CDA Institute guest contributor Dave Beitelman, a PhD candidate at Dalhousie University, comments on why Canada should take a stronger position on China’s claims in the South China Sea. This is Part 1 of a two-part series.
It was just announced by Defence Minister Sajjan and Foreign Affairs Minister Dion that Canada will be contributing a battalion-sized force as a key element of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence in Eastern and Central Europe. With smaller commitments elsewhere, including in Iraq and Ukraine, this is a considerable commitment, and one which will limit the ability of the Canadian Army to deploy elsewhere. To put this new troop commitment in perspective, Canada deployed, on average, 2,500 troops to Afghanistan at any one time – the size and duration of which put an incredible strain on the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). The new NATO deployment is expected to number approximately 1,000CAF personnel, though the exact number, and their particular responsibilities (infantry, support, etc.,) will not be known until a formal announcement is made at the NATO Summit in Warsaw.
In the official press release, Minister Sajjan is quoted as saying, “As a responsible partner in the world, Canada stands side by side with its NATO Allies working to deter aggression and assure peace and stability in Europe.” As a member of the NATO alliance, it makes sense that Canada would contribute to the mission, and can even be seen as an expansion of the work the CAF have been doing in Ukraine. Beyond the alliance politics, however, the more fundamental point is that Canada’s strategic and economic interests are served by a stable and peaceful Europe. Contributing to that stability is part of being a responsible ally and member of the global community.
Far from the borders of Eastern Europe, however, another challenge to the peace and stability of the global order is unfolding in the Asia-Pacific region, and most pressingly in the South China Sea. On July 12, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in The Hague is set to announce its verdict on the maritime jurisdiction dispute between the Philippines and China. China lays claim to nearly the entire South China Sea, while many other states in the region, including Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei, the Philippines, and Vietnam, have claims of their own. China has said it will not recognize the Court’s ruling, a message the Chinese government has repeated since 2013.
While the circumstances and historical context of Russia’s challenges in Eastern Europe and China’s challenges in the Asia-Pacific are different, the essence is the same. In both cases, Russia and China have used proxy forces to do the pushing, with Russia using ‘volunteers’ and other non-official forces to help push its claims in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, and China using a mix of coast guard and militia forces to bully its neighbors, while People’s Liberation Army – Navy (PLAN) vessels lurk nearby. By refusing to acknowledge the right of the PCA to hear the case, or even of the Philippines to file it, China has made its preferences well known: the South China Sea belongs to China and any disputes should be discussed and negotiated bilaterally, rather than through third-party mechanisms – particularly non-Asian ones. Notably, China can throw its weight around in bilateral negotiations and coerce its smaller neighbors more easily. This has the other states in the region worried, and rightfully so.
In addition to seeking closer ties to the United States, many states in the region have increased their defence budgets and made public statements denouncing China’s behavior. How China, the U.S., or any other country in the region will react to the PCA’s ruling is anyone’s guess. Some speculate China will unilaterally announce the imposition of an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the South China Sea, supported by the network of radar stations, missile batteries, and airstrips on the islands China has dredged into existence over the years. When China announced an ADIZ over parts of the East China Sea in 2013, the U.S. responded by flying two B-52 bombers through the zone. The stakes in the South China Sea, where the Chinese government has invested significant amounts of both financial and political capital, are much higher. Accordingly, tensions in the region leading up to the July 12th announcement are running high.
Over $5 trillion in trade passes through the South China Sea per year. The Canadian government has made the region a key economic priority, due to its many emerging economies, of which China is clearly the most important. To support its economic ambitions, Canada has also tried to gain membership to the institutions through which the region’s economic and security architecture are created, namely the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus). All that is to say, it is a region of the world where stability is being threatened and where Canada has substantial economic and strategic interests. And yet, while Canada has been vocal in opposing Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, it has been largely silent on Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. Save for two superficial ‘statements of concern’ by former Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, Canada has said almost nothing. And that is a mistake which sorely needs correcting.
