Australian Ambassador Grigson with Jakarta Governor Basuki Purnama
Source: Australian Embassy Jakarta
The current problem in the South China Sea has presented Indonesia with a challenge at a moment when it is least expected. The crisis has occurred at a time when the Sino-Indonesian relationship is on the cusp of going into a full-swing, and when the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the so-called ‘cornerstone’ of Indonesia’s foreign policy, has been undergoing a deeper and wider integration towards becoming a full-fledged community of nations. More critically, however, the likelihood of a South China Sea conflict poses a geopolitical challenge of unprecedented magnitude—that of a major power conflict—so close to home. Fresh initiatives are necessary if Indonesia and ASEAN are to defuse the crisis.
From a mere dispute to a crisis
The South China Sea issue is a long-running one. One may recall the armed clashes between some claimants during the Cold War in their quest to occupy and settle some of the features. At a glance, the current trend seems far more stable, if not tranquil, than it was three to four decades ago. Indeed, the South China Sea at the time did not preoccupy the attention of most Southeast Asian nations, even less, the non-claimant major powers. A shared unspoken sense prevailed that the South China Sea was only a local conflict among a few claimants, with little consequences, if any, to affect the relationship between the great powers of the time, namely China, the Soviet Union and the United States.
Back then, the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was also still being negotiated, even though the claimant states had already drawn and staked their claims. More importantly, none of the claimants then possessed the amount of sea-power sufficient enough to enforce effective control against the use of the sea by the other claimants. Consequently, there was no way for any claimant to deny major maritime powers of the world the use of South China Sea for international military and commercial navigation.
That the South China Sea has become internationalised at present is less a result of the calculated move by the claimants, and more due to the increased confidence of the claimants to make their presence felt at and from the sea. With the resolution of major land disputes and conflicts in mainland Southeast Asia, as well as increased welfare and prosperity of the claimants, their residual discords have shifted increasingly seaward. Yet, unlike in the past, some claimants now possess more means to deliver their policies more consequential at and from the sea. Not only do they devote more funding on sophisticated maritime warfare capabilities, they literally have changed, or are changing, the physical features in the South China Sea as a way to fortify their present claims.
[1] In addition, means are now available for some claimants to engage in competition over sovereignty and sovereign rights without necessarily triggering armed clashes. The advent of ‘white-hull’ coastguards and other maritime law enforcement agencies has further complicated the strategic environment.
This trend consequently brought the South China Sea issue into a whole new level. Whereas in the past, the South China Sea was just a ‘dispute’, or ‘disputes’ involving multiple claimants, it is now a full-fledged crisis. The use of ‘crisis’ here is not to be taken lightly. It adopts a definition by John Richardson in his Crisis Diplomacy:
An international crisis is an acute conflict between two or more states, associated with a specific issue and involving a perception by decision-makers of a serious risk of war. [2]
Against the backdrop of this definition, the South China issue clearly fulfills the description of a crisis. It has become internationalised, involving multiple claimant and non-claimant states, with a serious risk of war involved. One geopolitical analyst even describes the South China Sea as the “future of conflict” and “Asia’s cauldron”.[3]This notion seems more compelling after China, with the largest claim in the South China Sea colloquially known as the ‘9-dash’ or ‘U-shaped’ line, refused to join the Arbitral Tribunal case initiated in 2013 by the Philippines in the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
Gone are the days when the risk of short and lightly armed clashes among the claimants could be underrated. The risk of armed escalation has magnified considerably, commensurate with enhanced capabilities of the claimants to wage war at and from the sea, with the potential involvement of non-claimant major powers. That the verbal exchanges between some claimants of late, such as in Malaysia and the Philippines, have somewhat been “friendlier” belie the mistrusts and suspicions still lingering beneath the surface.[4] Moreover, the South China Sea issue has become truly internationalised with the United States, although a neutral party in the dispute, declaring that it is a “national interest” worthy of defending by force, if necessary.[5] Save for Japan, other non-claimant major powers have responded in similar fashion, albeit less assertively.[6]
What then are the consequences of the South China Sea issue as a crisis for ASEAN? How does it impact Indonesia’s interests? First, it is apparent that the South China Sea crisis has become an embodiment of great power rivalries not just between China and the United States, but also Japan, Russia, and India. The logic of rivalries has compelled the great powers to use all available avenues to pressure their rivals. It is, for instance, not unreasonable to expect Russia to lend more support to China in the South China Sea for greater leverage over the United States in Eastern Europe. While great power rivalries are not (yet) hostile, they have begun to characterise and complicate the issue, which makes its resolution doubly difficult. No longer can a modus vivendi be found unless the claimants also sufficiently accommodated the interests of the non-claimant great powers.[7]
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