China is “seriously” upset with the United States for having the gall to sail in international waters.
The USS Benfold’s transit through the Paracel Islands chain of the South China Sea on Wednesday shows “that the United States is an out-and-out ‘creator of security risks in the South China Sea’ and ‘destroyer of regional peace and stability.'” So says the Chinese Ministry of Defense. By this action, Beijing added, the U.S. has “seriously violated China’s sovereignty and security, seriously undermined the peace and stability of the South China Sea, and seriously violated international law and norms of international relations.”
Seriously?
Judged by the facts rather than the Chinese Communist Party’s dreamworld alternate reality, no, not really.
The truth is that the Paracel Islands are in international waters far away from the Chinese mainland. But don’t take my word for it — take a map and a measurement.
My annotated map below shows the nearly 170-mile distance between the islands and China’s nearest actual territory, Hainan Island. But that’s just the start. The yellow circle at the bottom of the map shows the Spratly Islands chain, which China also pretends to own. Those islands are 570 miles from Hainan.
To appreciate truly the ludicrousness of China’s inventive geography, look at the next map below. It covers the so-called “nine-dash line” extent of China’s claims over the near entirety of the South China Sea.
The very southern tip of that nine-dash line, the James Shoal, is just shy (998 miles by my measurement) of 1,000 miles from Hainan Island. The James Shoal is 70 miles from Malaysia. So, considering that territorial waters extend only 12 miles from a shoreline, China’s assertion that it owns the James Shoal represents an 8300% exaggeration of its legal territorial waters. The only thing in international politics that could possibly match the absurdity of these claims is the rhetorical ridiculousness of China’s diplomacy.
Still, this issue is deadly serious.
Depending on the estimating criteria, the South China Sea accounts for $4 trillion to $6 trillion in annual trade flows. It is also rich in fish and energy reserves, which China wants to exploit to the maximum extent possible. But the trade values navigating these waters are Beijing’s key concern. After all, China wants to extract political obedience from the nations that rely on those waters to sustain their export-dependent economies — the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Taiwan. And if it can hold their exports and imports at risk, China will likely secure the obedience it so desires.
In turn, that will mean the destruction of those nations’ democratic sovereignty — or hopes for such democratic sovereignty in the future. China’s control over the South China Sea will also translate to its ability to pressure far-away governments like those of the European Union and the Asian subcontinent to defer to the Communist Party’s wishes in international affairs. If not that deference, the People’s Liberation Army can force systematic “cargo inspections” that cause serious economic harm. If you don’t believe China would do this, just look at what Xi Jinping’s regime is doing right now to Lithuania and Australia. Those two nations might be 7,500 miles apart, but both are suffering an extensive Chinese trade war in response to their support of Taiwan’s democracy, human rights, and the international rule of law.
All of this explains why the U.S. is sending warships through these critically valuable international waters. It knows that unless the U.S. leads in defense of the post-1945 order that has delivered unparalleled prosperity and peace to America and the world, China will bury that order under a new dominion of autocratic Communist feudalism.
President Joe Biden and members of Congress such as Rob Wittman, Jared Golden, John Rutherford, Elaine Luria, and Kay Granger need to stop pursuing this critical mission alongside crony capitalism and absent hard choices.
