President Joe Biden’s Defense Department has created a taskforce to review US military relations with China and recommend any necessary changes. But what needs to be changed?
One of the first acts of US President Joe Biden’s Defense Department was to create a China task force to review its overall military approach to China and presumably recommend any necessary changes. This is sorely needed. US-China relations overall and those between their militaries are at a nadir, particularly regarding the South China Sea.
First and foremost, the US needs to reconsider its goals in the region and the South China Sea. The prime reason for the enhanced US military presence there is to maintain its regional hegemony and the ‘international order’ it helped build and now leads to its asymmetric advantage. Its diplomatic thrust was to paint China as the sole villain in destabilizing the situation. Continuation of this bellicose policy and approach invites kinetic conflict, a catastrophe that neither party – nor Southeast Asia – wants.
So far the Biden approach continues to put the military cart before the diplomatic horse. But this only begets tit-for-tat responses from China that increases militarization on both sides and frightens Southeast Asian countries that would suffer from any conflict. Biden’s initial continuation of a militarist approach may only be a holdover to strengthen the US bargaining position. Indeed, the White House is “not in a rush” regarding its China policy. Its current focus is on “communicating with allies and partners”. But any change in emphasis must begin soon or it will be widely viewed as a continuation of the pursuit of unsustainable hegemony and the counterproductive approach to it.
However, maintaining the leaking status quo in the South China Sea is also not acceptable to the US or to China’s rival claimants because it is inexorably evolving in China’s favor.
Biden’s appointment of Kurt Campbell as Indo-Pacific policy coordinator offers hope of a change in the goal and the approach to achieving it. He thinks there is “a real need for a balance of power; a need for a regional order recognized as legitimate; and the need for an allied and partner coalition to address China’s challenge to both”. Presumably Campbell favors more emphasis on ‘soft’ balancing – the use of economic and diplomatic tools to constrain a powerful state. Perhaps the US goal will change from primacy to maintaining presence and influence in the region while deterring coercion of its allies and partners. Campbell wants to “persuade China that there are benefits to a competitive but peaceful Indo-Pacific.” He and new National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have urged a policy of ‘competitive coexistence’ – ”accepting competition as a condition to be managed rather than solved”.
A change in goal would create the opportunity to put the diplomatic cart before the military horse – or at least in tandem with it. Campbell thinks the present situation could be reversed, but that it “will be challenging and require diplomatic finesse, commercial innovation, and institutional creativity, serious reengagement; an end to shaking down allies [and] skipping regional summits.”
What would be the main elements of a better approach?
To start with, the US should better choose the use of its military. It should not and probably cannot push back militarily against every violation by China of what it views as “the international order” in the South China Sea. It should switch the primary focus of its response to China’s intimidation of its rivals to economic and political sanctions – – rather than gunboats.
The US should dial down its rhetoric and “criticize the behavior, not the actor,” and especially refrain from attacking the leadership or the entire system of government as Pompeo did. Rather it should try to ‘persuade’ China that it can benefit from a “competitive but peaceful region” that offers a role for it in the regional order and a predictable commercial environment – provided it plays by the ‘rules’ that it has some influence in shaping.
The task force should reexamine the costs and benefits of US Freedom of Navigation Operations to determine if continuing them, especially repeating particular ones, are really worth the risk of confrontation and conflict. It should do the same for its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance probes (ISR) in China’s ‘near shore’ waters that China finds so provocative.
The U.S. needs to modify its position that conflates commercial freedom of navigation—which China is not threatening—with freedom of navigation for warships and warplanes. Most now see through this masquerade and that undercuts US claims of transparency and altruism. The task force needs to address the fact that the US is not a party to UNCLOS and that there are different interpretations of “freedom of navigation”. This would set the stage for negotiating its meanings and appropriate responses to violations thereof and then incorporating that understanding in the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea.