The reasons for Canada’s silence vary. It has been said that Canada has no ‘real’ strategic interests at stake in the South China Sea or vis-a-vis China, nor any real capacity to influence Chinese behavior, and so Canada has little to gain by ‘rocking the boat.’ What’s more, China is an important economic partner with whom Canada has sought closer engagement. By involving itself in regional politics, Canada risks alienating its second largest trading partner. As I’ve argued elsewhere, these arguments don’t hold water.
Outside of its membership in NATO, what direct interests does Canada have in Eastern Europe or the Baltic states? Members of NATO determine their level of engagement based on the relevance to their national interests (along with other considerations), and so it would not be unusual for Canada to be less active in the region than it has been. And, given its recent long-term engagement in Afghanistan, and its on-going missions in the Middle East to combat ISIS, the argument that Canada isn’t pulling its weight would not be particularly persuasive.
Canada has as much interest in the stability of the Asia-Pacific as it does Eastern Europe, if not more. Not only does Canada have extensive economic interests in the region, the many partners Canada has been attempting to build relationships with do too. Canada’s Five Eyes allies Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. are directly impacted by the rise of China. Japan, another important economic and defence partner, is at risk. Canada has very clear strategic and economic interests which are currently at risk. More to the point, however, the argument that Canada has few, if any, security interests at stake in the Asia-Pacific region contradict existing Canadian policies and actions– something I will explore in more depth in Part 2.
David A. Beitelman is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Dalhousie University and a Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, where he served as Deputy Director from 2013–14.
Featured Image: (July 12, 2012) – Soldiers from multiple countries (Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Tonga and United States) get in position on the flight deck to man the rails on amphibious assault ship USS Essex in Honolulu, Hawaii, on July 11 2012. (Canadian Forces photo by : MCpl Marc-Andre Gaudreault, Canadian Forces Combat Camera.)
This piece was originally published by the Jamestown Foundation. It is republished here with permission. Read it in its original form here.
By John Costello
Gao Jin (高津) is the PLASSF’s Commander. Note that he was promoted to major general in June 2006 and to lieutenant general occurred in July 2013. (Xinhua)
On December 31, 2015, Xi Jinping introduced the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF; 火箭军), Strategic Support Force (PLASSF; 战略支援部队), and Army Leadership Organ. The move came just within the Central Military Commission’s deadline to complete the bulk of reforms by the end of the year. Most media coverage has focused on the Rocket Force, whose reorganization amounts to a promotion of the PLA Second Artillery Force (PLASAF) to the status of a service on the same level of the PLA Army, Navy, and Air Force. However, by far the most interesting and unexpected development was the creation of the SSF.
According to official sources, the Strategic Support Force will form the core of China’s information warfare force, which is central to China’s “active defense” strategic concept. This is an evolution, not a departure from, China’s evolving military strategy. It is a culmination of years of technological advancement and institutional change. In the context of ongoing reforms, the creation of the SSF may be one of the most important changes yet. Consolidating and restructuring China’s information forces is a key measure to enable a number of other state goals of reform, including reducing the power of the army, implementing joint operations, and increasing emphasis on high-tech forces.
The Strategic Support Force in Chinese Media
Top Chinese leadership, including President Xi Jinping and Ministry of Defense spokesman Yang Yujun have not provided significant details about the operational characteristics of the SSF. Xi has described the SSF as a “new-type combat force to maintain national security and an important growth point of the PLA’s combat capabilities” (MOD, January 1).
On January 14, the SSF’s newly-appointed commander, Gao Jin (高津) said that the SSF will raise an information umbrella(信息伞) for the military and will act as an important factor in integrating military services and systems, noting that it will provide the entire military with accurate, effective, and reliable information support and strategic support assurance (准确高效可靠的信息支撑和战略支援保障) (CSSN, January 14). [1]
Senior Chinese military experts have been quick to comment on the SSF, and their interviews form some of the best and most authoritative insights into the role the new force will play in the Chinese military. For instance, on January 16th, the Global Times quoted Song Zhongping (宋忠平), a former PLASAF officer and a professor at the PLARF’s Equipment Research Academy, who described SSF as as a “fifth service” and, contrary to official reports, states it is not a “military branch” (兵种) but rather should be seen as an independent military service (军种) in its own right. [2] He continues by stating that it will be composed of three separate forces or force-types: space troops (天军), cyber troops (网军), and electronic warfare forces (电子战部队). The cyber force would be composed of “hackers focusing on attack and defense,” the space forces would “focus on reconnaissance and navigation satellites,” and the electronic warfare force would focus on “jamming and disrupting enemy radar and communications.” According to Song, this would allow the PLA to “meet the challenges of not only traditional warfare but also of new warfare centered on new technology” (Global Times, January 16).
