The Necessary War

South China Sea: Chinese fighter jets deployed to contested island
By Brad Lendon

ImageSat International (ISI).

Hong Kong -- A satellite image obtained by CNN shows China has deployed at least four J-10 fighter jets to the contested Woody Island in the South China Sea, the first known deployment of fighter jets there since 2017.
The image was taken Wednesday and represents the first time J-10s have been seen on Woody or any Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, according to ImageSat International, which supplied the image to CNN.
The deployment comes as tensions remain high in the South China Sea and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping prepares to meet Donald Trump at the G-20 summit in Japan next week.


Analysts who looked at the satellite photo for CNN said both the placement of the planes out in the open and accompanying equipment is significant and indicates the fighter jets were on the contested island for up to 10 days.
"They want you to notice them. Otherwise they would be parked in the hangars," said Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force officer and fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. 

"What message do they want you to take from them?"
Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command's Joint Intelligence Center, said the deployment is designed to "demonstrate it is their territory and they can put military aircraft there whenever they want."
"It also makes a statement that they can extend their air power reach over the South China Sea as required or desired," Schuster said.
The J-10 jets have a combat range of about 500 miles (740 kilometers), putting much of the South China Sea and vital shipping lands within reach, Schuster said.
The four planes are not carrying external fuel tanks, the analysts said. 

That suggests they were to be refueled on the island, so the plan may be to keep them there awhile.

Chinese J-10 fighters fly at Airshow China in Zhuhai in 2010.

"It could be an early training deployment as part of getting the J-10 squadron operationally ready for an ADIZ (air defense identification zone) declaration," Layton said. 

"This activity may be the new normal."
China said in 2016 it reserved the right to impose an ADIZ over the South China Sea, which would require aircraft flying over the waters to first notify Beijing. 

It set up an ADIZ over the East China Sea in 2013, prompting an outcry from Japan and the United States, but the zone has not been fully enforced.
Woody Island (đảo Phú Lâm) is the largest of the Paracel chain, also known as the Hoàng Sa.
The Paracels (Hoàng Sa) sit in the north-central portion of the 1.3 million-square-mile South China Sea. 

They are also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, but have been occupied by China since 1974, when Chinese troops ousted a South Vietnamese garrison.
The past several years have seen Beijing substantially upgrade its facilities on the islands, deploying surface-to-air missiles, building 20 hangars at the airfield, upgrading two harbors and performing substantial land reclamation, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.
Woody Island has served as a blueprint for Beijing's more prominent island-building efforts in the Spratly chain to the south, AMTI said in a 2017 report.
The appearance of the J-10s on Woody Island comes just over a year after China sent its H-6K long-range bombers to the island for test flights for the first time.
The PLA claimed that mission was a part of China's aim to achieve a broader regional reach, quicker mobilization, and greater strike capabilities.
A military expert, Wang Mingliang, was quoted in a Chinese statement as saying the training would hone the Chinese air force's war-preparation skills and its ability to respond to various security threats in the region.
In 2017, a report in China's state-run Global Times, said fighter jets -- J-11s -- were deployed to Woody Island for the first time, with the new hangars able to protect the warplanes from the island's high heat and humidity.
That report said such hangars would be useful on other Chinese islands to greatly enhance Beijing's control over the South China Sea.

Paper Tiger

How America Is Losing the Battle for the South China Sea
Washington should step up its efforts to make Beijing pay a more serious price for such a flagrant disrespect for international law.
By Bill Bray

What a difference a year makes. 

In late summer 2016, there was some hope the July 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration’s ruling in favor of the Philippine interpretation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea regarding the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal would curtail Beijing’s subsequent activity in the South China Sea (despite China’s refusal to even participate in the arbitration case or recognize the court’s jurisdiction, let alone accept the ruling). 

In fact, some optimists, like Lynn Kuok from the National University of Singapore, have pointed to small developments—such as China this year permitting Filipino and Vietnamese fishing around Scarborough Shoal for the first time since 2012—as encouraging signs that the Hague’s ruling is having a positive effect. 

But most observers see it much differently, and developments this past summer seem to support a much more pessimistic forecast.
With the U.S. government and the world understandably focused on North Korea and escalating tensions in northeast Asia, China this summer has made substantial progress in further establishing de facto control over most of the South China Sea. 