The U.S. should reopen military and back channel diplomatic communications. It is high time that they make clear their ‘red lines’ and their rational for them. For China, whose body politic has become increasingly nationalistic, any public national loss of face and resultant loss of respect for leadership could trigger a crossed ‘red line’ response. This might be a US military confrontation forcing a public climb down by China’s military, or an attack or blockade of its military installations on features it occupies.
The US ISR probes in the South China Sea detect, track and if necessary target China’s nuclear submarines that are its main deterrence against a first strike. China’s response has been to develop on some of the features it occupies the capability to neutralize these probes in time of conflict. So for China these installations are critical to its survival in a nuclear conflict with the U.S. and thus constitute a ‘redline’.
For the U.S., ‘redlines’ would include blatant violations of commercial freedom of navigation or an attack on the forces or territory of an ally like the Philippines or on Taiwan forces on Pratas. This also applies to a China attempt to occupy and build on Scarborough Shoal. Any attempt by China to enforce an Air Defense Identification Zone over disputed waters in the South China Sea might also qualify.
The U.S. needs to rebuild confidence in Southeast Asian countries that it respects them and their interests and that it can and will handle its differences with China competently and peacefully. For Southeast Asia as a whole, half the battle is just showing up. Trump did not. Biden needs to attend ASEAN summits; listen carefully; and offer, wherever he can, what they want –not solely what the U.S. wants. This will show respect and give face to the ASEAN leaders –a gesture sorely missing in the arrogant America First approach of the Trump administration.
The U.S. needs to keep ‘its eye on the prize’ – balancing–not primacy, war or withdrawal –at least for now. To do so it has to accommodate to some degree China’s legitimate international interests and aspirations by sharing power–when, on what issues, how, and how much are to be negotiated.
Achieving balance while fending off China’s aggressiveness, avoiding kinetic conflict and keeping Southeast Asia on board will require strong doses of Campbell’s “diplomatic finesse”. We will see if this approach – or one favoring the use of the military- will prevail.
Another version of this piece appeared in the South China Morning Post
Mark J. Valencia is an internationally known maritime policy analyst focused on Asia and currently Adjunct Senior Scholar at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Huayang Institute for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance, Sanya , China.
Comments
4 responses to “A better Biden approach in the South China Sea”
“So far the Biden approach continues to put the military cart before the diplomatic horse.”
I think this is just the default position that the US has been stuck in for years. Any emerging rival nation that could effect US geopolitical control is seen as a threat first and foremost, triggering an analysis driven by American paranoia concerning the scale of the threat, then that will be met with a plan for new weapons to cover the perceived threat if military action is needed. It has been doing this with China and within other regions of the world for years. The paranoia gets worse when any country inclines towards communism or socialism.
The US is totally out of line in the world, it invented its self-appointed status as the world’s bully, is nothing but a bully, and has been for at least 150 years.
Of course China gets the tag of being the bully and the aggressor, but it has always been obvious that their position is one of defence due to the same old imperialist players sticking their nose into its affairs. It’ s not going to sit there and accept Opium Wars 2.0. The absurdity of the US not being a member of UNCLOS, yet playing the self-appointed role of being its policeman is once again another piece of aggression from the US playing its war games so close to China.
The Chinese coastline is where its ports are, it is significant for a massive amount of trade, and the US pressure has been the main reason they developed the silk road part of the BRI as an alternative route if the SCS became blocked through conflict.
The fact is that US would never accept China hovering off the coast and playing war games anywhere near the US coastline. And in any case after many years of surveillance of Chinese waters, with many thousands of commercial ships sailing through the waters each year, none have had their freedom of navigation curtailed.
So it has never been anything but a symbol of American aggression and bullying, just as their attempt to control the Indian Ocean and Malacca Straits is planned as a way to block China from fulfilling its other half of the BRI.