By far the most authoritative description of the Strategic Support Force comes from People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Rear Admiral Yin Zhuo (尹卓). As a member of both the PLAN Expert Advisory Committee for Cybersecurity and Informatization (海军网络安全和信息化专家委员会) and the All-Military Cybersecurity and Informatization Expert Advisory Committee (全军网络安全和信息化专家委员会, MCIEAC) formed in May 2015, Yin is in the exact sort of position to have first-hand knowledge of the SSF, if not a direct role in its creation.
In an interview published by official media on January 5th, 2016, Yin stated that its main mission will be to enable battlefield operations by ensuring the military can “maintain local advantages in the aerospace, space, cyber, and electromagnetic battlefields.” Specifically, the SSF’s missions will include target tracking and reconnaissance, daily operation of satellite navigation, operating Beidou satellites, managing space-based reconnaissance assets, and attack and defense in the cyber and electromagnetic spaces” and will be “deciding factors in [the PLA’s] ability to attain victory in future wars” (China Military News, January 5).
Yin also foresees the SSF playing a greater role in protecting and defending civilian infrastructure than the PLA has in the past:
“[The SSF] will play an important role in China’s socialist construction. Additionally, China is facing a lot of hackers on the internet which are engaging in illegal activities, for example, conducting cyber attacks against government facilities, military facilities, and major civilian facilities. This requires that we protect them with appropriate defense. The SSF will play an important role in protecting the country’s financial security and the security of people’s daily lives” (China Military News, January 5).
Yang Yujun, MND spokesman, also suggested that civilian-military integration will form a portion of the SSF’s mission, but stopped short of clarifying whether this meant the force will have a heavy civilian component or will be involved in defending civilian infrastructure, or both (CNTV, January 2).
Yin noted that the SSF will embody the PLA’s vision of real joint operations. In Yin’s view, military operations cannot be divorced from “electronic space,” a conceptual fusion of the electromagnetic and cyber domains. The SSF will integrate “reconnaissance, early warning, communications, command, control, navigation, digitalized ocean, digitalized land, etc. and will provide strong support for joint operations for each military service branch.” Indeed, this view was also echoed by Shao Yongling (邵永灵), a PLARF Senior Colonel who is currently a professor at the PLA’s Command College in Wuhan. She suggested that the SSF was created to centralize each branch of the PLA’s combat support units, where previously each service had their own, resulting in “overlapping functions and repeat investment.” Consolidating these responsibilities in a central force would allow the military to “reduce redundancies, better integrate, and improve joint operational capabilities” (China Military News, January 5).
Taken together, these sources suggest that at its most basic, the SSF will comprise forces in the space, cyber, and electromagnetic domains. Specifically, sources indicate the SSF will most likely be responsible for all aspects of information in warfare, including intelligence, technical reconnaissance, cyber attack/defense, electronic warfare, and aspects of information technology and management.
Force Composition
Rear Admiral Yin’s comments in particular suggest that at a minimum the SSF will draw from forces previously under the General Staff Department’s (GSD) subordinate organs, to include portions of the First Department (1PLA, operations department), Second Department (2PLA, intelligence department), Third Department (3PLA, technical reconnaissance department), Fourth Department (4PLA, electronic countermeasure and radar department), and Informatization Department (communications).
The “Joint Staff Headquarters Department” (JSD) under the Central Military Commission will likely incorporate the 1PLA’s command and control, recruitment, planning, and administrative bureaus. Information support organs like the meteorology and hydrology bureau, survey and mapping bureau, and targeting bureau would move to the SSF.
