Seeking a New East Asian Maritime Order After the ARF Foreign Ministers' Meeting

Professor Gu Min-kyo holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently a professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University.

The 18th ARF Meeting and East Asian Maritime Disputes

If one were to identify the region with the highest potential for maritime disputes globally, it would undoubtedly be the East Asian maritime area, encompassing the Northwest Pacific, the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea. The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea last autumn demonstrated that mishandling maritime issues can disrupt the delicate regional balance of power and interests. The South China Sea, where China's increasingly overt territorial claims are provoking not only Southeast Asian nations but also the United States, is as perilous a region as the East China Sea. Although the United States' formidable maritime power projection provided stability to the East Asian maritime order for some time after the end of the Cold War, signs are emerging that this is now being seriously challenged by China. Even this year, in late May, a dispute between China and Vietnam escalated to the brink of armed conflict when Chinese patrol vessels cut the cables of a Vietnamese oil and gas exploration ship in the South China Sea. Furthermore, recent military exercises by concerned parties in the region have further exacerbated the atmosphere.

Against this backdrop, before the 18th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Foreign Ministers' Meeting held in Bali, Indonesia, on July 22-23, there was a prevailing expectation that the South China Sea issue, with its complex entanglement of conflicts between ASEAN and China, and between the United States and China, would emerge as the primary agenda item. However, China adopted a forward-looking stance, stating that "the importance of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is self-evident and all countries should benefit from it." Furthermore, at the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers' meeting, China showed a willingness to compromise by adopting guidelines for the implementation of the "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea" (DOC) agreed upon by both sides in 2002. The United States, which had been closely watching China's actions, welcomed the agreement between China and ASEAN on the guidelines for the DOC to ease tensions in the South China Sea. This stands in stark contrast to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's remarks at the ARF meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in July of the previous year, stating that "the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea is directly linked to U.S. national interests," which had triggered a confrontation between the U.S. and China.

At first glance, this might be assessed as a significant achievement for the ARF. However, the 2002 DOC, which affirmed the principle of peaceful resolution of maritime disputes under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, is non-binding. Moreover, the recently agreed-upon implementation guidelines for the DOC lack specific content beyond their declarative meaning, making it unrealistic to expect the South China Sea issue to be smoothly resolved as a result. Given China's past precedent of appearing to back down in multilateral forums when it becomes the focus of intense scrutiny, only to revert to coercive behavior in bilateral relations after the multilateral talks, it may be difficult to place significant importance on the outcomes of this ARF meeting.

New East Asian Power Dynamics and Maritime Order

The complex balance of power and interests in the East Asian region no longer permits any single country to exercise dominance. Relatively speaking, South Korea has long played a role in maintaining a limited balance among its powerful neighbors. Japan, on the other hand, has strived to establish its position by checking China, a regional rival, through its alliance with the United States. However, with China increasingly pursuing aggressive maritime policies and expanding its naval power, regional stability is being undermined. Although China claims to be seeking a new balance in the regional maritime order, it is reluctant to be bound by institutions or norms that it has not designed. Meanwhile, the United States, shifting from its previous lukewarm stance, has recently indicated its intention to actively engage in East Asian maritime issues, further complicating the situation.

The East Asian maritime order is becoming increasingly unstable due to fluid geopolitical and geo-economic factors in the region, with the rising and increasingly assertive China at its center, and the U.S., which is re-engaging but still maintaining an ambiguous stance. As China's weight in the overall East Asian economy continues to grow, economic incentives have eased political and diplomatic tensions between China and its neighbors. Conversely, in the absence of the constraints of Cold War-era strategic control, China is now pursuing an active maritime policy to maximize its interests. The news of China's first aircraft carrier nearing its test voyage exemplifies this trend. While not all experts agree on the worst-case scenario, the current trend suggests that as China demonstrates its power directly and indirectly to its neighbors, including the United States, these neighbors are likely to accelerate their efforts to maintain a balance of power by increasing their military capabilities to prepare for potential risks.

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union were primarily interested in their geopolitical interests and had limited aspirations for territories in East Asia. However, as a rising regional power, China possesses both geopolitical and territorial aspirations, which have significant implications for the East Asian maritime order. While debatable, China's policy towards East Asian maritime disputes has been largely driven by irredentist ambitions. Based on the concept of inherent territory, China claims sovereignty over a U-shaped sea area encompassing most of the South China Sea and does not recognize the sovereignty of Japan and South Korea in the East China Sea. Economic considerations have also influenced China's confrontational maritime policy, as securing sea lanes for the transport of energy and raw materials has become a priority. Notably, since China became a net importer of crude oil in 1993, energy security has been a major cause of disputes in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

The deterioration of relations between China and its neighbors presents an opportunity for the United States to re-engage in the East Asian region. While U.S. intervention in the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute between China and Japan caused deep dissatisfaction in China, it reaffirmed to Japan that the U.S. is the ultimate guarantor of its security interests. This incident also led to the dramatic resolution of the conflict between the U.S. and Japan over the relocation of the Futenma base, which had been ongoing since early last year. In a similar vein, Vietnam is rapidly improving relations with the United States in many aspects to counter China, its main rival in the South China Sea. The Vietnamese government is pursuing a strategy of internationalizing the dispute by drawing other countries into multilateral negotiations. In partial response to these diplomatic efforts by the Vietnamese government, the U.S. Obama administration has emphasized that while the U.S. will remain neutral regarding the sovereignty disputes over the Paracel and Spratly Islands, it will intervene if freedom of navigation is threatened.

