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Now I want to talk about China's relationship with three
different areas within East Asia.
And the first one I want to talk about is China's relationship with ASEAN.
Now, the rise of China really means that the countries in South East Asia,
they can bandwagon with China.
They can say we're going to move closer to China,
give up some of their independence and get financial and
maybe security support from China, trade support, things like that.
On the other hand they may ally with the US or
they may just strengthen their own military capabilities.
And finally they may decide to try
in the idea of the constructivism that I talked about earlier on in this lecture.
They may try to introduce international norms and
use those norms to contain China.
Now, the Association of South East Asian Nations was established
back in 1967 in response to the war in Vietnam, but
now it includes even the communist government of Vietnam.
So there are ten states that are involved in the ASEAN group.
But these states, even though they have, as we'll discuss in a second,
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some of the strategic problems with China, again, China's strong trade
relationship gives China a lot of leverage over these states.
So if you look here at Chinese imports of goods from
several key countries, US, EU, ASEAN and Japan.
You can see that, in fact, China imports more goods from the ten
countries of ASEAN than it does from any of the other countries.
So that's a very strong, that means those countries can export to China, so
that's a lot of money for them, and a lot of business that they can do.
As I said, it gives China a lot of leverage.
But the big problem and it's a territorial problem that's really
complicated and has the potential, people write about this,
a lot of people in the world pay a lot of attention to this.
It has the potential perhaps to trigger a war between the United States and
China, and this is the South China Sea.
All right, the key players in this are the Philippines, Vietnam, and China, right?
Now China claims this nine dotted line.
It's actually the Nationalist government, way back, maybe 1945,
put forward this view that everything within this
nine dotted line Is actually Chinese territory.
All right, now the reason everybody's so
worked up about this is because it's believed that there are oil and gas.
And Vietnam, over here, has been able to find some oil fields, and
some gas fields, and up here as well.
Now, so here where there really are the competing claims is the Philippines here.
China has come down and has built up islands in these areas here
that have landing strips that they have put soldiers on that can have naval bases.
And China says that the reason that they're doing it is to manage
the crisis if there's difficulties for their ships that go through there.
Another area is over here where
Vietnam claims that this is its territorial waters, or
at least its exclusive economic zone where it should have priority for development.
But China claims that these areas like the Crestone Exploration here is within
Chinese territory and therefore China should be able to develop those areas.
So what does ASEAN do?
Well, ASEAN decides to try and manage this crisis using international norms.
And the norm that they put forward was called the Code of Conduct, and
this they put forward in 1995.
And it was reinforced in 2002, and up until recently,
everybody seemed to abide by it.
Under that Code of Conduct, the Parties undertake to resolve territorial and
jurisdictional disputes peacefully, without the the threat or
use of force, through direct negotiations by the sovereign states.
And then quote,
in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law,
including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which we call, UNCLOS.
And that they should use self restraint and avoid escalating disputes and
not inhabit uninhabited islands, reefs, shoals, cays,
whatever and other features there.
Now, that's just not happening anymore.
In about 2013, maybe, the Philippines ran a ship onto one of these areas,
onto one of these islands that was disputed, and put some soldiers on there.
Vietnam has also gone into areas, set up some, built up some islands.
But it's really China that, in response to Vietnam and
The Philippines has really come in massively.
And built up very, very large, well let's just say, large islands
in these areas where they can send in their own ships and airplanes.
Now, so the Philippines decided to use law.
Though they triggered the problem in some ways, and they went to the UNCLOS and
said hey, we've got a case against China.
And UNCLOS ruled that, in fact, first, what it's ruled so
far, is that they have they authority to judge the case, but
China has refused to recognize that authority.
Now according to UNCLOS, the islands that China has built,
according to the law, if you look at the law of this sea,
it is quite clear that the islands that China has built are not legal.
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She voiced strong U.S. support for freedom of passage,
freedom of navigation within the South China Sea.
Because they were arguing that China, by claiming most of the South China Sea,
is actually threatening to close down free passage through those waters.
And the United States,
as the hegemon, has a responsibility to keep those waters open.
Now China, as I mentioned, also asserts sovereignty within this nine dotted
line and therefore creates this confrontation with all
of the states of ASEAN who then invite the United States and Japan into the region.
And so, many of us wonder why at the one hand China is trying to
have better neighborly, neighboring peripheral policy, yet
at the same time feels the obligation to stress its sovereignty.
And so the Philippines and Vietnam have asserted their claim
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and built up that area, and China really feels challenged by those claims.
And so has forcefully responded in ways that are not
following the Code of Conduct, by cutting fishing lines, by surrounding ships,
by moving an oil rig into territory disputed with Vietnam.
And in 2014, we saw a very,
very large build-up of islands with landing strips and naval bases.
China also has a large submarine fleet which is getting larger and
larger, and it's been able to use that submarine fleet to assert
its influence more forcefully in the South China Sea.
And now, more recently, for a while we weren't sure.
But now China has made it very clear that the South China Sea has become one of its
core interests, which means, from their perspective,
there is no room to compromise.
David ZweigChair Professor of the Division of Social Science and Director of Center on China’s Transnational Relations
