Commentary | Abdillah Noh, The South China Sea as Global Public Good
China recently released a revised map staking its claims to the South China Sea. It is no longer a “9-dash line” but a map showing “10-dash line” that appears to be an expansion of the area it claims as its territory. China's latest overtures is disconcerting. To critics this is yet another demonstration of China's geopolitical ambition.
How should we read China’s latest claim? More importantly, to what extent does China see its role in the new international order? There are two dominant views on China’s geostrategic role. The first sees China as a reluctant counterweight to the US as a global leader. This view sees China preferring to free ride on global public good than being a provider of one. China's reluctance or unwillingness to take its proper role as an emerging power and service global public good posed an existential threat. Joseph Nye coined the term the “Kindleberger Trap” to explain such China-US relations. First used by Charles Kindleberger, Nye suggests that by China continuing to free ride on and failing to contribute to international public good, the world would be caught in the “Kindleberger Trap” that in the past had led to global recession and a world war.
Graham Allison put forward another argument on China’s geostrategic role. Allison’s latest book mentions the “Thucydides Trap”, suggesting that China recognizes its role as a rising power and that it is making power projections in various ways to rival the US that could lead to new forms of conflict between the two countries. Allison might be right. We are already witnessing such tension between the two countries – in the areas of trade, technology and military security. China’s increasingly revisionist posture that see it offering new institutional arrangements such as the AIIB, BRICs and BRI give little comfort to its sceptics. With the Chinese economy struggling to achieve its historical highs and the US insistent on making diplomatic distancing in its relations with China, the cold relationship between the two economies does not bode well for global security.
Despite the two arguments, China’s diplomatic posturing is hard to read. While China’s BRI, in its tenth year now, suggests that China understands that its growth depends on continued investments in the growth of other economies, China’s development posturing is also viewed by its critics as compromising global public good. China’s involvement in the Gulf, specifically Qatar and Kuwait, seems to meet little opposition and is largely welcomed. Qatar even set up the first Yuan clearing center in the Middle East, a vote of confidence to China’s role as the driver of global investments. But China’s involvement in other parts of the world evokes a different sentiment. Many labelled Chinese investments in Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Djibouti as a debt-trap diplomacy. Critics accused China of taking advantage of structural disparity between China and the recipient countries for its own strategic advantage. China’s involvement in Sri Lanka and Djibouti for example has not brought about significant enhancement of public good.
China’s attitude toward Southeast Asia is even more perplexing. While it establishes deep bilateral ties with Southeast Asian nations like Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, China’s latest claim over the South China Sea makes for a confusing gesture. China’s slow-but-sure build-up of military and naval capabilities and infrastructure in the South China Sea over the years are a cause for concerns to its Southeast Asian neighbors. For Southeast Asians, there is no other way to read the latest revised map than to conclude that this is another indication of Chinese intention to secure maritime, economic, and military interest in the region. While the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam have all rejected China’s latest map, their voices were not loud enough, drowned out by China’s insistence that its claim on the South China Sea is consistent and clear. ASEAN seems not capable of voicing a collective opinion on the issue. As a group, ASEAN has not made a joint statement on China’s latest move. Even the recently held ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, attended by China’s Premier Li Qiang, did not broach China’s latest announcement other than to reiterate the need to continue promote peace and security in the region and the need to conclude negotiations on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC). ASEAN's nonchalance in some ways suggests – perceptibly – that as a group, it does not see China’s latest announcement or claims over the South China Sea as undermining its collective security; in fact, ASEAN prefers that Beijing settles its dispute bilaterally with individual claimant countries. ASEAN's reaction to the latest Chinese announcement and its choice of settling the South China Sea dispute also speak of the diplomatic weight that China exacts on Southeast Asian countries.
An obvious conclusion is that China’s persistent claims on the South China Sea plus its hard-to-read diplomatic gesture are proving to work China’s way. With each passing year, its “consistent and clear” territorial claims suggest that China is well into institutionalizing its claims over the South China Sea. The law of increasing returns suggests that left unchallenged, such progressive institutionalization by China on the South China Sea would make it increasingly difficult, perhaps impossible, for other claimant countries to mount their challenge. In fact, with time, China's emerging role as a new power could make bargaining by other claimants a lot tougher and complicated.
“When it comes to the South China Sea dispute, China and other stakeholders needs to treat the South China Sea as a global public good.”
While, in the short run it seems that China might have the last word, the truth is that with power comes great responsibility. China’s rise as an alternative power to the US means that it is bound to assume greater responsibility in maintaining and enhancing global public good. Like it or not, China is invested in global growth. China needs the world as much as the world needs it. It is a matter of time and common sense that China would eventually be forced to commit and invest in global common good. So entwined is China's to global growth and a secure international order that it will no longer have the luxury to produce ambiguous, incoherent, and unilateral policies that threaten to disrupt the delivery of global public good. China’s future decision on the South China Sea for example would now have to be weighed by China’s need to keep the sea lanes secure for its own good. With its impending leadership role in global security architecture, disrupting, undermining, and underproviding international public good would be at China’s own detriment.
When it comes to the South China Sea dispute, China and other stakeholders needs to treat the South China Sea as a global public good. The South China Sea dispute is no longer a provincial concern but one that requires global attention. The South China Sea is too important, not just to China or ASEAN, but to the world. It is host to some of the world’s largest economies – China, Japan, ASEAN and South Korea – all poised to become pace setters of global growth. While on current terms, slightly more than a third of all global trade plies the South China Sea, that figure is set to increase in the coming years with the shift in global growth, west of the Pacific. As China, Japan, South Korea, and ASEAN grow, any externalities that come out of any conflict in the South China Sea would have global ramifications. A possible solution to the dispute is for all parties to adopt a global public good framework when negotiating a settlement. Using such a framework removes balkanization of the issue into security blocs and forces key stakeholders China, ASEAN countries, India, the US, Japan and Australia to look for solutions that will achieve collective security – solutions that place premium on collaboration, consensus and cooperation. Indeed, balkanizing the South China Sea into power blocs, as we see now, runs the risk of crippling global growth.
Abdillah Noh is an Associate Professor with the Department of History and International Studies at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. He works in the area of institutions and change dealing with issues of politics, political economy and public policy.
To cite this essay, please use the entry suggested below:
Abdillah Noh, “The South China Sea as Global Public Good,” criticalasianstudies.org, Commentary Board, October 16, 2023; https://doi.org/10.52698/XWNL6397.