By Albert Wai (albertwai@mediacorp.com.sg)
SINGAPORE — Haiyang Shiyou 981.

To get a clearer understanding of the remarkable events that took place in Hanoi early this week, casual observers must acquaint themselves with that name.
Vietnam tried to dislodge the deep-water drilling rig, sending a flotilla of ships its way, but was beaten back by a more forceful response from the Chinese ships that escorted the China National Offshore Oil Corporation rig. The ensuing chaos sparked an international crisis, and a violent nationalistic response within Vietnam.

But it was the silence on one end that quickly moved things onto a different plane — when Vietnam’s communist party leader Nguyen Phu Trong tried to reach Beijing to protest, his calls were not returned. Hanoi wasted no time in turning to the United States, lobbying its former enemy to lift an arms embargo so that Vietnam could buy American lethal weapons to protect itself.
The US partly relaxed the ban, allowing the purchase of non-lethal equipment for maritime defence, and last year, warmly received Mr Trong at the White House.
That visit arguably set in firm motion the full lifting of the arms embargo this week, announced during the first official visit by President Barack Obama to Vietnam.
The move not only ends one of the last vestiges of the Vietnam War, but, more importantly, marks a recalibration of US-Vietnam ties as well as Hanoi’s relationship with Beijing.

“In a sense, you can consider this Vietnam’s version of ‘rebalance’ after the estrangement of the Vietnam War,” said Singapore’s Ambassador-at-Large Bilahari Kausikan, noting that Vietnamese revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh himself had made overtures to the US after World War II and only decisively turned to the communist bloc after he was rebuffed.
“The Vietnamese are first and foremost nationalists,” added Mr Kausikan. The S R Nathan Fellow has this year given a series of public lectures about how the South China Sea issue has become one where the parameters of Sino-American competition and their interests are most clearly defined and from which South-east Asia nations will draw conclusions about American resolve and Chinese intentions in the region.
While Mr Obama said the decision to lift the arms ban had nothing to do with China, most experts and analysts believe it was partly in response to Beijing’s assertiveness in staking Chinese claims in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
Analysts have suggested that, in return, Hanoi may allow the US access to Cam Ranh Bay — a strategic deepwater port in an inlet of the disputed South China Sea. Such a development, if it comes to pass, will upset China and raise further questions on how the diplomatic and military dance around the waterway will play out.

The picture is further complicated by disputes involving China and several countries in the region over fishing rights in the South China Sea. Malaysia this week detained three Filipino fishermen for fishing in its territorial waters. Indonesia has launched an aggressive crackdown on illegal fishing vessels — including those owned by Chinese, Filipino, Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese fishermen — in its waters, sinking more than 60 of them so far. The fishermen have insisted they were plying their trade in traditional fishing waters.

Against this background of tension and rivalry, some South-east Asian countries are already changing positions with regard to their relations with the major powers. Thailand, a long-time ally of the US, has been alienated from Washington since Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha launched a military coup in 2014. Mr Prayuth’s government has been strengthening ties with Beijing.
There are also indications that the Philippines, which has overlapping claims with China in the South China Sea and is another treaty ally of the US, may recalibrate its ties with Washington. President-elect Rodrigo Duterte has openly questioned the US’ commitment to the Philippines in the event of a conflict with China. He has also indicated that he is open to talks with Beijing.
Only time will tell how these changing geopolitical alliances will affect regional peace and stability, especially given the uncertainty in the US’ foreign policy towards Asia as Mr Obama nears the end of his term in the White House.

A NEW DAWN IN US-VIETNAM TIES?

Mr Obama’s visit to Vietnam this week was steeped in significance. Both sides herald a new partnership 40 years after a bitter war that claimed more than 57,000 American lives and killed as many as two million Vietnamese.
The President portrayed the lifting of the arms embargo as part of the process of normalising relations between the two countries. “This change will ensure that Vietnam has access to the equipment that it needs to defend itself,” Mr Obama said in a press conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang on Monday.
“It also underscores the commitment of the US to fully normalise the relationship with Vietnam, including strong defence ties,” Mr Obama said.
Everywhere he went, the US President was greeted by cheering locals, all jostling to catch a glimpse of the world’s top leader. In a masterstroke of public diplomacy, Mr Obama sat down for a meal with celebrity television show host Anthony Bourdain in a humble noodle shop in Hanoi, delighting netizens and many Vietnamese.
Mr Obama also held a town hall session in Ho Chi Minh City with young Vietnamese leaders. He urged them to do more to combat climate change and touted the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The TPP is a landmark trade pact among 12 Pacific Rim nations, including Vietnam, and is a capstone to Mr Obama’s foreign-policy rebalance towards closer ties with Asia.
For Vietnam, Mr Obama’s visit could not have gone better.
“The messages of friendship and cooperation as well as those of looking forward to the future have been sent and well received in Vietnam,” said Mr Tran Viet Thai, deputy director of the Institute for Foreign Policy and Strategic Studies under Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Assistant Professor Richard Heydarian, who teaches political science at De La Salle University in Manila, noted that the Obama administration has “astutely tapped into Vietnam’s strategic anxieties to build a security partnership that seemed unthinkable just a decade ago”.
“Through the TPP and the growing naval cooperation with America, Vietnam hopes to dampen its deleterious vulnerability with respect to its giant neighbour,” he added, referring to China.
Vietnam’s economy will reportedly get a 10 per cent boost from the TPP in the next decade.
At first glance, ties between Hanoi and Washington appear to have been given a huge boost by the lifting of the arms embargo. Vietnam has hitherto viewed the embargo as a discriminatory practice and a relic of the Cold War, but Washington had held back so that it could continue to use the embargo as a bargaining chip to get Hanoi to improve its human-rights record.
The lifting of the ban is therefore an important diplomatic signal from the US that it wants to move the relationship with Vietnam forward, especially since Vietnam is now the biggest South-east Asian exporter to the US.
“The removal of the embargo indicates a stronger rapprochement and a higher level of trust between the two countries, which makes them more comfortable and more willing to pursue closer cooperation in the future, especially in sensitive areas such as defence and security,” said Dr Le Hong Hiep, a research fellow at the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Vietnam, which lost two short naval wars with China in 1974 and 1988 over disputed islands in the South China Sea, is alarmed by China’s growing assertiveness in the maritime regional domain.

