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asia policy Since 2013, China has started reclamation at seven lagoons and engaged in the construction of artificial islands. Fiery Cross Reef seems to be a core spot that includes full military facilities, most notably a runway and a deep port. Subi and Mischief Reefs, which are about 125 miles apart, are the other artificial islands with runways and port facilities. Japan fears that four other artificial islands with various support facilities could function as outer guard posts for the three main islands with airfields and air-surveillance sites that could enable a potential Chinese air defense identification zone in the South China Sea. These man-made islands, when fully completed, would provide China with strong footholds in the Spratly Islands for controlling most of the sea lines of communication and for monitoring foreign naval and air activities. Moreover, if China in the future ever successfully builds an artificial island at the Scarborough Shoal, there would be a strategic triangle connecting Woody Island, the Spratlys, and Scarborough Shoal that would cover most of the South China Sea. The impact of this strategic triangle would be tremendous for the United States’ and Japan’s strategic planning and could be a game changer in regional power relations. As a major global power, China has a national objective to be a nuclear power comparable with the United States. However, China lacks longrange bombers and, as a result, naturally depends on its strategic missile forces, including its maritime strategic nuclear capabilities, as a major element. In this context, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy must maintain a robust nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) force and protect this force against the antisubmarine warfare capabilities of potential adversaries—especially the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) force. The PLA Navy has completed a new naval base at Sanya on Hainan Island, which is ideal for deploying its SSBN force to patrol in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. If the size of China’s SSBN force grows to more than eight submarines, the PLA Navy may establish two or more submarine patrol areas in the Indian Ocean or the western Pacific. The two launching spots together would provide nuclear reach to the United States, casting a dark shadow over the U.S. nuclear strategy and ballistic missile defense posture. However, Hainan poses one serious problem to the PLA Navy: the base is openly exposed to the South China Sea, and thus is also exposed to the advanced antisubmarine warfare forces of the U.S. Navy. So, for the PLA Navy, SSBN protection in the South China Sea will be another key task. China’s determination to monopolize the southern South China Sea around [ 30 ]
oundtable • non-claimant perspectives on the south china sea the Spratlys is a clear signal that the PLA Navy is beginning to execute its plan to exert greater sea control for SSBN protection in the region. The United States and freedom of navigation. Traditionally, the United States has not supported any specific country in a territorial dispute, and the position of the U.S. government on disputes in the South China Sea has also been neutral, even toward China. At the same time, however, the United States has repeatedly affirmed freedom of navigation as one of its key national interests. There are two interpretations of this policy. One adopts the simple principle that freedom of navigation guarantees any party’s free activities at sea under UNCLOS. The second interpretation is more important than the first but is less understood. According to this view, since freedom of navigation is a U.S. national interest, if any conflict in the South China Sea is considered to cause interference against free and safe use of the sea, the United States, which may not even be a party to the dispute, may interpret this conflict as an infringement of its national interest. Thus, the United States preserves the right to intervene in any maritime conflict in the South China Sea if that conflict is interpreted as a violation of the freedom of navigation principle. Therefore, both in theory and in practice, to protect U.S. national interests, the United States may intervene in a regional conflict in the South China Sea. Japan’s Security Strategy Japan’s security strategy before the end of Cold War had been solely focused on the defense of Japan in a narrow sense. This has meant that, in compliance with the country’s pacifist constitution, the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) were strictly limited to repelling foreign military aggression against Japan, and any preemptive strike or counterattack against an enemy’s homeland was considered to be unconstitutional. After the Cold War, Japan gradually expanded the role of the JSDF to meet the requirements of international organizations by passing new legislation while still relying on the same interpretation of the pacifist constitution: use of force by the JSDF is strictly prohibited in any overseas missions. In this context, the JSDF can only conduct military operations as a real armed force in self-defense of Japan’s territory and airspace as well as surrounding waters up to one thousand nautical miles from Japan. It is thus difficult to find a good rationale for the deployment of the JSDF with full military capacity to incidents in the South China Sea. However, JSDF units can be [ 31 ]
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