U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.

Transcript

Laura Coates: Joining us now is Dean Chang, a senior adviser to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He joined from the Heritage Foundation, where he spent over a decade as a senior research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. He has written extensively on China's military doctrine, the technological implications of its space program and dual use issues associated with China's industrial and scientific infrastructure. He joins us now, Dean, welcome and good morning. How are you?

Dean Cheng: Good. It's another humid day here in Northern Virginia.

Laura Coates: Oh, humid, it was humid months ago. It's now toxically savage, these days. That's how I that's how I record I cannot wait. I've taken out of my drawer the sweatshirt that I intend to wear, that will be my staple for the fall once it's cool enough to do anything, besides that actually involves putting on sleeves. I'm looking ahead at this moment in time. Dean, there's a lot going on right now, between China and the Philippines and there's some recent tensions people might not be very aware of what's going on.

Dean Cheng: This is part of the ongoing Chinese effort to establish dominance over the South China Sea region. China has something called the nine-dash line, which it's never really specifically defined what it is, but increasingly treats as its borders. And that nine-dash line comes up literally almost on shore against Vietnam and the Philippines. To that end, there is a specific shoal at the moment, Second Thomas Shoal, the Filipinos beached a World War Two era landing ship on there and have a garrison of Philippine Marines on board. And the Chinese are trying to do essentially a stealthy blockade. They are trying to prevent the Filipinos from resupplying the marines on that ship to force the Filipinos off of this shoal and as the Chinese have said explicitly, that's ours. The interesting part here is the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague backed in 2016, actually arbitrated part of this and basically said that the Chinese claims to the region are not founded on a legal basis, as opposed to historical basis. So, what we're really saying is the Chinese is trying to push a key U.S. ally off of territory that the two Philippine's call theirs.

Laura Coates: So, this idea of a grounded World War Two warship that we're hearing about that they've looked into using as a military base. Has that been happening for quite some time? Well, I mean, obviously, World War Two, a warship has been around for quite some time, but has this been a recent development?

Dean Cheng: The Sierra Madre, the name of the ship, was beached in 1999. So actually, that's been going on for about a quarter century now. Which would give you something to think about because this thing is literally a rusty hulk. I mean, if you do not think of this as somehow, like the USS New Jersey, this is a landing ship. Something that Tom Hanks would have been familiar with in Saving Private Ryan, a little bigger than that. But I mean, that is what we're talking about that was beached simply to provide shelter for the Marines, rather than reclaiming land and building things out, which is what the Chinese have done. But it's gotten much more heated over the last couple of years, as the Chinese have increasingly sent their coast guard and their maritime militia into the area and have literally been trying to block and starve out the Philippine garrison.

Laura Coates: So, broaden this for us, because this idea of the different entities at work here. I mean, the maritime militia, the Chinese Coast Guard is well at play. Is this not considered the Chinese military at work?

Dean Cheng: Well, that depends on who you ask and if you ask the Chinese this is part of what they term legal warfare and political warfare. So, the whole point here is one, not to show up with the Chinese navy per se, what is often termed gray hulls, if you think about warships around the world, are typically painted gray. The idea is for these to be white hulls, which is what most Coast Guard cutters look like ours, the Chinese, the Japanese. The whole point here is to give the optics of on CNN or Agence France-Presse or Xinhua, look we're sending Coast Guard cutters, we're not sending warships. If you think about the old George Carlin routine about baseball versus football, right, you know, football is played on a grid iron, baseball is played on its diamond. This is part of the optics, the Chinese are trying to say, look, we're not militarizing this. Now, Chinese Coast Guard cutters, some of these things, displace 10,000 tons. To give you a sense of how big that is, that's the size of a World War Two cruiser. That's the size of a modern destroyer. And Chinese Coast Guard cutters are heavily armed, and have a military auxiliary role in wartime. But the idea here is to make it look like oh, these are Chinese civilians, these are Chinese law enforcement going up against Filipino Marines. And that's, that's an important part of what the Chinese are doing is this isn't just about the Philippines. This is about all the claimants; Vietnam has claims, Malaysia has claims. And it's also trying to signal to the world that China's the one who somehow is being the victim here.

Laura Coates: The significance of the South China Sea, I don't know that everyone understands the global trade importance of it. It's often known as the as the carotid artery of global trade. I mean, $3.4 billion in trade transits through that region, I think annually. What does this mean in terms of the significance of this particular location? And this happening on it?

Dean Cheng: Actually, that's 3.4 trillion.

Laura Coates: Trillion trillion.

Dean Cheng: Yes, yes and that's why it's the carotid artery basically, if you are keeping the lights on in Tokyo and Seoul or keeping food on the table in Taiwan, or Japan; trade, vital to you, tankers, ships filled with food and grain transit through the South China Sea. If you're the Chinese, you're exporting your goods. They are often transiting through the South China Sea. And when you look at the nine dash line that the Chinese have drawn, essentially, what they are saying is that huge swath of ocean from Hainan Island down to the Philippines, over to Vietnam, all of that is somehow Chinese waters. And that means that in theory, the Chinese could basically turn off the spigot, they would have the right, and like transiting through the Chesapeake Bay, of saying, this is our waters, you're not allowed to go through. That would immediately put pressure on all of these huge economies, the Japanese economy, South Korean economy, the Taiwanese economy, as well as China's economy. This is the kind of challenge the kind of threat that is being posed, especially because this is much farther from Chinese territory than actual territorial waters, which only extend about 12 nautical miles from your shoreline. The Chinese argument is, yeah, but historically, it's always been ours. I mean, they literally say it's called the South China Sea for a reason. As you can imagine, other countries, including China's neighbors say, wait a second. In the Philippines, it's called the West Sea. You know, this does not give you some historical special right to it.

Laura Coates: What is the United States government doing? Is there anything that we are, I mean, obviously been watching this, and they clearly are looking to see the impact of all of it. I'm sure our allies are as well. But is there anything proactively being done to try to either impact or undermine this or is it just from a watchful eye?

Dean Cheng: So, there's a mixed set of things. First off, the US obviously has no claims to any of the territory in the South China Sea. So, we're not able to say, wait a second, some of those islands are ours. What we have done are a couple of things. First off, it's important to remember that the Philippines is a treaty ally of the United States, like South Korea, like Australia. So, what we have said to the Chinese, what we have signaled is under the terms of the treaty, if you start interfering if you start shooting at Philippine government vessels, which includes aircraft, which include ships, or start threatening Philippine personnel, government, people like marines, that could invoke the US-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty. Now, if you're the Chinese are looking at that and saying, mighty big words. You've got Ukraine, you've got Taiwan, you've got all these other things that are on your plate, but you're really serious about that. But they have to be worried that maybe this could escalate. The other thing that we are doing is what's called freedom of navigation operations. We are sailing US Navy ships flying US Navy and Air Force aircraft through those waters to make the point. No, this is not actually your waters, your claim which the international court rejected is not acceptable. And we are going to sail warships through like they are international waters anywhere else. We don't ask for permission to sail through the middle of the Pacific or the middle of the Atlantic, we are not going to ask for permission like you keep demanding through the South China Sea. This is very important, but unfortunately from 2012 to 2015, the US suspended all such foreign ops and therefore sent a signal to Beijing that maybe we were okay with their attitude. And that's one of the real big problems is we are still digging ourselves out of that hole.

Laura Coates: Really, really thought provoking. Thank you so much for bringing us the very latest. I think we've all felt better informed this morning. Dean Chang, senior adviser to the China program at the United States Institute of Peace. Thank you so much for joining us today.