China-Vietnam ties were severely strained in 2014 after the deployment of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation rig sparked massive anti-Chinese protests that left at least 21 dead and dozens injured in Vietnam. Thousands of Chinese citizens had to be extracted from Vietnam for their safety. Although Beijing moved the rig back to its waters after two months, the crisis saw bilateral relations between the two nations tumble to their lowest point in decades.
By cosying up to Washington, Hanoi has sent a clear signal to Beijing that it has powerful friends. At the same time, Vietnam is unlikely to sever itself from the orbit of its largest trading partner and ideological ally.

“Vietnam is acutely conscious it lives next to China and has done so for two thousand years. They have to simultaneously stand up to China and get along with China. That will never change and they are not going to swing all the way one way or another,” said Mr Kausikan.
Military analysts say although there is likely to be greater defence cooperation between the US and Vietnam going forward, this is unlikely to be in the form of major weapons deals.
Since the arms embargo was partially lifted two years ago to allow Hanoi to buy equipment such as radar and boats, Vietnam has not followed up with any major purchases.
“Vietnam is fully in the Russian technological domain, and to break out they will have significant technological problems integrating American weapons into their existing Russian-based armed forces,” said Associate Professor Bernard Loo from the military studies programme of the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, adding that he expects more consultations and exchanges between both sides in future.
Professor Carl Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy said he expects the US and Vietnam to step up cooperation in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief as well as training for Vietnam’s involvement in United Nations peacekeeping.
“Vietnam likely will permit the US to preposition supplies and equipment to deal with natural disasters in the region. Vietnam will not, however, join with the US in military exercises that could appear to be aimed at China,” added Prof Thayer, who has studied Vietnam’s military since the 1960s.
Commenting on the outlook for US-Vietnam relations, Dr Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, said ties were likely to see a gradual but long-term improvement.
“Both sides will continue to protect their self-interests. To some degree, this will limit the speed at which the bilateral relationship develops. Nevertheless, the relationship can grow despite these disagreements,” he said.
“In a sense, this is an advantage because expectations are lower when everyone realises these are former adversaries with mutually-antagonistic political systems.”

BEIJING TAKES NOTICE

Mr Obama’s visit to Vietnam and how ties between both sides progress will no doubt be closely watched by Beijing.
“For China, Vietnam’s increasingly active embrace of the US rebalance — from its participation in the TPP and acquisition of US-built patrol boats, to its citizens’ fanfare reception of President Obama — is a major setback for its strategic influence in South-east Asia,” said Mr Ashley Townshend, a research fellow at the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
“Despite long-standing cultural ties and extensive party-to-party relations, China is effectively ‘losing’ Vietnam to the US,” he added.
China’s official response to the outcome of Mr Obama’s visit was muted and measured, with a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying that Beijing hoped the lifting of the arms embargo would be beneficial to regional peace, stability and development.
However, the Global Times, an influential state-run newspaper, slammed the announcement, saying the move was aimed at Beijing. It added that the US’ move would exacerbate the “strategic antagonism between Washington and Beijing” and accused the White House of “taking advantage of Vietnam to stir up more troubles in the South China Sea”.
Closer US-Vietnam ties come at a time when China is challenged on several fronts over its claims in the South China Sea, through which roughly US$5 billion (S$6.88 billion) of shipborne trade pass through every year. China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan have overlapping claims in the disputed waters.
Massive land reclamation, construction of military facilities and the siting of military equipment in the disputed islands and reefs controlled by Beijing have sparked fears of militarisation in the region. The Pentagon has carried out repeated patrols near Chinese-controlled islands, ostensibly to uphold freedom of navigation in international waters.
Manila has asked a court of arbitration at The Hague to recognise its right to exploit waters in the South China Sea, but Beijing has insisted that the court has no jurisdiction over the case.
A ruling on the case is expected in the coming weeks. But leading up to that, China has cobbled up a list of more than 40 countries — many of which are landlocked ones from beyond the region — which Beijing claims endorses its position that the issue should be settled through direct negotiations and not international courts.
When asked if China is getting more nervous about developments in the South China Sea, Mr Kausikan replied that “at least the PRC MFA is getting nervous”, referring to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Otherwise why go around collecting so-called statements of support from such major maritime powers as Sudan, Gambia and Belarus, among others? It impresses no one and only internationalises the issue, which all along (is something) the Chinese say they don’t want,” said Mr Kausikan.
“I think this is because the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) will have to explain to its own people why, if the Great Rejuvenation (espoused by President Xi Jinping) is really so great, and China under CCP leadership is recovering territories lost when China was weak, an international tribunal thinks these are not really Chinese,” he added.
“So they have to show that there is no international consensus and many countries support China, never mind if most of these countries either don’t have a clue what the South China Sea issue is all about or have had words put into their mouth.”
Mr Kausikan believed it was not necessary for Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to divide the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) by recently getting Laos, Cambodia and Brunei to agree to a so-called four-point consensus on the South China Sea.
“Asean would not have been able to agree on a common position on the tribunal’s decision even if Wang Yi did not do anything. But Wang Yi is worried about his career as the MFA was bound to be blamed if it did nothing.”

STRATEGIC CAM RANH BAY

Adding to Beijing’s anxieties is how the operational picture in the South China Sea might change if Vietnam allows the US Navy to access a recently inaugurated international commercial port in Cam Ranh Bay, a dual-use facility that can also serve foreign warships.
Situated on the south-eastern coast of Vietnam approximately 290km north of Ho Chi Minh City, Cam Ranh Bay is closer to the disputed Paracel Islands claimed by both Beijing and Hanoi than China’s nearest naval base in Hainan.
The bay is also near the Strait of Malacca, giving the US influence over the important global shipping route. It is a deepwater facility that can reportedly receive aircraft carriers and submarines.
The navies of Singapore, Japan and France have visited Cam Ranh International Port since it was opened several months ago. Singapore’s RSS Endurance was the first foreign warship to call at Cam Ranh port on March 17.

