Territorial disputes between China and some of its neighbors are of the most spectacular issues in the region. There are deep concerns about what is going on between China, the rising power in the world arena, and the Asia-Pacific neighbors over territorial disputes and differences in maritime rights. From these ongoing disputes, there are also speculations on the real motives of relevant parties, and naturally, lots of suspicions have come up constantly, destructing the regional environment for common development. More importantly, peace and stability is the basis for economic growth and common prosperity to the region. The ongoing disputes among the parties are disturbing the peace and stability that has been maintained through collective efforts by the players in and out of the region after the end of the Cold War. The prospect could be getting dark if no effective measures were initiated and taken.

What China is concerned about is not really possible conflicts including armed conflicts, because China is confident that all the relevant parties do not hold such political will to try to solve the disputes by use of force or threatening to use force. China is concerned about the prospect that mutual trust could be dramatically reduced among major powers in the region, and that some sort of hostile environment could replace collaborative atmosphere which has been existing for a long time between major countries in many areas. Take the China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiation as an example. That process is part of a East Asia project to push ahead regional economy and global economy at large. The three economic giants are today playing a significant role on the world stage. Even though the negotiation does not stop, large-scale regional instability would severely impact the process, leading to nowhere in final analysis. Now that all the three powers have established new leadership, perhaps it is time to rethink their respective strategy about the territorial disputes, which have led to serious setback in their mutual relations.

I. The Features of Disputes.

Current disputes over sovereignty and maritime rights in West Pacific are mainly spreading in the East and South China Seas with focus on a number of players in the region. There are both bilateral and multilateral disputes, while the bilateral ones are the major part with multilateral impacts.

In the East China Sea, both the China-Japan dispute over the Diaoyu Islands and the Korea-Japan dispute over Dokdo Island are about sovereignty on a bilateral basis, but what have happened between them are likely to go beyond bilateral context. As there is little room for any party to make concessions over sovereignty, the outcome, if they failed to manage the disputes, would severely impact relevant policies of other parties like the United States. Conflict between China and Japan or Japan and South Korea, if any, would inevitably lead to a bad scenario for peace and stability of the whole region, for the United States has deep engagement in the region. Therefore, the way the major parties will handle the issue would severely test the effectiveness of the current structure of regional security, which is based on the ideas of traditional concepts of military alliance in the Cold War.

While Japan has to rely on the American protection for its security, the disputing parties may find it hard or feel it difficult to expect a peaceful prospect of the disputes from American policies. Nor does the so-called U.S. neutral position over the sovereign issues help solve the disputes. To a certain extent, one might argue that the United States is going to be a negative factor in the disputes so far as the prospect of peaceful solution to the disputes is concerned because the Japanese behavior, which has been very provocative, is driven by their perception of what the U.S. is going to do in any possible conflict. In the meantime, Japan’s tough position has left China with less options but getting tough.

In the South China Sea, things look different. All the states that are having disputes with China are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and they also have disputes among themselves over these small islands and reefs. Though their disputes with China are of a bilateral nature, some are trying hard to get ASEAN into the front to deal with China, which is opposed by China. The case shows that the bilateral disputes between China and individual Southeast Asian nations contain multilateral elements increasingly, which is likely to make the situation more complicated.

II. Is It possible to Maintain Peace and Stability Without Final Settlement?

So far as the respective position of the parties is concerned, getting final settlement among them will be a tough process without a possible timetable. It is therefore very important for them to think about the possibilities other than the final outcome, that is, given the current conditions and situations, how to avoid escalation of the differences and conflicts at large. The fact that this issue on avoiding escalation and conflict is worth discussing implies that what is happening in the region does contain danger. Although one may argue that all the relevant parties have the political will not to let the differences and disputes escalate into armed conflicts, the danger still lies in a couple of possible aspects.

The first one is unilateral moves without consensus. Due to various reasons, the possibility that one party might take unilateral moves does exist. In fact, viewing from historic experiences, during crises, when relevant parties do not have good communication for understanding the stance and real motives of the other party, unilateral moves are easily taken in order to avoid the worst scenario taking place, though there may not be such thing as the worst scenario as perceived by the party.  Needless to say, unilateral moves tend to trigger more responses that could only push escalation. The current dispute between China and Japan on the Diaoyu Islands provides a proving case.

The second aspect is unexpected friction leading to more tense confrontation. While there are disputes in certain areas, maintaining the status quo will be crucial. If that is broken in an unexpected friction, escalation would be likely to happen. The China-Philippines dispute over the Huangyan Island last year is the case. In April 2012 when Chinese fishing boats were driven severely with force by the Philippine navy in the Huangyan Island area where Chinese fishing boats usually sail and operate, from the Chinese perspective, the status quo was broken. That event finally pushed the sovereignty issue to the front, which neither party would possibly concede. Now that the Philippines further raised the issue to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which is refused by China, one could reasonably predict that escalation would happen.

The third aspect is preventing situation from going out of control. Self-constraint is seen as one of the effective measures to reach the goal. However, when crises come up, self-constraint would not be popular among the public opinions. Domestically, it won’t win support. That would implicitly encourage decision-makers to go tough. That is always a challenge to crisis management. In today’s West Pacific, most relevant parties pursue economic prosperity and strong growth as their strategic goal. Therefore, preventing disputes from going out of control must fit the fundamental interests of all the parties, though it is difficult to acquire proper approaches.

In sum, while setting up a timetable for final settlement of territorial disputes is not a realistic aim, it is indeed imperative for all the relevant parties to seek necessary means to maintain stability, manage the ongoing friction, control the crises and seek new mechanisms to handle these issues among the parties. On the Chinese side, when the new leadership is in position, the first and perhaps also foremost challenge would be how to properly handle the disputes in West Pacific. And there is little doubt that China’s moves in the next stage will play a decisive role. In this context, China will try its best to ensure the implementation of its external strategy. That includes looking for good approaches to regional stability and peace.

