Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 3, No. 6, June 2015.
Priscilla A. Tacujan, Ph.D.
Independent Consultant
By now, it should be clear to everyone that China is not giving up its maritime claims in the South China Sea. Despite pending international court decisions and worldwide condemnations, China has aggressively reclaimed about 2,000 acres of land in the South China Sea — proof of its intent to stay, defend, and protect 90% of the sea that it claims it owns. Indeed, when State Secretary John Kerry asked China to halt its reclamation activities during his visit to Beijing last week, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s response was as revealing as it was firm: China’s determination “to safeguard its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the South China Sea is as firm as a rock, and it is unshakable.”[i]
According to the Pentagon’s Annual Report to Congress (2015) on China’s growing military presence on the high seas, China has started infrastructure projects on four reclamation sites that “could include harbors, communications and surveillance systems, logistics support, and at least one airfield,” prompting most analysts to believe that Beijing is attempting “to change facts on the ground.” In his remarks during a US-Japan relations conference held in Washington DC last month, Admiral Dennis Blair, Chairman of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (USA), described China’s current “gray zone strategy” as “an administrative, civilian and sub-military strategy” that is intended to create a new territorial jurisdiction, hence, de facto control, over the South China Sea.[ii] With this strategy, China would be able to create “a defensive sea barrier extending hundreds of miles from China’s coast to what it calls ‘the first island chain.”[iii]