Despite speculation that Hanoi may be willing to allow the US Navy to access Cam Ranh Bay, the nature of the arrangement — occasional port calls, rotational deployment, or long-term presence — has yet to be announced.
If the US Navy is given access to Cam Ranh Bay, it will open up another front that China has to watch, in addition to the Scarborough Shoal at the eastern reaches of the South China Sea, where Beijing is facing off against a Philippines supported by the US and Japan.
“Were Hanoi to permit the US military to access airstrips and port facilities at Cam Ranh Bay, Beijing would be confronted with American military access points along the western, southern and eastern flanks of the South China Sea,” noted Mr Townshend of the US Studies Centre.
Professor Alexander Vuving, of the Daniel K Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, said that granting the US military access to Cam Ranh Bay would be a “smart move in a weiqi game”, a Chinese traditional chess game based on the principle of indirect offence.
“If the US Navy has permanent access to Cam Ranh Bay, this can neutralise some of the advantage China can enjoy due to its artificial islands in the South China Sea,” he said.

Other analysts point out that, ultimately, the modality through which the US is allowed to access Cam Ranh Bay will be carefully considered by Vietnam. High among Hanoi’s considerations will be how to balance sending a clear signal to Beijing that it is no pushover, with minimising the chances of conflict.
Prof Thayer of the Australian Defence Force Academy said that Vietnam is unlikely to give the US privileged access to Cam Ranh Bay. He said Vietnam will also stop short of allowing any permanent presence or rotational presence by the US Navy there.
“Vietnam will carefully orchestrate these visits so as to minimise Chinese concerns,” said Prof Thayer.

Dr Le of the Iseas-Yusof Ishak Institute added that, for the moment, Vietnam is likely to take a gradual approach to the issue. “It does not want to generate the perception that it is ganging up with the US and other countries against China,” he noted.
“Every step Vietnam takes with the US, it will have to look back to see how China reacts.”

Bill Hayton May 16, 2016

There’s a new Chinese charm offensive underway in Southeast Asia. Two years after their uncharming offensive to drill for oil in waters disputed with Vietnam, and with their massive proto-military artificial islands almost complete, Beijing’s officials are trying to spread love. They’re trekking around the world spinning a story in which China is the virtuous actor in the South China Sea, suggesting that the only reason for all the trouble there is Washington’s arm-twisting of its dupes in the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.

From London to Jakarta, I've heard stories of Chinese officials seeking meetings with Southeast Asian diplomats to peddle this line. We've also seen a cack-handed attempt to bounce Brunei, Cambodia and Laos into apparently endorsing a joint statement supporting China’s position on the disputes. Unfortunately for Beijing, Cambodia and Laos immediately denied the story—and Brunei remained as silent as ever. Most recently, we’ve been treated to a very long article on the National Interest site by two of China’s most charming diplomats: Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of China’s National People’s Congress, and Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute of South China Sea Studies.

The article is fascinating because of the way it recasts China’s South China Sea narrative for an age in which many of its old myths have been destroyed by new historical research. The historical account it presents is much less bad than similar Chinese accounts used to be. In places it’s almost accurate. However episodes are recast and crucial facts omitted in order to make China appear the victim of imperialist perfidy. Its silky style and conciliatory tone is likely to win over many who don’t know the full facts.

This narrative is unlikely to convince many Americans, however, nor those Southeast Asian governments that have been on the receiving end of China’s rising “assertiveness” over the past seven years. To me, it reads like a narrative deliberately crafted to win over ASEAN states that aren’t claimants in the South China Sea, along with officials in other parts of the world who have little knowledge of the disputes. The purpose is to show that the ASEAN “claimants” have only themselves to blame, either because of their provocative actions or because they allowed themselves to be used by Washington.

There are many parts of the Fu-Wu narrative that an informed reader can dispute, but the hinge of the article is what happened in 2009. Fu and Wu are trying to rewrite the history of this crucial year to erase the memory of how China’s own actions caused its current difficulties. In the words of their article, “the general situation was under control before 2009.” The nub of the Fu-Wu story is that the new Obama administration, particularly its evil henchwoman Hillary Clinton, strong-armed the Philippines and Vietnam into taking provocative actions. They pin part of the blame on the “official deadline set by the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS)” for states to submit their maritime claims. However, they also argue that “an even greater factor [was] the introduction of the American Asia-Pacific rebalancing strategy.”

The authors then imply that the U.S. rebalance was the reason why the Philippines adopted its new maritime “Baselines Law” in March 2009, and why Malaysia and Vietnam submitted a joint claim to the UNCLCS in May. This is clearly nonsense. Both actions were triggered by the looming CLCS deadline, which had been set by the UN a decade before. The Philippines Baseline Law was the result of several years of discussion and internal argument. A regional diplomatic source tells me that Vietnam and Malaysia began discussing their joint claim in 2007—well before anyone in Washington had any plans for a “rebalance.”

The trigger for the Malaysia-Vietnam discussions was China’s rising assertiveness in 2007. Contra Fu and Wu, the general situation was not “under control” before 2009. China was already encroaching on areas of sea which Southeast Asian countries regarded as rightfully theirs. This directly involved Madame Fu. On May 18, 2007, shortly after she became China’s ambassador to the UK, she visited the headquarters of BP in London and told its executives that China could not guarantee the safety of either BP’s $4 billion investments in China or its staff if they kept working on Vietnamese projects in disputed waters off the coast of Vietnam. I had the chance to ask Madame Fu about this incident during a conference in Beijing in 2014. She told me that she did what she did because “I love BP and didn’t want to see it get hurt.”

BP was only one of several international oil companies that were heavily pressured by Chinese officials during 2007–08 to force them to abandon their activities in waters claimed by China off the coasts of Vietnam and Malaysia. This was the real trigger for the joint Malaysian-Vietnamese submission to the CLCS.

The Fu-Wu story can only argue that the incidents of 2009 were the result of U.S. pressure by bringing forward the date of the U.S. “pivot/rebalance” to Asia by two and a half years. Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State on January 21, 2009, but key figures of Obama’s Asia team didn’t join until later: Derek Mitchell became Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs in late April 2009, and Kurt Campbell was confirmed as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs on June 26. The United States signed ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation on July 22, but the actual “pivot” announcement didn’t come until late 2011.

In fact, as I outline in Chapter 8 of my book, China’s actions were already worrying Southeast Asian governments well before the Obama administration took office. The proceedings of a conference held at Washington think tank CSIS in September 2008 make that clear. But there was one more crucial episode in 2009 that worried Southeast Asia even further—one that is always played down in Chinese accounts of the South China Sea disputes. On May 7, in response to the joint Malaysia-Vietnam submission, China sent a copy of its U-shaped line map to the CLCS.