The GSD’s intelligence department, the 2PLA will likely move to the SSF, although there is some question as to whether it will maintain all aspects of its clandestine intelligence mission, or this will be moved to a separate unit. The Aerospace Reconnaissance Bureau (ARB), responsible for the GSD’s overhead intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission will most likely form the center of the SSF’s space corps. The 2PLA’s second bureau, responsible for tactical reconnaissance, will also move to the SSF. This will include one of its primary missions: operating China’s long-range unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).[3]
The SSF will unify China’s cyber mission by reducing the institutional barriers separating computer network attack, espionage, and defense, which have been “stove-piped” and developed as three separate disciplines within the PLA. The 3PLA’s technical reconnaissance and cyber espionage units will likely move, including the national network of infamous technical reconnaissance bureau’s (TRB), the most famous of which is Unit 61398. The 4PLA’s electronic countermeasures mission will likely form the core of a future electronic warfare force under the SSF, and the its secondary mission of computer network attack (CNA) will also likely also move under the SSF.
Finally, the entirety of the Informatization Department will likely move to the SSF. This will unify its mission, which has expanding over the years to include near all aspects of the support side of informatization, including communications, information management, network administration, computer network defense (CND), and satellite downlink.
Drawing the bulk of the SSF from former GSD organs and subordinate units is not only remarkably practical, but it is also mutually reinforcing with other reforms. Firstly, it reduces the power and influence of the Army by removing its most strategic capabilities. Previously the PLA Army was split into two echelons, its GSD-level headquarters departments (部门) and units (部队) and Military Region-level (MR; 军区) operational units. GSD units did not serve in combat or traditional operational roles, yet constituted some of China’s most advanced “new-type” capabilities: information management, space forces, cyber espionage, cyber-attack, advanced electronic warfare, and intelligence, reconnaissance, and surveillance. The creation of the Army Leadership Organ effectively split the Army along these lines, with lower-echelon forces forming the PLA Ground Forces and the higher-echelon units forming the Strategic Support Force.
Secondly, separating these capabilities into a separate SSF allows the PLA Army to concentrate on land defense and combat. Nearly all personnel staffing the supposedly joint-force GSD units were Army personnel and by-and-large these units were considered Army units, despite serving as the de facto joint strategic support units for the entire PLA military. Giving the SSF its own administrative organs and personnel allows the PLA Army to concentrate solely on the business of ground combat, land defense, and fulfilling its intended roles in the context of China’s national defense strategy.
Finally and most importantly, separating the second, third, fourth, and “fifth” departments—as the Informatization Department is sometimes called—into their own service branch allows them to be leveraged to a greater degree for Navy Air Force, and Rocket Force missions. More than anything, it allows them to focus on force-building and integrating these capabilities across each service-branch, thereby enabling a long-sought “joint-force” capable of winning wars.
In many ways, taking GSD-level departments, bureaus, and units and centralizing them into the Strategic Support Force is making official what has long been a reality. GSD-level components have nearly always operated independently from regional Group Army units. Separating them into a separate service is less of an institutional change and more of an administrative paper-shuffle.
Integrated Information Warfare
The Strategic Support Force will form the core of China’s information warfare force, which is central to China’s strategy of pre-emptive attack and asymmetric warfare. China’s new military reforms seek to synthesize military preparations into a “combined wartime and peacetime military footing.” These “strategic presets” seek to put China’s military into an advantageous position at the outset of war in order to launch a preemptive attack or quickly respond to aggression. [4] This allows China to offset its disadvantages in technology and equipment through preparation and planning, particularly against a high-tech opponent—generally a by-word for the United States in PLA strategic literature.
