South China Sea: US-led Southeast Asian strategy to contain Beijing would ‘complicate’ disputes, Chinese experts warn

US think tanks and analysts urge Washington to set up joint regional maritime counter-insurgency strategy aimed at containing China’s expansionist moves

Such a strategy risks making the South China Sea issue more complicated, and even escalating tensions in the region, Chinese expert warns

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Philippine coastguard monitor Chinese vessels near a disputed shoal in the South China Sea. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:30pm, 9 Jul 2022Updated: 9:46pm, 9 Jul 2022

A proposed US strategy to bring together Southeast Asian coastguards and fishery organisations to counter Beijing in the South China Sea would further complicate territorial disputes in the busy waterway, Chinese observers have warned.

This comes after a US think tank and analysts advised Washington to set up a new regional maritime counter-insurgency strategy aimed at containing China’s expansion of maritime territory in the resource-rich sea where several countries have overlapping claims.

Chinese maritime and defence experts warned against the new strategy proposed by the US Naval Institute (USNI), aimed at protecting American political influence in the region and constraining China’s so-called maritime militia – a huge fleet of blue-painted vessels dubbed “little blue men” by Western media.

Beijing lays claim to nearly all of the strategically important waterway, but this is disputed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

“The US Coast Guard’s participation in the region will definitely make the South China Sea issue more complicated, and even escalate tensions in the region,” a Beijing-based international law expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity, noting that the Chinese maritime militia forces have a geopolitical advantage over their US counterpart.

Zhang Mingliang, specialist in South China Sea studies at Jinan University in Guangzhou, said such a US-led regional framework was likely to restrict Chinese coastguard and maritime militia’s operations in the area.

“Once the US-led regional maritime enforcing mechanism is built, it will post a great threat and challenge to Chinese maritime militia forces,” Zhang said.