This was the first time China had ever submitted that ambiguous claim in an international forum. Up until then, other countries could pretend it was simply an internal Chinese oddity. In fact, for many years it was illegal for foreigners to even take the map out of the country—it was regarded as a national secret. It was the submission of this document to the UN that, more than anything else, alarmed Southeast Asia and caused its governments to step up their lobbying to get Washington reengaged in the region.

I’m not sure that Fu and Wu realise that they’re peddling such a parody of reality. Having discussed South China Sea issues with both, they seem completely unable to understand the perspectives of the other claimants. They start from the position that everything China does is virtuous and correct and therefore that anyone who disagrees must be wrong. As one Southeast Asian diplomat told me recently, “China may not yet be a great power but it already seems to have acquired great-power autism.”
The risk, however, is that those who are not particularly well informed about China’s actions during 2007–09 could be taken in by the new narrative. It’s a version of events that is particularly unhelpful for anyone trying to untangle the South China Sea disputes. So far, the only government that seems to have bought into it is Gambia. But Beijing is clearly hoping others will follow.
Bill Hayton is an associate fellow at Chatham House and the author of The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia.


 

By DEREK WATKINS
UPDATED February 29, 2016

China has placed runways and radar facilities on new islets in the South China Sea, built by piling huge amounts of sand onto reefs. The construction is straining already taut geopolitical tensions.

The speed and scale of China’s island-building spree in the South China Sea last year alarmed other countries with interests in the region. After announcing in June that the process of building seven new islands by moving sediment from the seafloor to reefs was almost done, China has focused its efforts on building ports, three airstrips, radar facilities and other military buildings on the islands. The installations bolster China’s foothold in the Spratly Islands, a disputed scattering of reefs and islands in the South China Sea more than 500 miles from the Chinese mainland. China’s activity in the Spratlys is a major point of contention between China and the United States, and has prompted the White House to send Navy destroyers to patrol near the islands twice in recent months.

The new islands allow China to harness a portion of the sea for its own use that had been relatively out of reach. Although there are significant fisheries and possible large oil and gas reserves in the South China Sea, China’s efforts serve more to fortify its territorial claims than to help it extract natural resources, said Mira Rapp-Hooper, formerly the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research group. Though they are too small to support large military units, the islands will also enable sustained air and sea patrols, strengthening China’s influence in the area.

Several reefs have been destroyed outright to serve as a foundation for the new islands, and the process also causes extensive damage to the surrounding marine ecosystem. Frank Muller-Karger, professor of biological oceanography at the University of South Florida, said sediment “can wash back into the sea, forming plumes that can smother marine life and could be laced with heavy metals, oil and other chemicals from the ships and shore facilities being built.” Such plumes threaten the biologically diverse reefs throughout the Spratlys, which Dr. Muller-Karger said may have trouble surviving in sediment-laden water.

Although China was a relative latecomer to construction in the Spratly archipelago, its island building is much more extensive than similar efforts by other countries in the area. The recent activity has unsettled the United States, which has about $1.2 trillion in bilateral trade go through the South China Sea every year.Washington does not recognize China’s ownership of the islands, and in February President Obama reiterated the government's position that “the United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows.” To reinforce the message, the United States Navy sent missile destroyers in October and January within 12 nautical miles of the islands, the conventional limit for territorial waters. According to statements from David Shear, the top Pentagon official in charge of Asia and the Pacific, the last time before October that the United States had sent ships or aircraft that close to the islands was in 2012.
What Is on the Islands

China has built airstrips, ports, radar facilities, solar arrays, lighthouses and support buildings on the islands. The airstrips and ports lengthen the reach of Chinese ships and planes, while the radar facilities allow the country to keep a closer eye on what is happening nearby. Imagery from January compiled for a recent report by the C.S.I.S. suggests that China may be constructing a longer-range high-frequency radar installation on Cuarteron Reef that would help the country monitor air and ship traffic in the south, farther from the Chinese mainland.



Fiery Cross Reef is one of China’s most strategically important new islands, with an airstrip that is long enough to allow the country to land any plane, from fighter jets to large transport aircraft.

Two additional airstrips on Mischief Reef and Subi Reef that China has been building since mid-2015 are nearing completion, bringing China’s total to three airstrips in the region.

Though China’s airstrips expand the country’s ability to operate in the South China Sea, they are not the first in the region — every other country that occupies the Spratlys already operates an airstrip as well.

Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan have also expanded islands in the Spratlys, but at a much smaller scale than China’s efforts.

China’s reefs hosted smaller structures for years before the current surge in construction. By preserving these initially isolated buildings, China can claim that it is merely expanding existing facilities, similar to what other countries have done elsewhere in the region.



http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/what-china-has-been-building-in-the-south-china-sea-2016.html?_r=0




Organized by the Association of Vietnamese Students and Professionals in the United States, the symposium was held on April 2, 2016 at Harvard University. Information on the symposium itself as well as selected papers from the presenters can be found on the 2016 Harvard Forum page.

Published by the New York Times Editorial Board, February 18, 2016

China’s decision to station surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea is the latest in a series of provocative acts that is fueling regional tensions. This unwise move raises new doubts about President Xi Jinping’s pledge not to “pursue militarization” in a vital waterway and passage for $5 trillion in annual trade.

The two HQ-9 missile batteries were deployed recently on Woody Island in the Paracel chain. The missiles reportedly have a range of about 125 miles and are capable of destroying aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. In theory, the weapons could have a legitimate purpose, enabling China to better defend its naval bases on Hainan Island, which is 273 miles away. Although also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, the Paracels have been under Beijing’s control for four decades, and Chinese forces have been stationed there for years.

But the timing of the deployment and the way in which it was done makes it impossible to blindly accept a self-defense rationale. It is part of a pattern in which China in recent years has claimed “indisputable sovereignty” over 90 percent of the South China Sea and asserted jurisdiction not just over the Paracels, a recognized island chain, but also many obscure reefs and rocks in the Spratly Islands.

Beijing’s purpose is to box out rival claims from other countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. As part of this effort, it has also turned seven of those specks into more substantial islets, some big enough to hold military bases, while claiming jurisdiction of the waters around them.