These presets require careful selection of targets so that a first salvo of hard-kill and soft-kill measures can completely cripple an enemy’s operational “system of systems,” or his ability to use information technology to conduct operations. Achieving this information dominance is necessary to achieve air and sea dominance, or the “three dominances.” [5] A PLA Textbook, The Science of Military Strategy, (SMS) specifically cites space, cyber, and electronic warfare means working together as strategic weapons to achieve these ends, to “paralyze enemy operational system of systems” and “sabotage enemy’s war command system of systems.” [6] This includes launching space and cyber-attacks against political, economic, and civilian targets as a deterrent. The Strategic Support Force will undoubtedly play a central role as the information warfare component of China’s warfare strategy, and will be the “tip of the spear” in its war-plans and strategic disposition.
Remaining Questions
Despite what can be culled and answered from official sources and expert commentary, significant questions remain regarding the structure of Strategic Support Force and the roles it will play. For one, it is unclear how the Strategic Support Force will incorporate civilian elements into its ranks. Mentioned in 2015’s DWP and the more recent reform guidelines, civilian-military integration is a priority, but Chinese official sources have stopped short in describing how these forces will be incorporated into military in the new order (MOD, May 26, 2015). Previously, the General Staff Department research institutes, known as the “GSD RI’s,” acted as epicenters of civilian technical talent for strategic military capabilities. If the Strategic Support Force is primarily composed of former GSD units, then these research institutes will be ready-made fusion-points for civilian-military integration, and may take on a greater role in both operations and acquisition. Even so, the civilian piece is likely to prove vital, as they will undoubtedly serve as the backbone of China’s cyber capability.
Secondly, it is unknown specifically what forces will compose the Strategic Support Force, or the full extent of its mission. When official sources say “new-type” forces, they could mean a wide range of different things, and the term can include special warfare, intelligence operations, cyber warfare, or space. At a minimum, a consensus has emerged that the force will incorporate space, cyber, and electronic warfare, but the full extent of what this means is unclear. It is also unknown, for instance, if the space mission will include space launch facilities, or whether those will remain under the CMC Equipment Development Department, a rechristened General Armament Department. Where psychological operations will fall in the new order is also up for debate. Some sources have said that it will be incorporated into the SSF while others have left it out entirely.
Finally, although it is clear that the SSF will act as a service, it remains unclear if the CMC will also treat it as an operational entity, or how the CMC will operationalize forces that are under its administrative purview. It is unlikely that the military theaters will have operational authority over strategic-level cyber units, electronic warfare units, or space assets. These capabilities will likely be commanded directly by the CMC. This logic flies in the face of the new system, which requires that services focus on force construction rather than operations and warfare. The solution may be that the SSF, as well as the PLARF, act as both services and “functional” commands for their respective missions.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the strategic support force needs to be understood in the broader context of the reforms responsible for its creation. On one hand, the reforms are practical, intending to usher China’s military forces into the modern era and transform them into a force capable of waging and winning “informatized local wars.” On the other hand, the reforms are politically motivated, intending to reassert party leadership to transform the PLA into a more reliable, effective political instrument.
The Strategic Support Force, if administered correctly, will help solve many of the PLA’s problems that have prevented it from effectively implementing joint operations and information warfare. The creation of an entire military service dedicated to information warfare reaffirms China’s focus on the importance of information in its strategic concepts, but it also reveals the Central Military Commission’s desire to assert more control over these forces as political instruments. With the CMC solidly at the helm, information warfare will likely be leveraged more strategically and will be seen in all aspects of PLA operations both in peace and in war. China is committing itself completely to information warfare, foreign nations should take note and act accordingly.
John Costello is Congressional Innovation Fellow for New American Foundation and a former Research Analyst at Defense Group Inc. He was a member of the U.S. Navy and a DOD Analyst. He specializes in information warfare, electronic warfare and non-kinetic counter-space issues.
