US ‘freedom’ patrols in the South China Sea are risky, and may backfire if China is pushed too far

Mark J. Valencia says US gunboat diplomacy in the South China Sea has so far failed to have the desired effect on Beijing, and ‘routine’ freedom of navigation patrols risk dangerous misunderstandings

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The US could protect its legal position by declaring it and recording its objections in diplomatic statements and communiqués, rather than resorting to provocative freedom of navigation operations. Illustration: Craig Stephens

Published: 5:45pm, 26 Jul 2017Updated: 6:53pm, 26 Jul 2017

The Trump administration has approved a plan to “regularise” US “freedom of navigation operations” against China’s claims and actions in the South China Sea. The White House will now know in advance about upcoming patrols, which will supposedly quicken the approval process. An official said this means operations will be implemented on a “very routine, very regular basis”. The US move could lead to dangerous misunderstandings and be counterproductive.

Under the Obama administration, the Defence Department (Pentagon) forwarded requests for such operations to the National Security Council (NSC), where they would often languish, over concern about getting anybody’s “feathers ruffled”, the official said. Indeed, the Obama administration paused freedom patrols in the South China Sea from 2012 to 2015 and only approved a few last year, apparently so as not to upset relations with China.

The operations were requested, considered, and approved on a case-by-case basis, a process subject to delays at each level of decision making. This sometimes resulted in their implementation being interpreted as a response to some transgression by China, rather than routine operations.

Many Southeast Asian countries perceive these provocative probes as political statements

Joseph Liow of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies observes that the frequency of such patrols is “often seen as a litmus test, for better or worse, of American commitment”. Indeed, many Southeast Asian countries perceive these provocative probes as political statements. Some at home and abroad argue that these patrols are the tip of the spear of a strategy to support the US hub-and-spoke regional security architecture, and to persuade China to comply with the “international rules-based order”.

This “order” includes the Hague arbitration decision against China’s “nine-dash line” sovereignty claim in the South China Sea. Indeed, despite US attempts to downplay the political meaning of the operations, most Asian nations, including China, interpret them as a signal of US resolve to remain the dominant power in the region.

Early in the Trump administration, requests for freedom operations against China were still not being approved. When US anti-China analysts and politicians complained, it was explained that Defence Secretary James Mattis did not want to approve patrols there until an overall strategy was devised. In May, a bipartisan group of senators formally urged the Trump administration to restart the patrols, arguing that: “US engagement in the South China Sea remains essential to continue to protect freedom of navigation and overflight and to uphold international law.”

Subsequently, the US conducted three such patrols in the South China Sea, the first on May 24, when the destroyer USS Dewey sailed within 12 nautical miles of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands.

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