China ratified the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, guaranteeing unimpeded passage on the high seas for trade, fishing and oil exploration, including the South China Sea. But its actions in the Spratlys have effectively rewritten the treaty and put China at odds with smaller countries that dispute its claims and feel so threatened by its behavior that they have sought closer relations with the United States.

Stationing missiles on Woody Island would clearly add to these concerns. The batteries could enable Beijing to restrict international aircraft by declaring an air defense zone over the Paracels. Mr. Xi specifically referred to the Spratlys when he made his comment last year about not pursuing militarization in the South China Sea. But there were hopes that his pledge would apply to other islands as well.

The decision to deploy the missiles now — Fox News said photos from ImageSat International showed the batteries were put in place between Feb. 3 and Sunday — may have been intended to deliver a contemptuous political message. On Tuesday, President Obama finished hosting a summit meeting of Southeast Asian leaders, who are most affected by the South China Sea controversy and reasserted their commitment to resolving their differences peacefully.

China risks destabilizing the region by seeking to impose its will rather than reconciling the competing claims. The Philippines has become so frustrated that it has challenged Beijing’s assertions of sovereignty in an international arbitration court, with a judgment expected by May. China has refused to participate in the case; its reaction to the decision will be a further test of its willingness to abide by international law.

The United States makes no claim to territory in the South China Sea and takes a neutral position on the competing claims. It has rightly pushed all countries, especially China, to stop militarizing land masses and adding to them. It has also promised to recognize the claims of whichever side wins the arbitration case.

Regardless of that outcome, it is essential for the United States, working with its allies, to ensure the free flow of navigation and to continue sending ships and planes across the sea, in accord with international law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/18/opinion/chinas-missile-provocation.html?_r=0

Published on Wednesday, November 04, 2015 by Common Dreams
Authored by Koohan Paik

Last September, I attended a remarkable gathering in Okinawa of impassioned young people from all over the Asia-Pacific. They convened at a critical moment to urgently discuss ramped-up militarism in their region. Thousands of hectares of exquisitely wild marine environments, peaceful communities and local democracy are now under extreme threat. Participants hailed from: Taiwan; Jeju (South Korea); the Japanese Ryukyu islands; Indonesia; New Zealand; and the Japanese Ogasawara islands. I was invited to represent Hawaii, where the headquarters for the U.S. Pacific Command (PACCOM) are located, and where decisions are made that have profound consequences for these young activists, and the rest of the world. These include missile base-building on pristine islands, rampant navy war games that destroy coastlines, reefs and other vital ecosystems, not to mention adding to climate change, pursued with no regard for local opinion.

It's all a result of the "Pacific Pivot," announced by President Obama in 2011, to move 60% of U.S. Navy and Air Force resources from the Middle East to the Asia-Pacific. The stated goal is to maintain "balance" in the ongoing battle with China for regional military and economic hegemony. A particularly dangerous expression in this effort came a few weeks ago, when a U.S. missile-carrying warship challenged China by passing through disputed waters surrounding China's artificial island bases in the South China Sea. It is the latest example of brinkmanship after years of provocative moves by the U.S. in the so-called interest of balance. But, the grim fact is there is no balance in the Pacific. The little publicized reality is that the United States, located thousands of miles from China’s coast, already maintains over 400 military installations and 155,000 troops in that part of the world. Meanwhile China, even with its newest artificial island-bases in the South China Sea, will have a grand total fewer than ten.

At the conference, entitled "Peace for the Sea Camp" it was noted that one of the most destructive developments has been Defense Secretary Ashton Carter's 2015 campaign to forge a new network of aggressive bilateral agreements with militaries from other countries such as South Korea, the Philippines, Australia -- and most insidiously, Japan -- to augment American dominance. These alliances are reinforced economically by the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an essential component of the fool's endeavor to contain China within its own hemisphere. However, no one at the conference took sides with one hegemon or the other. China was also criticized for having smothered thousands of acres of healthy reef with concrete and crushed coral, to build its artificial islands. To be sure, one of the primary purposes of the gathering was to establish a global voice against all military desecration of islands and the seas. Here's the full story on the crisis and resistance.

Outsourcing Military Force
A seismic event took place on the first day of the conference that underscored the gathering with new urgency. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had managed to push through highly unpopular legislation to disempower Japan's "peace constitution," implemented in 1947 by General Douglas MacArthur. Abe achieved this despite 100,000 protestors shouting "NO WAR" for weeks in front of the Japanese Diet. The following day, Abe's public approval rating plummeted to 38.9 percent. Now, Japan’s military is permitted to act offensively, no longer only in self-defense mode. It can also surveil other countries for the first time in modern history, and establish a global arms industry (imagine, Honda-quality drones and tanks). According to a Pentagon official, this will give Japan “greater global presence.” According to The Nation’s Tim Shorrock, it will turn Japan into America’s proxy army in Asia.

China is correct to view the watered-down constitution as yet another provocation, especially since it has cleared the way for a turbo-charged reworking of the 64-year-old U.S.-Japan Security Treaty to take effect. The revised treaty essentially encourages Japanese aggression toward its neighbors -- a 20th century scenario that Asia-Pacific people do not want to relive. For them, Abe's politics are like a zombie risen from the dead. Since taking office in 2012, Abe has boosted the military budget, taken an aggressive stance toward China and has also denied Japan's role in forcing hundreds of thousands of women into sexual slavery for its troops during World War II. He is the perfect, barbaric accomplice to carry out the Pentagon’s audacious designs on Asia.

For islanders like those at the Okinawa conference who live on the front lines of this new world, the new treaty poses immediate threat. It allows four lovely islands in the Ryukyu archipelago to be transformed into state-of-the-art military bases -- with missiles pointed at China. It's a way the U.S. can "outsource" base-building to client states like, in this case, Japan.

Outsourcing base-building is a fairly new Pentagon strategy. It came about partially due to the U.S. wearying of growing global disgust with its foreign basing. For example, the routine protests of tens of thousands of intractable Okinawans has already succeeded in stalling new base construction there for the past 20 years -- a big headache for the Pentagon. The solution, surrogate base-building, is also an enormous cost-saving measure. For example, the construction of the Jeju naval base is South Korean in name, but it fulfills the Pentagon's directive to contain China. It will also port U.S. aircraft carriers, attack submarines and Aegis-missile carrying destroyers. Because the base is "officially" South Korean, costs are externalized -- of construction, of environmental responsibility, and of policing eight years of still ongoing protests. Now four Japanese Ryukyu islands will also be put to service to menace China -- at no direct expense to the U.S.