The new competition between the U.S. and China over East Asian waters is intertwined with international legal debates concerning the scope of military activities permissible by foreign states within another nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). As evidenced by the collision between a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft and a Chinese fighter jet in 2001, and the provocative actions against the U.S. Navy research vessel Impeccable in 2009, China's assertive actions against U.S. military activities within its EEZ could lead the two great powers into dangerous confrontation. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the coastal state has complete control over all living and non-living resources within its EEZ and can restrict scientific research by other countries. However, the U.S. argues that its vessels conducting survey activities in other nations' EEZs are justified under the principle of freedom of navigation guaranteed by UNCLOS. Naturally, China does not accept the U.S. assertion. China characterizes these activities as "maritime scientific research" and insists that coastal state consent is required for such activities within the EEZ. However, China's position is inconsistent with its own unilateral survey and surveillance activities within the EEZs of Japan and Vietnam. Therefore, this issue is highly contentious.

This confrontation between the U.S. and China was clearly revealed during the joint maritime exercises conducted by South Korea and the United States following the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan in March of last year. After the Cheonan incident, the U.S. and South Korea announced large-scale joint maritime exercises involving the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in the waters around the Japanese archipelago and the Korean Peninsula. Although the two countries had originally planned to conduct exercises in the Yellow Sea, the drills were abruptly canceled due to strong protests from China. China reacted very sensitively to U.S. participation in naval exercises in this region, much of which it considers within its military operational areas and EEZ, and conducted preemptive naval drills. In fact, China's unilateral claims to the EEZ in the Yellow Sea are not justifiable, as it has not officially agreed upon EEZ boundaries with South Korea. Meanwhile, following North Korea's sudden artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island in November of last year, the U.S. and South Korea conducted joint naval exercises, including the USS George Washington, in the Yellow Sea without significant obstruction from China. However, the prevailing view is that China's silence does not indicate a willingness to change its future behavior. This series of diplomatic friction between the U.S. and China indicates the difficulty for all stakeholders to reach a mutually acceptable agreement on the scope of permissible military activities in the semi-enclosed seas of East Asia.

Seeking Multilateral Solutions

What can be done to improve this situation? Given the complex entanglement of issues such as boundary delimitation, resources, sovereignty, and navigation routes in East Asian maritime affairs, it is virtually impossible to resolve them through unilateral or bilateral efforts by any single country. At the same time, a multilateral solution cannot be found without the cooperation and concessions of China, which is a common denominator in various regional maritime disputes. However, China has insisted on bilateral negotiations for the resolution of maritime issues. To prevent the diversification of conflicts surrounding maritime issues, China is employing all available channels to actively promote its stance of "resolution through dialogue among parties concerned and non-interference by the United States." While this approach by China may appear strategically superior in the short term, it does not undermine the imperative to overcome bilateralism. The pursuit of multilateral solutions does not necessarily imply arbitration by a third party, such as the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Rather, it refers to multilateral regionalism, described by former U.S. Secretary of State Clinton as "a cooperative diplomatic process by all parties to territorial disputes to resolve them without coercion." The Obama administration's repeated hints at convening multilateral talks on East Asian maritime issues stem from this background. The possibility of the U.S. raising the South China Sea issue at the East Asia Summit (EAS), in which it is participating for the first time this year, is also being discussed.

In the past, maritime disputes in East Asia tended to occur individually. However, recently, these conflicts have been occurring simultaneously. This ultimately suggests that an effective maritime order cannot be established without the full participation of all parties involved. To resolve maritime boundary issues, territorial disputes, and resource issues multilaterally and sequentially, a shared regional understanding must first be established. As seen in the South China Sea, the adoption of a non-binding but symbolic code of conduct can be a good start to promote mutual understanding while maintaining the status quo. However, shared interests and the building of mutual trust alone are insufficient. More binding measures are needed. It is positive that the ARF Ministerial Meeting, which began in 1994, has discussed regional security issues, including territorial disputes and EEZ disputes, annually. However, the ARF is unsuitable for addressing East Asian maritime issues because its membership is too diverse, and its adopted chairman's statements are entirely non-binding.

