The Real Secret of the South China Sea

No wonder other Southeast Asian players were furious. That was the apex of the millennia-old transition from the "maritime internet" of semi-nomadic peoples to the Westphalian system. The post-modern "war" for the South China Sea was on.

Gunboat freedom

In 2013 the Philippines -- prodded by the US and Japan -- decided to take its case about Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) in the South China Sea to be judged according to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Both China and Philippines ratified UNCLOS. The US did not. The Philippines aimed for UNCLOS -- not "historical rights," as the Chinese wanted -- to decide what is an island, what is a rock, and who is entitled to claim territorial rights (and thus EEZs) in these surrounding waters.

UNCLOS itself is the result of years of fierce legal battles. Still, key nations -- including BRICS members China, India and Brazil, but also, significantly, Vietnam and Malaysia -- have been struggling to change an absolutely key provision, making it mandatory for foreign warships to seek permission before sailing through their EEZs.

And here we plunge in truly, deeply troubled waters; the notion of "freedom of navigation."

For the American empire, "freedom of navigation," from the West Coast of the US to Asia -- through the Pacific, the South China Sea, the Malacca Strait and the Indian Ocean -- is strictly subordinated to military strategy. Imagine if one day EEZs would be closed to the US Navy -- or if "authorization" would have to be demanded every time; the Empire of Bases would lose "access" to...its own bases.

Add to it trademark Pentagon paranoia; what if a "hostile power" decided to block the global trade on which the US economy depends? (even though the premise -- China contemplating such a move -- is ludicrous). The Pentagon actually pursues a Freedom of Navigation (FON) program. For all practical purposes, it's 21st century gunboat diplomacy, as in those aircraft carriers showboating on and off in the South China Sea.

The Holy Grail, as far as the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is concerned, is to come up with a Code of Conduct to solve all maritime conflicts between Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and China. This has been dragging on for years now because mostly the Philippines wanted to frame the Chinese under a set of binding rules but was only ready to talk until all ten ASEAN members had agreed on them first.

Beijing's strategy is the opposite; bilateral discussions to emphasize its formidable leverage. Thus China assuring the support of Cambodia -- quite visible early this week when Cambodia prevented a condemnation of China regarding the South China Sea at a key summit in Laos; China and ASEAN settled for "self-restraint."

Watch Hillary pivoting

In 2011 the US State Department was absolutely terrified with the planned Obama administration withdrawals from both Iraq and Afghanistan; what would happen to superpower projection? That ended in November 2011, when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton coined the by now famous "pivot to Asia."

"Six lines of action" were embedded in the "pivot." Four of these Clinton nicked from a 2009 report by the Washington think tank CSIS; reinvigorating alliances; cultivating relationships with emerging powers; developing relationships with regional multilateral bodies; and working closely with South East Asian countries on economic issues. Clinton added two more: broad-based military presence in Asia, and the promotion of democracy and human rights.

It was clear from the start -- and not only across the global South -- that cutting across the rhetorical fog, the "pivot" was code for a military offensive to contain China. Even more seriously, this was the geopolitical moment when a South East Asian dispute over maritime territory intersected with the across-the-globe confrontation between the hegemon and a "peer competitor."

What Clinton meant by "engaging emerging powers" was, in her own words, "join us in shaping and participating in a rules-based regional and global order". This is code for rules coined by the hegemon -- as in the whole apparatus of the Washington consensus.

No wonder the South China Sea is immensely strategic, as American hegemony intimately depends on ruling the waves (remember Mahan). That's the core of the US National Military Strategy. The South China Sea is the crucial link connecting the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and ultimately Europe.

And so we finally discover Rosebud -- the ultimate South China Sea "secret." China under Clinton's "rule-based regional and global order" effectively means that China must obey and keep the South China Sea open to the US Navy.

That spells out inevitable escalation further on down the sea lanes. China, slowly but surely, is developing an array of sophisticated weapons which could ultimately "deny" the South China Sea to the US Navy, as the Beltway is very much aware.

What makes it even more serious is that we're talking about irreconcilable imperatives. Beijing characterizes itself as an anti-imperialist power; and that necessarily includes recovering national territories usurped by colonial powers allied with internal Chinese traitors (those islands that The Hague has ruled are no more than "rocks" or even "low-tide elevations").

The US, for its part, is all about Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. As it stands, more than Russia's western borderlands, the Baltics or "Syraq," this is where the hegemon "rules" are really being contested. And the stakes couldn't be higher. That'll be the day when the US Navy is "denied" from the South China Sea; and that'll be the end of its imperial hegemony.

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