possible his successor, sees the writing on the wall and seeks compromise.
Gregory Poling directs the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research and is the creator of On Harmful Floor: America’s Century within the South China Sea.
Picture: Philippine Coast Guard by way of Wikimedia Commons