The Ryukyu basing project, now under construction, would not have been able to move forward without the culmination of a longstanding collaboration between the U.S. and Japan to finalize three milestones during 2015. The milestones, which work together symbiotically, are: 1) Disabling Japan's pacifist Constitution; 2) Beefing up of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty; and 3) Reaching a TPP agreement which would work hand-in-glove with military force to pair economic dominance with military hegemony. More on this later.

Environmental Impacts
The Ryukyu Islands stretch like a strand of emeralds 900 miles south from mainland Japan to Taiwan. They are rich with crystalline rivers, vital reefs, and endemic flora and fauna. The Japanese people, still coping with the post-apocalyptic effects of a triple-reactor meltdown at Fukushima, understandably celebrate the Ryukus (those which are still pristine) as priceless natural treasures. But alas, Japan’s government has begun carving up mountains, dredging coral and bulldozing forests in order to rapidly build the massive, multi-island military infrastructure. To witness the lush habitats of hundreds of remarkable species ripped off the face of the Earth is a sobering spectacle, equivalent to the Taliban blasting away the 1,700-year-old Buddha statues carved into Afghan cliffs.

Though the bases would be Japanese in jurisdiction, their function would be essentially American. They are intended to extend the encirclement of China started by South Korea’s Jeju base and those on Okinawa. Three lush, wondrous islands -- Amami-Oshima, Miyakojima, and Ishigaki -- are now slated for missile-launching capability and live-fire training ranges. On Yonaguni, so far south it is only 69 miles from Taiwan, the plan is to build microwave radar antennas to spy on China -- an activity that would have been illegal before the implementation of the new constitution. Yonaguni residents are not happy. "There's a lot of worry that the island could become a target for attack if a base is built there," a Japanese defense ministry official told the Mainichi Shimbun.

Oddly, the defense ministry first revealed the base construction plans directly to the national media, but not to the island residents. Mayumi Arata, a respected elder of Amami-Oshima, the most northerly island slated for construction, said the only information that people were given was a 15-minute talk by a government official in July 2014. The bureaucrat said troops would be stationed on the island. Nothing was ever mentioned of the missile base, the radar station, the firing range, the heliport, or any accoutrements. It wasn’t until newspapers published the plans that the people learned they were to be heavily militarized. Anti-base groups quickly formed on all the affected islands, but not without blowback from the draconian Abe regime. On Miyakojima, a lawsuit was filed against the government for blacklisting protestors from employment.

The 275-square-mile island of Amami-Oshima is a place so teeming with biodiversity that it has been nominated for UNESCO World Heritage status. Seventy-three thousand people live on 30 percent of the island. The other 70 percent is comprised of rolling hills that are entirely wild and carpeted with a thick green tangle of endemic, original forest. A crab-filled mangrove swamp is set inland. Ringing the island is a coral reef with adorable pufferfish noted for sculpting astonishing undersea sand mandalas, and loads of calico-shelled cone snails. Drinkable water bleeds from cracks in fern-covered cliffs. The island is home to 300 species of birds, butterflies as big as your hand, jade and gold frogs, salamanders, sea and freshwater turtles, the unique Ryukyu ayu fish, endemic orchids and rare ficus trees. The small-eared Amami rabbit, one of many species found only here, is sometimes called a “living fossil” because it represents an ancient Asian lineage that has elsewhere disappeared. There has even been a sighting off the coast of the extremely rare North Pacific right whale, a species of which it is believed only 30 remain.

Needless to say, a firing range in the forest and state-of-the-art missile base will decimate Amami-Oshima’s natural wonders. Mamoru Tsuneda, a natural park counselor of the Environmental Ministry, laments, “There are no laws to protect the nature on this island.”

Residents have economic concerns as well. Kyoko Satake, an artist and boutique owner, observed, “We see how the United States has only the very rich or the very poor. That’s because you spend all your money on war. We don’t want to be like that. We want to keep our middle class.”

The most southerly island to be militarized is the 11-square-mile island of Yonaguni. It is strategically positioned less than 100 miles from the uninhabited Senkaku islands, a piece of geography being hotly contested with China. When I visited Yonaguni before the activist gathering began, I saw herds of wild, endemic ponies roaming freely on fenceless pastures and even on streets. But now their main watering hole has been replaced by bulldozers churning out a radar surveillance station, scheduled for completion in 2017. Entomologists are alarmed that the radar will kill many of the island’s celebrated, but fragile, butterfly species.

As on Amami-Oshima, there has been no transparency in its construction, let alone any kind of Environmental Impact Statement. Residents were told that such information is “top secret.” It wasn’t until the bulldozers began that they saw that the high-intensity microwave antennas were to be only about 600 feet from neighborhoods, including an elementary school. Several mothers with young children decided to move off the island forever.

At a certain point, all this preparation for war becomes indistinguishable from war itself. The fight against terror becomes terror itself. No one knows that better than the Jeju islanders of South Korea, whose farms, fisheries and freshwater springs were destroyed to build a base. The Okinawans also know it. They live daily with military jets and helicopters searing through the skies. It seems the same hellish fate is in store for all people and creatures of the islands targeted for militarization. A high school science teacher and Amami-Oshima native, Hirohumi Hoshimura, observed, “Tokyo says my island is for defense. But to me, this is my home.”

Meanwhile, defense industries on both sides of the Pacific are salivating. Japan’s Ministry of Defense has a proposed a record-high budget, to equip the new bases with 17 Mitsubishi anti-submarine warfare helicopters, 12 Boeing V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, three Northrop Grumman Global Hawk drones, six F-35 fighter planes and Aegis destroyers (both manufactured by Lockheed Martin), one Kawasaki military transport aircraft, three Boeing Pegasus tanker aircraft, and 36 maneuver combat vehicles. Other purchases include BAE Systems amphibious assault vehicles and mobile missile batteries. And Japanese arms manufacturers have begun – for the first time ever -- producing armaments for export. It’s a merger between militarism and corporate capitalism.