Instead, a multilateral forum such as the (tentative) ASEAN+5 (South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, Russia) would be more suitable for reaching binding agreements based on common interests. That is, going one step further from the modified bilateral approach like ASEAN+1, which led to the Code of Conduct guidelines between China and ASEAN, and the formal multilateralism of declaratively confirming these in multilateral forums like the ARF, one could consider binding agreements among all interested parties, similar to the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear issue, on principles for baselines, principles for boundary delimitation, and principles for resource sharing, followed by a temporary freeze on current territorial disputes. The difference between a multilateral forum like ASEAN+5 and the asymmetrical Six-Party Talks pursuing denuclearization only on the Korean Peninsula is that all parties must make concessions and have the potential to equally benefit. For example, if a multilateral agreement is reached on the "equidistance-special circumstances principle" where, after declaring a freeze on territorial sovereignty over disputed islands effectively controlled by each country, these islands cannot serve as baselines for EEZs or continental shelves, and a provisional median line is drawn in overlapping maritime areas, with adjustments made to specific details as needed, then each country can compensate for concessions in one area with gains in another, making it easier to secure a balance of interests. Furthermore, within a multilateral framework, reputational costs increase, thereby enhancing deterrence against provocative actions by far-right groups within each country, and consequently reducing unnecessary diplomatic friction.

Recent maritime disputes will be a significant test of China's principle of "peaceful rise." If China cannot effectively allay its neighbors' concerns regarding its territorial ambitions, it could rapidly lose the diplomatic trust it has gained over the past 30 years. As seen in last year's island dispute with Japan, China has not hesitated to use economic relations as a means of diplomatic pressure to teach a "stinging lesson," such as restricting rare earth exports to Japan to secure the release of a detained Chinese captain. However, this blatant diplomatic behavior by China has aroused international vigilance, regardless of China's intentions. China must remember that an aggressive diplomatic strategy can ultimately harm its own interests.

Japan has shown limitations in its political will and credibility to play a leading role in forming a multilateral maritime system. Japan's extensive but ambiguous maritime boundary and territorial claims, best symbolized by its peculiar claim over Okinotorishima, two small rocks in the South Pacific about 1,700 kilometers from Tokyo, make Japan appear like a greedy nouveau riche. Japan's government must more clearly recognize that provocative actions regarding history and social studies textbooks, which continue despite earthquakes and nuclear accidents, or the Dokdo territorial dispute, recently pursued by some opposition party members, may secure slightly more domestic political support in the short term, but they do not serve Japan's long-term national interests as a responsible member of the East Asian community.

Amidst these new dynamics and challenges, South Korea and ASEAN countries must be able to serve as a stabilizing force among the United States, China, and Japan. It is not a good policy alternative for these smaller and medium-sized countries to seek to maintain a balance of power with China by overly relying on the U.S. to counter China's rapid expansion of power. Both South Korea and ASEAN need to voice a more proactive stance. Ahead of a recent ARF meeting, the South Korean government stated a principled and neutral position: “The South China Sea issue is not a matter for South Korea to be deeply involved in. However, freedom of navigation under international maritime law must be respected.” The government's position undoubtedly took into account the potential for deteriorating relations with China. However, given that the South China Sea is not only a vital sea lane for the Korean economy but also that the possibility of South Korea becoming entangled in similar territorial disputes in the West Sea, East Sea, and East China Sea cannot be entirely ruled out, the government must establish a more proactive multilateral strategy. This is not an issue to be observed from the sidelines. The "principle of equidistant diplomacy and special circumstances" mentioned above is a consistent assertion by the South Korean government, and diplomatic capabilities must be mobilized to institutionalize it as a regional norm. Furthermore, based on the experience and leadership accumulated in regional multilateral forums such as the Six-Party Talks on North Korea's nuclear issue, ASEAN+3, EAS, and APEC, South Korea should take on the role of a more proactive agenda-setter. While ASEAN appears to maintain a consistent stance on the surface, a closer look reveals divisions regarding the South China Sea issue. Vietnam and the Philippines adopt a firm stance against China, while Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, among others, try not to provoke China directly. However, a more proactive leadership from ASEAN is necessary for a multilateral resolution.

The United States must also recognize that it is no longer possible to unilaterally determine the dynamics of the region. While the U.S. has strived to persuade Chinese leaders that protecting freedom of navigation also serves China's interests, China has not yet fully embraced this perspective. At this ARF meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stated, “Formulating guidelines (for the peaceful resolution of the South China Sea issue) will create a favorable environment for properly addressing disputes among claimant states in the region.” However, by emphasizing the importance of respecting China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, he reiterated the demand for non-claimant states like the U.S. to refrain from intervening in the South China Sea territorial disputes. Therefore, the U.S. needs to ensure that China's expansion of power has clear limitations, while simultaneously reassuring the Chinese government that if it acts as a responsible stakeholder, the U.S. will not only respect China's territorial issues but also welcome its rise. In conclusion, the ideal opportunity for resolving maritime issues peacefully, which is essential for the common prosperity of the East Asian region, can only be found after unraveling all the complex dilemmas contained within Pandora's Box. ■

The East Asia Institute (EAI) is a core research institution selected by the MacArthur Foundation's Asia Security Initiative program and receives financial support. [EAI Commentary] seeks to offer in-depth analysis and practical alternatives by presenting a balanced perspective on major domestic and international issues. Please cite the source when quoting [EAI Commentary]. This manuscript represents the personal opinions of the author and does not reflect the position of the East Asia Institute. This commentary is a revised and supplemented version of the author's "Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Future of the East Asian Maritime Order," EAI Issue Briefing No. MASI 2010-08 (December 27, 2010).