SIGUR CENTER FOR ASIAN STUDIES
Policy Commentary– March 2012
Conflict Over the South China Sea:
Identity Politics Meets History
INTRODUCTION
The South China Sea is one of the great
connecting oceans of the world, acting as a major conduit of Asian and
global trade. It has also been a worrisome site of conflict. In recent years,
disputes over territorial claims have led
to armed clashes involving China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It has also
led to demonstrations.
Arguments
have spilled into cyberspace: on
YouTube, Google Earth, online newspaper articles, and chat rooms, nationalist
tempers have flared over their country’s claims to these tiny islands, atolls,
and reefs.
Most of the territorial claims over the
South China Sea are surprisingly weak,
and none is incontestable. Here we
must distinguish between arguments
over the Paracels, the far-flung cluster
of islands, reefs, and atolls closest to
China, and those over the Spratlys, a
similarly widely spread set of islands further to the south. Only China and Vietnam contest the Paracels, whereas
six countries have claims to the Spratlys.
Finally, the contemporary bitter arguments over sovereignty in this area repeatedly invoke historical evidence. It
is the latter issue that will be the focus
of this Policy Commentary.
states did not, traditionally, claim exclusive territorial rights over the vast majority of the South China Sea. To the contrary: the area has historically been an
Asian maritime commons. What, then,
does the historical evidence suggest?
And how has argument over this evidence shaped Asian identity politics
today?
The Sigur Center's Rising Powers Initiative examines how
domestic political debates
and identity issues affect
international relations in Asia.
The Policy Commentary series is sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation's Asia Security Initiative.
More information on the
Rising Powers Initiative can
be found at:
http://
www.risingpowersinitiative.org
EARLY CHINESE CLAIMS
At the core of today’s conflict is the
People’s Republic of China’s claim to
virtually all of the South China Sea, represented by the famous tongueshaped demarcation line on Chinese
maps that reaches 1500 kilometers
south of China’s Hainan Island. Yet this
claim contradicts historical practice.
Historically, China made a distinction
between the “inner ocean” and the
“outer ocean.” The “inner ocean” referred to the shallow waters right off the
Chinese coast: this area ended somewhere between Hainan Island and the
Paracel Islands. (Some argue that it
may have included at least parts of the
Paracel Islands.) In this area, the Chinese state presumed to have some
authority. But beyond it, it did not.
Wherever we draw this ambiguous
boundary, one fact seems clear. Until
the late nineteenth century, China never claimed exclusive sovereignty, in the
modern sense of the term, over the expansive maritime space and its territories that it claims today.
Bluntly stated, we cannot impose contemporary notions of sovereignty on
historical practices before the twentieth century. Despite much misinformation and inflamed rhetoric to the AN ASIAN MARITIME COMMONS
contrary, historical evidence overwhelmingly supports the view that Before the twentieth century, it makes
“BLUNTLY
STATED,
WE
CANNOT IMPOSE CONNOTIONS
TEMPORARY
OF
SOVEREIGNTY
ON
HISTORICAL
PRACTICES
BEFORE
TWENTIETH
THE
CENTURY.
DESPITE
MUCH MISINFORMATION
AND INFLAMED RHETORIC TO THE CONTRARY,
HISTORICAL
EVIDENCE
OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTS THE VIEW THAT
STATES DID NOT, TRADITIONALLY,
CLAIM
CLUSIVE
TERRITORIAL
EX-
RIGHTS OVER THE VAST
MAJORITY
OF
THE
SOUTH CHINA SEA. ”
sense to think of the South China Seas as an Asian maritime commons: a shared area whose resources were
open to all. Chinese merchants, traders, fishermen, and
pirates probably dominated much of this area over the
last one thousand years. Other peoples used this area
as well. No state exercised control over it. Referring to
the period at the turn of the nineteenth century, the
scholar Wang Wengsheng has called part of this area
“an uncontrolled and largely uncontrollable nonstate
space.” We could extend his comment to the entirety
of the South China Sea.
There is one possible exception to the view that the
South China Sea was a “non-state space”: Vietnam’s
ambiguous state claim over part of the Paracels dating
from 1816. This was substantiated by the planting of a
flag, construction of stele, and other marks of authority.
But this claim never excluded others from using many of
the islands, reefs, and atolls of the Paracels. Indeed, a
range of peoples, particularly Chinese and Vietnamese,
sometimes stayed on the larger islands for an extended
time. They did not establish permanent settlements
there, however, and did not act as representatives of
states. Rather, the Paracel Islands seem to have acted
as a defense perimeter between China and Vietnam.
As for the Spratlys, China never made any substantive
sovereignty claim over this area at this time. In fact, no
state has a compelling historical claim over the Spratlys.
In short, the vast reaches of the South China Sea were
open to all.
MODERN CLAIMS
etnam that transited an area claimed by China in August 2011.
CONTEMPORARY CONFLICTS AND HISTORY
Today, most analysts assume that resources, especially
oil and gas, lie at the heart of most claims to the South
China Sea. Yet this is not the gut issue that animates Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, or Filipinos, to name the
most active claimants since the 1950s. It is nationalism,
combined with a sense that traditional rights to use parts
of the South China Sea are being violated. The Chinese
and Vietnamese publics, and sometimes their governments, have been the most ardent. This issue is not novel. Generations of children have grown up thinking that
this area is “theirs.” On Google Earth, Chinese posters
deface Vietnamese claims to islands with their own.
“Vietnamese communists will be punished,” reads one
tag. On YouTube, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Filipinos
post dueling videos about the Spratlys. Such actions underline a key point: while Southeast and East Asia are
integrating in many ways, identity politics can force
them apart.
As China rises, one of the trickier tasks it faces is its relations with nearby “minor” powers. With the South China
Sea, China faces a delicate conundrum: to push for its
“rights” and alienate its neighbors, or find a cooperative
path forward. Undergirding the debate are emotional
appeals by members of the public in different parts of
China and Southeast Asia that their country has a historic, sacred, and inviolable right to all or part of this area.
But the historical record shows how ill-founded most of
the rhetoric is. It also, ironically, suggests a way forward:
by appealing to historical practice over the last millennia, then developing a modernized version of an Asian
maritime commons (perhaps with fewer pirates?), in
which all claimants share access to resources and have
freedom of navigation.
China, in 1902, and France, in 1931, were the first states
to assert modern sovereignty rights over parts of the
South China Sea. France, building on the earlier Vietnamese claim, substantiated its territorial claims by constructing buildings, erecting markers of ownership, stationing temporary garrisons, and the like. China protested these actions, but did not take equivalent action
itself. Japan, from the 1930s through World War Two,
contested French claims and aggressively pursued its Shawn McHale is Associate Professor of History and
own claims to parts of this area.
International Affairs at the George Washington UniJapan renounced its claims in 1951. France let its claims
lapse in the 1950s. In 1946, the Republic of China occupied Itu Aba (Taiping Island), the largest of the Spratly
Islands, and placed a garrison there. However, it did not
permanently occupy the area. Since this period, a
whole series of other claims have been made, or reiterated, by Vietnam (North, South, then unified), the Peoples Republic of China, The Republic of China (Taiwan),
the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. In 1974, the PRC
attacked the South Vietnamese Navy in the Paracels,
killing Vietnamese sailors, and establishing control over
the Paracels. Since then, there have been numerous
incidents. The most serious clash occurred in 1988, leading to 74 Vietnamese deaths. In recent years, there
have been an extensive number of low-level conflicts.
Most have involved fishermen or exploration vessels, but
a minor incident involved an Indian warship visiting Vi-
versity
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