The world is looking on with heightened caution as Beijing prepares to roll out new rules for coastguard operations amid rising tensions in the contested South China Sea.
Taking effect on Saturday, the “administrative law enforcement procedures” give sweeping powers to the Chinese coastguard, including the authority to detain foreign ships suspected of illegally entering China’s territorial waters, and detain suspected trespassers without trial for 30 to 60 days.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr of the Philippines, a rival claimant in the South China Sea, has described the rules as particularly worrisome and “an escalation of the situation”, after repeated run-ins between Philippine vessels and the Chinese coastguard over the past year.
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The US Indo-Pacific Command has also raised concerns, saying the latest regulations had the potential to “escalate regional tensions, infringe on coastal state sovereign rights, and impede high-seas freedoms”.
Maritime observers, however, expect Beijing to show some restraint on actively implementing the guidelines.
“Given how tense the situation in the South China Sea is, and how potentially it can be very escalatory, I doubt whether China will want to be the first to trigger a response from the others,” said Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies under Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
“The guidelines could be a legal instrument, but whether it’s going to be implemented or not is expedient on political factors rather than legal factors.”
Koh’s views were echoed by Zheng Zhihua, a research associate professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University specialising in maritime affairs.
“Even though it is possible for Beijing to apply domestic laws in these disputed areas, doing so would potentially lead to diplomatic incidents and deterioration of bilateral relations,” he said.
“Therefore, I do not think China will enthusiastically apply the newly adopted guidelines in the disputed areas.”
Koh said going ahead with strictly implementing the guidelines – which could result in the detention of Southeast Asian fishermen within their national exclusive economic zones – was likely to work against Beijing’s interests.
The Philippines could follow its strategy of “assertive transparency” to publicise those incidents, and even lodge legal challenges against China, and such detentions may prompt other Southeast Asian countries to band together when facing Chinese actions, he said.
He also referred to Article 11 of the guidelines, which stipulates that the Chinese coastguard has jurisdiction over administrative cases in “waters under China’s jurisdiction”.
This is vague language in terms of geographical application, Koh said, adding that the active implementation of the new coastguard rules could “become the vehicle to bring in more extra-regional presence” in South China Sea disputes.
This is because frequent enforcement could “amplify the threat posed by China”, which would be “detrimental to Chinese interests”.
Beijing has always resisted the involvement of non-regional countries in the decades-old territorial disputes in the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety under what it calls its historical “nine-dash line”.
It argues that such interventions heighten tensions and hinder resolution efforts. It instead advocates for direct negotiations and regional dialogue among the claimant states to address complex maritime sovereignty issues.
The Philippines’ 1951 mutual defence treaty (MDT) with the United States is seen to boost its bargaining position as it seeks to counterbalance China’s growing assertiveness in the vast, resource-rich and economically and strategically significant waterway.
Washington has repeatedly asserted its commitment to the MDT, with high-ranking officials declaring that an armed attack on Philippine armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft – including those of its coastguard in the South China Sea – would trigger mutual defence obligations.
Hence, Koh said there was less likelihood of coastguard enforcement around the contested Second Thomas Shoal, Renai Jiao in Chinese, as the Philippines’ outpost here is a grounded navy ship and could “potentially provoke the invocation of MDT”.
The new measures were more likely to be applied to Scarborough Shoal, a traditional fishing ground and another potential flashpoint in the China-Philippines maritime dispute, Koh noted.
Known as Huangyan Dao in China and Panatag Shoal in the Philippines, the chain of reefs and rocks about 220km (138 miles) west of the Philippine island of Luzon has been under Beijing’s effective control since a stand-off with Manila in 2012.
The dispute saw the Philippines seek international arbitration, with a tribunal at The Hague ruling in its favour in 2016.
Beijing rejects the ruling but says “temporary special arrangements by the Chinese side in 2016” allow small Philippine fishing boats to operate around “specific waters” of Scarborough Shoal, with military and police ships and official vessels to keep off the 12-nautical-mile (22km) territorial waters and airspace of the shoal.
However, “the current Philippine government has unilaterally undermined the arrangement” and “crossed the red line on the issue of Scarborough Shoal”, the Chinese embassy said last month amid continued maritime stand-offs in the area.
Manila has also rejected Beijing’s claims to a “gentleman’s agreement” on Philippine supply missions to the grounded warship on the Second Thomas Shoal – part of the Spratly Islands also claimed by China as the Nansha Islands – with Marcos denying knowledge of any such agreement between Beijing and his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
The release of China’s new coastguard guidelines a month ago also coincided with a Filipino civilian mission to Scarborough Shoal in a show of defiance to assert Manila’s claims.
Zheng said that the possibility of Beijing implementing the guidelines could not be ruled out if a similar mission were to take place again.
“To Beijing’s eyes, if the Philippines or other parties do not provoke in advance, it would not easily apply these regulations to disputed areas, as this may make Beijing look like it is behaving unreasonably.
“However, if their actions are provocative and unacceptable from Beijing’s perspective, it might feel the need to flex its muscles,” Zheng said.
Koh said Beijing faces a “tough balancing act” on implementing the guidelines.
“If there are instances where Beijing needs to invoke the guidelines but it does not, then its credibility will be undermined, making it look like a paper tiger. On the other hand, if Beijing implements [the rules] actively, then it would trigger certain unwanted or undesirable consequences.”
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2024. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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