Butter, Guns and the TPP
From a strictly trade perspective, the TPP is confounding. From a geopolitical perspective, it makes a lot of sense. Jean-Pierre Lehmann elaborates in Forbes:
"TPP is a really strange mélange of 12 members, including five from the Americas (Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru and the US), five from Asia (Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam), along with Australia and New Zealand. … Missing are large Asian economies, notably South Korea, India and Indonesia, all three members of the G20. Also missing of course is China; but that would seem to be deliberate ... to contain China. Thus TPP is above all a geopolitical ploy with trade as a decoy."

Given the dearth of economically significant Asian member nations in the pact, it is not perplexing why many analysts were predicting early on that the whole deal would collapse if Japan never signed on. It finally did in 2013. But as recently as April 19, 2015, gridlock prevailed at a Tokyo meeting between U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman and Japan's Economic Minister Akira Amari. The U.S. wanted Japan to eliminate its extremely high tariffs on agriculture -- hundreds of a percent on rice and beef. Japan wanted to sell more cars in the U.S. but wasn't keen to reciprocate by buying American cars.
It took the perceived threat of China establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and other international deals to loosen the logjam. “The growing Chinese presence in the region has prompted Japan and the United States to speed up talks," Masayuki Kubota, chief strategist at Rakuten Securities in Tokyo, told Agence France-Presse at the time. "Japan and the United States are feeling pressed to take the initiative before China crafts its own rules."

So, only eight days after the Tokyo trade meeting flopped in April, Shinzo Abe arrived for a much-regaled week-long visit to Washington. He landed the same day that his Defense Minister Nakatani and Foreign Minister Kishida met in New York with Secretary of State John Kerry and Ashton Carter. There, the four cabinet members settled on a new set of defense guidelines that would expand Japan’s military.

The new guidelines articulated that Japan would now be permitted to take part in “an armed attack against a country other than Japan,” a radical departure from the original treaty. Other new activities included minesweeping to keep sea lanes open, intercepting and shooting down ballistic missiles, and disrupting shipping activities providing support to hostile forces – all responsibilities that the Ryukyu missile bases would be perfectly positioned to execute.

Apparently, granting Japan military powers was what it took to secure the TPP concessions. The next day, Abe and Obama were all smiles and waves in the Rose Garden, boasting about their new defense treaty in the same breath that they stressed they were committed to reaching a “swift and successful conclusion” to the TPP. And the very next day, Abe promised Congress he would have "his" legislature dismantle the peace Constitution by summer, so the new defense guidelines could take effect. He got a standing ovation.

It was not the following summer, but rather in autumn, that Abe made good on his word, managing to push through his aggressive interpretation of the constitution, much to the sorrow of the Japanese people. Sixteen days later, like clockwork, the TPP was reached.

TPP: It’s Not Just about Tariffs and Toyotas
When Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in April, “The TPP is as important to me as an aircraft carrier,” he revealed the inextricable connection between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and militarism. Until that statement, the TPP had been treated as nothing other than the biggest, baddest free trade agreement to come along since NAFTA, CAFTA, TTIP and the rest. However, unlike the TPP, none of these other global trade deals were implemented to thwart a rival world power. President Obama summed things up last spring when he said of the TPP, “If we don’t write the rules, China will write the rules in that region.” So, TPP provides the rules; the Pentagon enforces them.

A look at the map clarifies how forces at play in the Asia-Pacific give a geopolitik context to the TPP. Off the southeast coast of China lies the South China Sea, through which over $5 trillion worth of trade passes annually, after squeezing through the Strait of Malacca. This is also the gateway through which all oil from the middle-east passes before it reaches China, Japan, and South Korea. Whoever controls the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea controls Asia’s economy, which, in turn, drives the world economy. In order for the U.S. to maintain authority over these far-flung hotspots, it must project military might – the most resented and costly form of power. That’s why Ashton Carter needs the TPP so bad: to justify mega-militarizing Pacific trade routes.

Is it any coincidence that all the Asia-Pacific TPP signatories, with the exception of Japan, Australia and New Zealand, can be found surrounding the South China Sea? Those nations are Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Vietnam. For years, they, along with the Philippines and Taiwan, have been in heated disagreement with China over territory that includes critical sea lanes. China is claiming most of the sea for itself, a move which would castrate the TPP. (What good is a trade agreement without access to trade routes?) The stakes are so high that China went so far as to build seven artificial islands, totaling 2,000 acres, in the middle of the disputed Spratly Islands. China claims sovereignty over the new islands, as well as the surrounding sea within twelve nautical miles.

In such unpredictable circumstances, solid alliances with the China-vulnerable countries are indispensable to the Pentagon. Their membership in the TPP exacts deference to U.S. hegemony. In exchange, they get the American muscle they need to stake out their own territorial claims, such as the warship that Carter sent directly into the contentious waters surrounding the artificial islands. This military excess is shaping 21st-century Asia, warping cultures, destroying countless ecosystems, and costing billions of dollars. Other examples: four Littoral Combat Ships (at about $700 million apiece) have been ported in Singapore; Marines have begun rotating between bases in Australia, Okinawa, Guam and Hawaii. Most ecologically destructive are the unprecedented number of joint naval exercises taking place in the western Pacific with tens of thousands of troops at a time. Participating militaries come from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, and Timor Leste. Across both northern and southern hemispheres, the fury of torpedoes, sonar and bombs blasts through reefs and marine habitats almost year-round with no meaningful environmental regulation whatsoever.

To put it bluntly, the TPP is not merely a set of rules; it locks in and justifies a defense empire to counter China. But many U.S. lawmakers need more incentive to sign onto any trade deal. "When the administration sells me on this, it's all geopolitics, not economics: We want to keep these countries in our orbit, not China's," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. "I agree with that. But I need to be sold on the economics."

Teens Stand Up to Oppose War Law
In Japan, those who remember the horrors of war have always been stalwart pacifists. So it came as an enormous surprise when legions of the younger generation camped out for a month in front of the Diet, chanting and beating drums, as Abe forced through his despised militaristic legislation.