III. Combining Bilateral and Regional Approaches for Stability

For China, so far as the current situation in West Pacific is concerned, the first priority may not be joint development in the disputed areas. Rather, China is likely to see maintaining stability as more important in the immediate future. Given the increasing disputes, although there is no room for China to concede in territorial positions, what China pursues is serious negotiations with the parties. In the Diaoyu Islands case, China wishes Japan to take the issue seriously, and begin talks in the first place. Japan’s denial that there is territorial dispute between Japan and China makes the situation more difficult. Apparently, bilateral basis is fundamental, without which further moves toward multilateral approaches by either side is not very much likely.

Checking the existing multilateral mechanisms in West Pacific, one may find that ASEAN is the core plus other additional frameworks. For regional security, ASEAN has been playing a crucial role. China is a close and strategic partner to the organization, and China is fully supportive for the work ASEAN has done in regional integration and security maintenance. With the expansion of regional framework like East Asia summit, ASEAN’s role as a collaborating entity is reasonably expected. By using a popular saying, if Asian integration is a vehicle, ASEAN is the driver, and other major players are combined to produce a powerful engine to push it ahead, and China, Japan, South Korea and India are the driving force indeed. The question is whether territorial disputes among them could stop the engine working? And to what extent ASEAN might play a role in engaging itself into the already complicated interactions? To make things more difficult, several ASEAN members have territorial disputes with China and among themselves. In this context, ASEAN framework is still useful, but the extent to which it can play an active role is limited.

In the ongoing disputes over sovereignty, China is clear about its positions. On one hand, China strongly advocates bilateral approach because the dispute is bilateral in its nature, and if bilateral approach does not work, there is little reason to believe that multilateral approaches would work better. On the other hand, China does not oppose proper role that could be played by multilateral organizations like ASEAN in working on certain regimes and norms on consensus basis. But China does not accept that in territorial disputes like that in Nansha islands and reefs multilateral organizations like ASEAN work as a negotiating party when only some of its members have disputes between them. Instead, China would welcome to work with other parties, which have disputes with China, in a common framework such as ASEAN on possible regimes and norms. The reality that some disputing members of ASEAN try to use it as an entity negotiating with China will not work in end of the day because China’s denial of such approach will make the organization itself less effective. That will not be good news to the organization indeed.

In order to reduce tensions and enhance collaborations, major players in the region need to push consensus building on approaches and mechanisms to handle regional crises. ASEAN is a useful forum to exchange views among the parties, but it is important that ASEAN is not one party to negotiate with the other party, or it would lose its legitimacy. The fact that some members try to use ASEAN as a tool to deal with China does not improve the situation for the better, nor does it help the consensus building on the territorial disputes in the region. The case of Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) and Code of Conduct for the South China Sea (COC) illustrates it explicitly. The Chinese argument that full implementation of the DOC is the precondition of any further agreements because it would be pointless to sign new contracts when previous contracts are not yet done. Besides, some members of ASEAN try to use this case to set ASEAN as a whole entity to deal with China, and that effort itself will not be perceived as a good implementation of the DOC. That dispute shows that multilateral approaches do have difficulties in handling territorial disputes in the region. But China will continue to work with ASEAN to look for better understanding and more reliable approaches to handle the disputes in the South China Sea.

Regarding the disputes in the East China Sea, the major players are more than those in the disputes. The United States plays an important role, even though it does not have a position on sovereignty. With the bilateral military treaties, the United States stands as an ally to both Japan and South Korea, that makes its neutral position over sovereignty more a problem than a solution. Meanwhile, the current multilateral mechanism in Northeast Asia such as the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) does not play an influential role. The East Asia summit is another structure at the highest level, but whether it could play an additional role in security affairs in the region remains to be seen because not all its members are really concerned about the territorial disputes and they may take more interest in economic cooperation and regional integration. Now that the United States is also part of the mechanism, reportedly, the U.S. wants to have more security discussions within the East Asia Summit (EAS) in the wake of the U.S. rebalancing strategy in the Asia-Pacific. China is quite uncertain about the American intention. It would be less likely that China could welcome the EAS as part of solutions to the territorial disputes in the region, at least in the near future.

IV. Conclusion

Judging from the nature of the territorial disputes in West Pacific, bilateral approaches are still the more feasible option, even if these approaches do not really solve the problem. It is mainly attributed to the inherent toughness of the disputes. Multilateral approaches are useful, and the existing institutions can play an important role in terms of deescalating tensions and building up consensus, which can create and provide favorable conditions for final settlement. But they are not replacement of bilateral approaches.

The real test to the parties in disputes will be whether they are able to shelve territorial debates aside, keep status quo as much as possible and begin a new design for joint development. For the moment, it looks impossible, for tension is rising up and the parties are facing severe challenges. But there is no end on that track. China is likely to continue to maintain its bottom line and in the meantime look for other options that might help promote consensus building with more dialogues and communications. However, China’s bottom line will remain unchanged, that is, the disputes between China and other countries have to be solved through the disputing parties, and that involvement by outside forces is not acceptable.

Finally, maintaining peace and stability in periphery is one of the most important goals in China’s external strategy. After the new leadership took power, China is expected to unfold its foreign policy in a new stage and level. Given the importance of periphery stability, it may be safe to predict that China won’t take provocative actions in handling the disputes, even though the public opinion in China are having a much more radical view on the disputes. In this context, while making significant adjustment of policy by any parties over the disputes in West Pacific is not likely to happen currently, it is imperative to take actions more cautiously in order to prevent acute friction from taking place and to put the situation under control as much as possible.

Source of documents：Global Review