Poor Little China

I don’t think that there’s going to be a meeting of minds between China and the U. S. over the South China Sea if Ankit Panda’s op-ed at South China Morning Post is any gauge of how analysts are thinking about the situation. In it he paints a picture of the U. S. as aggressor against poor little China, e.g. “freedom of navigation” exercises, multiple ships, disinviting China from naval exercises, renaming USPACOM to the “United States Indo-Pacific Command” (the horror!).

The op-ed makes some serious omissions. For example, that China’s claims to the Spratly Islands are mostly made up or, more precisely, if the U. S. used the same standard the Chinese are all of the world’s waters would be U. S. territorial waters because there probably isn’t an inch of ocean that hasn’t been fished by American fishermen at one time or another and American seamen have washed up all over the place. By the end of the 19th century there were 3,000 fishing trawlers commissioned in the United Kingdom alone. British, American, and Portuguese fishmen fished all over the world.

The Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, and Vietnam have all expressed concerns about Chinese expansionism and in general they’ve been more worried about Washington being too passive than too aggressive.

China’s problem is that time is not on its side. Vietnam, Malaysia, and Philippines are growing, not declining not to mention India and China’s own demographics are against it. What should happen to defuse tensions in the region? China should recognize that, although it will be a regional superpower, it’s not the only country in the region and the other countries have interests, too. What will happen? Beats the heck out of me.