Asia's Cauldron Read Online Free

particularly blunt during an off-the-record conversation I had in 2011, saying, “The Chinese never give justifications for their claims. They have a real Middle Kingdom mentality, and are dead set against taking these disputes to court. China,” this official went on, “denies us our right on our own continental shelf. But we will not be treatedlike Tibet or Xinjiang.” This official said that China is as tough with a country like the Philippines as it is with Vietnam, because while the latter is historically and geographically in a state of intense competition with China, the former is just a weak state that can be intimidated. “There are just too many claimants to the waters in the South China Sea. The complexity of the issues mitigates against an overall solution, so China simply waits until it becomes stronger. Economically, all these countries will come to be dominated by China,” the official continued, unless of course the Chinese economy itself unravels. Once China’s underground submarine base is completed on Hainan Island, “China will be more able to do what it wants.” Meanwhile, more American naval vessels are visiting the area, “so the disputes are being internationalized.” Because there is no practical political or judicial solution, “we support the status quo.”
    â€œIf that fails, what is Plan B for dealing with China?” I asked.
    â€œPlan B is the U.S. Navy—Pacific Command. But we will publicly remain neutral in any U.S.-China dispute.” To make certain that I got the message, this official said: “An American military presence is needed to countervail China, but we won’t vocalize that.” The withdrawal of even one U.S. aircraft carrier strike group from the Western Pacific is a “game changer.”
    In the interim, the South China Sea has become an armed camp, even as the scramble for reefs is mostly over. China has confiscated twelve geographical features, Taiwan one, the Vietnamese twenty-one, the Malaysians five, and the Philippines nine. In other words, facts have already been created on the ground. Perhaps there can still be sharing arrangements for the oil and natural gas fields. But here it is unclear what, for instance, countries with contentious claims coupled with especially tense diplomatic relations like Vietnam and China will agree upon.
    Take the Spratlys, with significant oil and natural gas deposits, which are claimed in full by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and in part by Malaysia, the Philippines, and Brunei. China has built concrete helipads and military structures on seven reefs and shoals. On Mischief Reef, which China occupied under the nose of the Philippinenavy in the 1990s, China has constructed a three-story building and five octagonal concrete structures, all for military use. On Johnson Reef, China put up a structure armed with high-powered machine guns. Taiwan occupies Itu Aba Island, on which it has constructed dozens of buildings for military use, protected by hundreds of troops and twenty coastal guns. Vietnam occupies twenty-one islands on which it has built runways, piers, barracks, storage tanks, and gun emplacements. Malaysia and the Philippines, as stated, have five and nine sites respectively, occupied by naval detachments. 11 Anyone who speculates that with globalization, territorial boundaries and fights for territory have lost their meaning should behold the South China Sea.
    China’s position vis-à-vis the South China Sea is akin to America’s position vis-à-vis the Caribbean Sea in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The United States recognized the presence and claims of European powers in the Caribbean, but sought to dominate the region, nevertheless. It was the Spanish-American War of 1898, fought primarily over Cuba, as well as the digging of the Panama Canal from 1904 to 1914, that signaled the arrival of the United States as a world power. This