Notes
1. A Chinese-media report on Gao Jin’s military service assignments can be found at <http://news.sina.com.cn/c/sz/2016-01-01/doc-ifxneept3519173.shtml>. Gao Jin’s role as commander of the SSF is noteworthy in two respects: One, he is a career Second Artillery officer, so his new role muddies the waters a bit in understanding whether the SSF will be a force composed of Army personnel but treated administratively separate from the Army—not unlike the former PLASAF-PLA Army relationship—or will be composed of personnel from various services and treated administratively separate from all forces. Secondly and more important to this discussion, before his new post as SSF commander, Gao Jin was head of the highly-influential Academy of Military Sciences (AMS) which besides being the PLA’s de facto think-tank (along with the National Defense University), is responsible for putting out the Science of Strategy, a wide-reaching consensus document that both captures and guides PLA strategic thinking at the national level. The most recent edition published in 2013 was released under his tenure as commandant of AMS and many of the ideas from that edition have found their way into the 2015 defense white paper, December’s guide on military reforms, and many of the changes made to China’s national defense establishment. His new role could be seen as CMC-endorsement of SMS’s views on China’s strategic thought.
2. Song’s description of the SSF contradicts official-media descriptions of the service, which had suggested that the service will occupy a similar echelon to that of the PLASAF before it was promoted to full military service status equal to the other branches.
3. Ian M. Easton and L.C. Russell Hsiao, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Project: Organizational Capacities and Operational Capabilities,” 2049 Institute, March 11, 2013. p. 14.
4. The Science of Military Strategy [战略学], 3rd ed., Beijing: Military Science Press, 2013. p. 320.
5. Ibid. p. 165.
6. Ibid. p. 164.
Featured Image: Soldiers of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army 1st Amphibious Mechanized Infantry Division prepare to provide Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen with a demonstration of their capablities during a visit to the unit in China on July 12, 2011. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley/Released)
Last week CIMSEC featured an insightful series of publications in response to a call for articles soliciting analysis on the South China Sea. Contributors assessed the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling on Philippines vs. China, evolving military developments, strategic perspectives, and more. We thank our authors for their excellent contributions.
Below is a list of the articles that featured during the topic week, and revealing excerpts.
“Studying the work of the propagandist has merits: we learn what the PRC wants domestic and international audiences to believe. The statements of the advisor, however, are potentially much more rewarding, for they may suggest future actions.”
“Whether these land features may contain military value significant enough to be fought for are never decided by themselves. Other factors such as force, timing and additional characteristics associated with the space will fundamentally define their importance.”
“But from an international law perspective and what most of the world accepts – China’s actions in the SCS were unilateral, aggressive, and threatening to their neighbors. This ruling states that this behavior is not correct and that this is not an accepted way to act in the international community.”
“Historically, China has remained relatively weak in ASW and continues “to lack either a robust coastal or deep-water anti-submarine warfare capability,” according to the Department of Defense.1 Despite such persistent shortcomings, the apparent advances in the realism and complexity of these recent drills suggest that the PLAN’s ASW capabilities could be progressing.”
“On the one hand, the United States sees freedom of navigation as a fundamental pillar of the post-war order and integral to the past 70 years of relative peace and prosperity. On the other, China’s (re)assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea should be contextualized within its century long campaign to recover territory lost under (semi)-imperialism.”
The following article is published in English and Chinese.
By Tommy Jamison
The present dispute over the South China Sea doesn’t hinge on fishing rights, or oil fields, or even military bases. At its root the controversy stems from conflicting, profoundly held and historically consistent “core interests/核心利益.” On the one hand, the United States sees freedom of navigation as a fundamental pillar of the post-war order and integral to the past 70 years of relative peace and prosperity. On the other, China’s (re)assertion of sovereignty over the South China Sea should be contextualized within its century long campaign to recover territory lost under (semi)-imperialism. The historical grounding of both these arguments seems lost on much of Washington as well as Beijing.