Is there anything more aggressive than trying to cut off a country’s trade routes because it is an economic rival, and that the US’s vanity is breeched because they are no longer number one in the world? US talks tough but it is also paranoid, especially when the fearful right wing are in power. They act tough but that is driven through fear.
I expect (as you say) that Biden and America will cool it somewhat with China. Trump and Pompeo were an obnoxious pair that were hell bent on stupidly rubbing up China for their own egotistical bully-boy games in total ignorance of the country and the S.E. Asian region. America’s way or no way. The rhetoric was clearly racist and abusive from Trump. Things have already cooled down a bit, but Biden cannot be seen to be appeasing China. Particularly after the act he follows. He will also give it time and let things settle down further.
The fact is that the US is in such a mess the country will have to remain internally focussed and another war is totally unaffordable. Its people are locked into division while China’ s people are galvanised together. While the US falls apart China is on the rise and it enjoys a great deal of support from its people who by and large like where Xi Jinping has taken them. Its also clear that the US may fail in a war with China – it is not Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, and even the US could not thoroughly win wars in those places either.
China has become more nationalistic, and it has been creeping in that way for years. But it is only in response to US aggression and bullying – the US has no one else to blame except itself for that. US Nationalism reached an absurd peak under Trump as well, but the finger only ever gets pointed at China, US gets another free ride.
George, I actually do appreciate your continuing commentary about the true nature of US-China rivalry because it helps compensate at least in some ways the incredible illiteracy in this area among the general populace in Australia, including many in the albeit very diverse Chinese Australian community.
If Australians would only know half the real facts, perhaps then we would not be so blindly led by a bunch of jokers in Canberra who are doing and have done great damage to our Australian economic interests, as well as in a diplomatic, and ultimately in a long term strategic sense.
The Conversation website seems to have a much larger circulation than P&I. As a matter of interest, do you also share your knowledge and wisdom in that platform?
Thanks for the positive comments Man Lee.
I do see my natural purpose here to present the view from the other side because we never get a balanced view from the media here as you know. My interests in China go back a very long way and when I started to see the ongoing permanently negative commentary about the country, which was taking advantage of many Australians’ ignorance on all matters Chinese, I had to speak out, and I will continue to do so. In the beginning I was called a China-apologist etc., but I’m never called that now. I think people realise I back my arguments with fact and I try to be fair. It is why I rely on history, because that supplies the background what lazy journalists in this country avoid when making their biased cases.
The fact that one in five people of Chinese heritage here in Australia have suffered some form of racist attack, either verbal or physical, is something I find appalling. I do not like the direction my country is taking under the Liberals, and I am abhorred by the prospect of war on China because it is not a country that even deserves it. It is not an aggressor, but acting in defence.
I’m not Chinese, but have acquired a deep respect for China, and Chinese people, and that has only come from informing myself about what China really constitutes today and the history behind what made it such an extraordinary country. I’ve also seen America concoct wars going back to Vietnam that were only ever about US paranoia and military-industry profits, and their knee jerk response to be the world’s permanent bully. The US even survived WWII making a profit. No one else did.
While I hold much respect for Americans that criticise their own country, US administrations are so connected to the war machine that they are partially insane, and psychopathic. Shoot first, ask questions later.
I read The Conversation on occasion, so I’ll look at contributing there as well at your request. I guess this site has been good for me in that John Menadue allows the kinds of views I argue for, and this is one site where actual real freedom of speech is allowed.
I’m always very happy to take advice from Chinese people living in Australia (or elsewhere) and use my skills in argument that I have acquired to unite, rather than divide. There is so much at stake here.
“A change in goal would create the opportunity to put the diplomatic cart before the military horse” – this is the key to getting world peace starting in the SCS. Puting the military horse before he diplomatic card is just regurgitation and anything built on this false foundation will collapse – and ultimately leads to war. In the Aussie lingo, we called it “arse up’.in doing things. There is no light coming from the American side of the tunnel, and time for us to dig our own and find a light source.