Advertisement
South China Sea
OpinionComment
C. Uday Bhaskar
C. Uday Bhaskar

Opinion | South China Sea dilemma: how can the US-led movement persuade China to act fairly?

  • Amid anxiety about China’s bullying and US commitment, Asean and Quad nations could issue a joint statement calling out Beijing for its ‘unlawful’ activities and demanding a course correction. How China responds would be instructive

Reading Time:4 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo adjusts his earpiece at a press conference in Beijing during a 2018 state visit. Photo: EPA-EFE
C. Uday Bhaskar
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s July 23 speech at the Richard Nixon library in California, titled “Communist China and the free world’s future”, has been either hailed or disparaged depending on which side of the Trump divide one is positioned.
Advertisement

However, even the more critical commentators agree that it marks a major punctuation in the troubled US-China relationship, and that a deep policy reappraisal is now embedded in the Washington beltway which perceives Beijing as a security threat. This assessment is expected to be refined by the next White House incumbent, whoever that may be.

While Pompeo’s speech seemed to be anchored around the concept of freedom and the larger global democratic impulse, and has many ideological strands and contradictions, the one that merits scrutiny is the maritime domain – specifically the Indo-Pacific region.

In a strong indictment of China’s Communist Party, Pompeo declared: “For too long we let the [Communist Party] set the terms of engagement, but no longer. Free nations must set the tone … Indeed, this is what the United States did recently when we rejected China’s unlawful claims in the South China Sea once and for all.”

This characterisation of China’s actions in the South China Sea as unlawful is a departure from earlier US practice and follows a July 13 statement by Pompeo in which the State Department made clear that “Beijing’s claims to offshore resources across most of the South China Sea are completely unlawful, as is its campaign of bullying to control them.”

02:32

Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions

Washington’s hardened position on Beijing’s claims in South China Sea heightens US-China tensions
This significant statement was made around the fourth anniversary of the decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague that ruled against most of Beijing’s claims in the South China Sea and upheld the Philippine position – a verdict China has never accepted.
Advertisement