

December 8, 2014 Topic: South China SeaMilitary Strategy Region: China






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What’s remarkable about these two confrontations is that they both were fought at a time when a power vacuum was swelling in the region, with the United States withdrawing at the time of the first, and the Soviet Union pulling out at that of the second. In both events, China also enjoyed the acquiescence of the United States, the most powerful actor in the larger Asia-Pacific region. As a result, the military clashes caused little diplomatic repercussions.

The second imperative is well reflected in Beijing’s choice of places to occupy in the disputed areas. When China competed with Vietnam for a foothold in the Spratly Islands during 1988, it traded quantity for quality. It took six reefs as opposed to eleven by Hanoi. But five of the six are among the most strategic features in the archipelago.

China’s first choice in the Spratly Islands was Fiery Cross Reef, one of the best in the archipelago in terms of a combination of location and the potential for land reclamation. The atoll occupies an ideal spot at the western gateway into the Spratly Islands and is one of the few Spratly islands that are most exposed to the main transoceanic shipping routes passing through the South China Sea. Its location not too far from, but not too close to, the other island groups reduces its vulnerability and enlarges its sphere of influence. Adding to these advantages, Fiery Cross Reef occupies an area of 110 square kilometers, one of the largest in the Spratly Islands.

Four of the remaining five—Subi Reef, Gaven Reef, Johnson South Reef and Cuarteron Reef—lie at the edge of four different island groups, from where they can control a large maritime area and the key waterways into the Spratly Islands. The two land features that China later added to its possessions also boast immense strategic values. Mischief Reef, which China surreptitiously took from the Philippines in late 1994 or January 1995, lies at the center of the eastern wing of the Spratly Islands and close to the water highways that run along the eastern South China Sea. Scarborough Shoal, which China captured in 2012 with the help of small-stick and double-dealing diplomacy, presides over the northeastern quadrant of the South China Sea and is an ideal outpost to watch the major shipping routes through the region.

With its control of the Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal and several strategically located lands in the Spratly archipelago, China is far more advantaged than any other countries to command what Robert Kaplan has characterized as “the throat of global sea routes.” For example, Woody Islands (the largest feature in the Paracels), Fiery Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and Scarborough Shoal form a four-point constellation from which, with a radius of only 250 nautical miles, the entire main body of the South China Sea can be kept under intense watch.

This means that all it takes for China to become the lord of the South China Sea is to develop these assets into robust platforms that can provide both logistic support for a myriad of fishing boats, government vessels, submarines and aircraft to dominate the sky and the water of the region, and some grounds for generating large economic and security zones.

This is precisely what Beijing is doing. An uninhabited sandbank sixty years ago, Woody Island now has roughly 1,000 residents, military and civilian alike. Its dual-use facilities include a 2,700-meter airport with a runway and a parallel taxiway, which is capable of handling eight or more fourth-generation aircrafts such as SU-30MKK fighters and JH-7 bombers, and a 1,000-meter long deep-water port, which can accommodate vessels of 5,000 tons or more.

Down south in the Spratly Islands, starting in 2013, China has also been conducting massive construction projects to turn the rocks it occupies into islands. According to Taiwan’s top intelligence official Lee Hsiang-chou, Chinese president Xi Jinping has approved plans to reclaim land to build military installations on five islets here, including Cuarteron Reef, Johnson South Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef and Fiery Cross Reef.