China’s inexplicable policies in the South China Sea

Everyone is making claims to the islands in the South China Sea. China’s 9 dash line claims it meeting overlapping claims by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. Until the dispute is settled, the claimant countries are trying their best to enforce their claims by exerting control of the seas with their patrol boats. No clear cut answers would be appearing in the near horizon.

The biggest teething problem is not land reclamation but the presence of fishing boats in the disputed seas. Chinese fishing boats, Vietnamese, Filipinos, Thais, Malaysians and Indonesians have often been caught by the patrol boats of respective countries, some held for ransom, some blown to pieces.

Chinese fishing boats appear to be a common feature in being arrested by the claimant countries’ patrol boats, impounded or blown up. And other than some protests from the Chinese government, there seemed to be nothing that China could do to protect or demand the release of the fishing boats and the fishermen.

The fact that Chinese fishing boats and fishermen were arrested by claimant countries is an implicit sign that the fishing boats and fishermen were in the wrong, operating in other country’s territorial sea. It must be. If they are operating in Chinese or international waters they would not be arrested. If this is the case, it is simply a legal matter and rightly China cannot and should not be doing anything to protect the wrongs of its fishing boats and fishermen.

What if the fishing boats and fishermen were arrested in disputed seas claimed by China and other claimant countries. The implications, China has be default of its inaction, conceded that the fishing boats were in the claimant countries’ territorial waters. This would weaken China’s claim of the area under the 9 dash lines. The second implication is that China is a weak power, unable to protect its citizens in its own territorial waters. This point is even more damaging to China’s reputation as a sovereign and big power.

What is China’s stand or what would China do to maintain order and respectability in such cases? A straight forward position is for China to protect its fishing boats in the disputed waters and prevent them from being hauled away by claimant patrol boats. This is the least respectable thing for China to do and to uphold its claim to the sea within the 9 dash lines.

If China does not want to enforce its claims in the disputed waters, does not water to use force to protect its fishing boats, China could simply order its fishing boats to avoid the disputed waters. It would save the embarrassment of them being arrested and blown to pieces.  By allowing its fishing boats into disputed waters and be arrested is bad news, bad publicity from all points of view.

Would China take a firm and clear position on this matter to avoid being embarrassed? It is either enforce the claim or keep the fishing boats from trouble waters. The present situation of no policy and no stand is a bad policy.

The bigger question is would China take a stronger stance against the American provocation by sailing warships within the 12 nm of China’s territorial waters? Not doing anything would only encourage the crazy Americans to think China is weak. The latest report said China had scrambled fighter aircraft to intercept the ship. Is that enough or would China have to do like what Putin did in the Baltic Sea by screaming pass the ship at low level or more?