Left, “China: It Cannot Be Reduced by Even a Little.” Today a common image on social and state media (People’s Daily). Right, “A Map of the Current Situation” c. 1900. “It is obvious at a glance” that a host of imperial powers threatened Chinese sovereignty. (Wikipedia)
Territorial controversies are not new in China. From the Opium War (1839-42) to the present, resisting imperialism and recovering lost territory have constituted core objectives of Chinese foreign policy. As such, it is only through first exploring this historical context that we understand the modern conflict in the South China Sea. Because of “Western” (semi)-imperialism, territorial disputes in Chinese modern history are very common and have profound political ramifications. The question of Shandong’s sovereignty was the fuse for the May Fourth movement (1919); Japan’s aggression in Manchuria (1931) led to the collapse of the post-WWI internationalist system and incited the Second World War; before 1997 Hong Kong was one of the world’s last formal colonies; today Sino-Taiwanese relations remain a powder keg, and so on. From this historical perspective of course the South China Sea is a sensitive question. It is also in some ways a legacy of resistance to imperialism and, to a certain extent, a continuation of the 20th century movement to recover lost territories.
At the same time, from a macroscopic perspective, the U.S. post-war diplomatic strategy can be summarized in four principles: 1) defend democratic regimes; 2) encourage free trade; 3) protect freedom of navigation, because it is a fundamental requirement of free trade (alongside today freedom of information, the skies and even space); and 4) spread liberalization, an admittedly abstract principle. In short, the U.S. post war strategy has been an attempt to replace the pre-war anarchic international system with a liberal internationalist system. China’s activity in the South China Sea threatens these aims, particularly freedom of navigation, and thus threatens the post-war international system. Freedom of navigation is often criticized in mainstream Chinese media, as in, “At root, freedom of navigation is an excuse to implement the ‘pacific rebalance’ strategy and to contain the emergence of China,” but the present world was developed from these ideals. As such, freedom of navigation is in no way an empty slogan, but rather a core U.S. interest.
与此同时，在宏观层面上，美国二战后的外交战略可以归纳为四个原则：一是保护民主政府；二是推动自由贸易；三是捍卫航行自由，因为航行自由是贸易自由最基本的要求，现在这个原则扩展到飞行自由、信息自由，甚至天空自由等范围。第四个原则是最抽象的——普及自由化。简而言之，美国二战后的战略试图用自由国际秩序来代替二战前的无政府国际秩序(anarchic international system)。如今，中国在南海的行为威胁到了这些原则，特别是航行自由，因此也威胁到了二战后的国际秩序。中国主流媒体常常讽刺航行自由，比如“归根结底是借推行航行自由之名，行推进亚太再平衡战略、遏制中国崛起”等，但是目前的世界格局正在这理念之上发展而来。因此，航行自由绝非一个凭空的口号，而是一个核心利益。
The Dagu Fort Memorial, Tianjin China (大沽口炮台纪念馆, 天津). It was built and modernized in the late nineteenth century in an effort to resist foreign amphibious attacks on Beijing. A sign helpfully notes that the memorial, “makes clear to subsequent generations: those who lag behind will be bullied, it is only through strength and prosperity that peace can be achieved.” 昭示后人：落后就要挨打，强盛才有安宁. (Author Photo)
None of this is to say that today’s South China Sea controversy is a direct continuation of China’s resistance to imperialism—far from it—but only to suggest that the conflict’s acuteness cannot be divorced from a larger historical context. When writing his history of Sino-U.S. relations from 1989-2001, David Lampton appropriated a saying about spousal conflict to sum up his findings: Same Bed, Different Dreams (同床异梦). That’s about right for the South China Sea as well. Still, the more worrying phrase might be the oft heard, “one mountain cannot hold two tigers” (一山，不容，二虎), which not coincidently frames the last chapter of Sarah Paine’s excellent history The Wars for Asia (1911-1949). Given the significance of historical context in this dispute, the potential for the misuse of history is likewise apparent. Eric Hobsbawm once wrote, “Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.” That danger seems particularly applicable to South China Sea where the trends of nationalism, hegemony, ecological scarcity and globalization intersect.
Still, one thing is for sure, giving serious thought to the historical background informing behavior on both sides of the Pacific would go a long way toward dispelling the distortions of modern day nationalists and bureaucrats alike. It might even help prevent an especially unnecessary war.
Tommy Jamison is a PhD Candidate in International History at Harvard University. He served as an officer in the U.S. Navy between 2009-2014.
Featured Image: South China Sea Goddess of Mercy 南山海上观音圣像. (Percy)