Spearheading the movement has been Students' Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy (SEALDs), a group that skyrocketed to popularity by incorporating a hip-hop aesthetic into its political messaging. Other organizations sporting their own acronyms have popped up like mushrooms: Teens Stand Up to Oppose War Law (T-ns SOWL), MIDDLEs and even OLDs. Regardless of age, though, they all brandish signs with the same message, such as “War is Over,” “Change the Prime Minister” and “TPP – NO! People’s Pacific Partnership – YES!”

Equally significant is the wide-sweeping, movement of young Asia-Pacific visionaries that seemingly came out of nowhere to organize Peace for the Sea Camp. Its very trans-national quality flies in the face of what a Pentagon official on Guam once told me: “Unlike European countries, Asian countries will never be able to get along – that’s why we’re there, in Asia.”

But they didn’t come out of nowhere; they had emerged from the highly organized Christian movement opposed to base construction on Jeju Island, South Korea. The ferociously peaceful opposition had attracted pilgrim pacifists from across Asia, and every other peopled continent. They had come to take part in daily religious services that blocked traffic at the gates of the construction site for the past eight years. It was a tearful irony that it was during the Peace for the Sea Camp when the first Aegis-missile destroyer ported at the Jeju base.

One evening of Peace for the Sea Camp was devoted to screening a 2014 Irish documentary about the Jeju navy base protests. The announcer voice-over posited that the completion of the base will herald the beginning of the Cold War in the 21st century, between the U.S. and China. Hindsight has proven him correct; in only one year, tension has increased with the U.S. race to solidify an anti-China political bloc through Japan’s shady new legislation, trade, and epidemic joint military exercises. Not to mention the inflammatory plan to lasso China with a string of new missile bases in the Ryukyu Islands.

Shortly after the conference, the activists produced a manifesto to articulate the voices of those impacted by the Pacific Pivot. Here is an excerpt:
"We fully understand that this shift will not bring about greater human security but will instead yield the conditions for a far greater risk of war and tremendous environmental destruction. We further recognize that these changes have been fueled by the global weapons industry, which reaps enormous profits from increased military tension and conflict, while ordinary people and the wider ecosystem suffer the inevitable consequences.

We cannot leave this work to political leaders and governments, which largely answer to corporate interests and the military-industrial complex. We challenge the prevailing assumptions behind the current configuration of geopolitics that takes for granted the precedence of nation-states, military interests, and capitalist accumulation.

We will instead create another kind of geography. Through our Peace for the Sea Camp and similar projects, we are already creating alternative political communities based on a sustainable economy, the ethics of coexistence, and our shared responsibility to preserve peace."

Apparently, the Pentagon official’s belief that Asian countries are incapable of getting along, is wrong.
 

"In the face of a rising China, relations between the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the United States have improved. Historically marked by distrust, recent developments signal the strengthening of ties. "

Bill Hayton explores the emerging relationship between the United States and Vietnam.

http://ussc.edu.au/ussc/assets/media/docs/publications/Emerging-Asia-Reports/MacArthur-Vietnam-ONLINE.pdf

By JANE PERLEZ OCT. 30, 2015


BEIJING — The Philippines has won an important ruling in its case against China over disputed parts of the South China Sea, with an arbitration court in the Netherlands saying it has jurisdiction in the case and will hold hearings.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague issued the ruling on Thursday, in proceedings that China has boycotted since the Philippines, an ally of the United States, filed suit at the court in 2013.
The ruling was a blow to China, which had hoped the court would reject jurisdiction, allowing Beijing to continue making a case that its claims in the South China Sea are based on history rather than legal precedent.
The Philippines welcomed the decision on Friday and said it was prepared to argue the merits of its case before the tribunal. “Our people can be assured that those representing our country have been continuously preparing for this,” said Abigail Valte, a spokeswoman for the Philippine president, Benigno S. Aquino III.
China’s Foreign Ministry said the country would not accept any ruling from the court, a standard statement from the ministry on the case. It accused the Philippines of “a political provocation under the cloak of law.”
The case is being closely watched by the United States and other Asian nations that are claimants in the South China Sea, where China asserts sovereignty over islands and reefs within about 90 percent of the strategic waterway.
The Philippines — represented by an American lawyer, Paul Reichler, of the Washington law firm Foley Hoag — contends that it has the right to exploit oil and gas in waters in a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone extending from territory that it claims in the South China Sea.
The Hague court rejected Beijing’s claims that the disputes in the sea are about its territorial sovereignty, which China says is based on historical rights and is indisputable.
Mr. Reichler made his arguments in July before the court, which was established in 1899 to encourage the peaceful resolution of international disputes. There had been speculation about whether the court would accept the case, given China’s absence from the proceedings.
The court ruled on Thursday that it had the authority to hear the Philippines’s submissions, which are based on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a set of laws that the United States has not signed but uses as the basis of its policies in the heated contest with China over the South China Sea.
This week, an American destroyer, the Lassen, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Subi Reef, in the Spratly archipelago near the Philippines, which China has built into an artificial island. A Chinese military airstrip is under construction on the island.
The American naval operation was devised to show that the new island does not have a 12-mile territorial zone. The Law of the Sea says that bits of rock or reef that are elevated only at low tide are not entitled to such a zone.
In part of its case, the Philippines argues that China has prevented Philippine vessels from exploiting the waters adjacent to Scarborough Shoal and Johnson Reef, two small outcrops favored by fishermen.
In 2012, China put a barrier across the entrance to Scarborough Shoal that prevented Philippine fishing boats from entering its waters. A deal brokered by the United States that called for both countries to withdraw from the shoal soon fell apart.
Jay Batongbacal, the director of the Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea at the University of the Philippines, said the ruling would be useful in diplomatic negotiations with other countries that oppose China’s actions in the South China Sea. “The ruling could act to embolden and bring unity to the other claimants,” he said.
Zhu Feng, the executive director of the China Center for Collaborative Studies of the South China Sea at Nanjing University, said the ruling was not a defeat for China, adding, “The international jurisdiction will always move in its own way.” But he said he supported the idea of China becoming more involved in the court proceedings.
“I hope Beijing could become more active in participating in all forums and respond to the international ruling at the tribunal,” he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/world/asia/south-china-sea-philippines-hague.html?_r=0

Floyd Whaley contributed reporting from Manila. Yufan Huang contributed research.
A version of this article appears in print on October 31, 2015, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: Hague Court Will Hear Case on Isles in China Sea.