Indeed, aside from Secretary Defense Mattis’ strongly-worded speech in June at the annual Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore, and an uptick in U.S. Navy freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, the administration seems uninterested in reinforcing—let alone more forcefully emphasizing—international law and the longstanding U.S. position that all claimants must take concrete steps in accordance with said law to resolve the disputes peacefully. 

As Bonnie Glaser from the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted this past July at CSIS’s seventh annual South China Sea conference, the United States seemed surprised and ill-prepared for the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s 2016 ruling, and has yet to devise a comprehensive South China Sea policy or strategy. 

Freedom-of-navigation operations is simply a policy tool, not a policy in itself.
This isn’t lost on Beijing or the ten Association for Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) states. 

As the diplomatic winds blow harder in China’s favor, Beijing’s next move could very well be a security power play, like declaring maritime base points and strait baselines from the islands and shoals it has occupied and militarized. 

Or perhaps it could establish an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the same area. Furthermore, U.S.-China relations are worsening over North Korea and trade, and, following the Nineteenth Party Congress in late October, Xi Jinping may see, from a position of greater domestic strength, both an opportunity and a need to make that very type of play.

What China Got During Its Summer Vacation
China scored two important victories this summer in the South China Sea confrontation, and this barely got any notice in mainstream Western media. 

First, after a hotly divided politburo debate in Hanoi in July, Vietnam yielded to a Chinese threat of force and suspended drilling in block 136/3, which is licensed to Vietnam’s state oil company, the Spanish firm Repsol S.A., and the Mubadala Development Company in the United Arab Emirates. China had first tried to pressure the Spanish government, as Repsol S.A. provided the drilling vessel and started the onsite project in June. 

When that didn’t work, Chinese Gen. Fan Changlong, deputy chair of China’s Central Military Commission, explicitly threatened force if Vietnam did not cease the project (block 136/3 is inside China’s South China Sea maritime rights claim, or the Nine-Dash Line) while on an annual border-exchange visit to Vietnam. 

Let’s be clear on just what exactly happened: Vietnam began a legal resource extraction operation inside its exclusive economic zone, and China, opposing it on dubious historical and legal grounds (grounds that the Hague’s PCA firmly rejected), threatened war if they didn’t cease the project. Beijing didn’t threaten to take Vietnam to court in the Hague, or raise the matter before the United Nations in another forum, or try to apply greater diplomatic and economic pressure. 

The Chinese government instead threatened military action. 

And Vietnam took the threat seriously and complied. 

And the United States and the rest of the world essentially registered no serious rebuke.
Second, China hit the trifecta at the ASEAN foreign ministerial in Manila on August 8. 

As expected, all ten ASEAN nations and China signed a framework for an eventual South China Sea code of conduct. 

For those not paying attention at home, this might sound like meaningful diplomatic progress. 

It was not. 

Instead, it was a completely vacuous exercise because it no more than restated principles all had agreed to fifteen years earlier, and China still refuses to enter into a binding code of conduct. 

Just to get to a framework for a nonbinding code took well over a year, so long one has to wonder whether the whole effort amounted to little more than a charade.
Vietnam at least lobbied hard for more forceful language in the post-ministerial joint statement, and after much wrangling it was agreed that language expressing concern about “reclamation” and “militarization” in the South China Sea be added. 

Then, in a breathtaking breach of protocol, the Philippines’ foreign secretary, Alan Peter Cayetano, told the press he agreed with China’s criticism of the joint statement, which included a bold-faced canard that China hasn’t engaged in reclamation since 2015. 

Cayetano trashed the ASEAN joint statement as if ASEAN were some nascent assembly of nations unnecessarily picking a fight with China, and not the fifty-year-old prestigious, diplomatic and economic grouping currently chaired by the Philippines. 

As one of China’s long-standing strategic goals is to divide ASEAN and deal with each SCS claimant bilaterally, this certainly saw champagne corks popping in the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

Not quite the coup de grace, perhaps, but a powerful blow to ASEAN unity.
Finally, during and after the ASEAN ministerial in Manila, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson seemed to be focused on everything but the South China Sea, in marked contrast to not only Mattis’ June speech but also to Tillerson’s own statement on the South China Sea at the ASEAN summit in May. 

Tillerson instead praised China’s foreign minister after China joined in a unanimous UN Security Council vote to enact more sanctions on North Korea following that regime’s late July ballistic-missile test. 

This is understandable, of course, but even implicitly signaling to Beijing that the U.S. position on the South China Sea, Taiwan or any other issue is a potential bargaining chip for China’s cooperation on North Korea is a major win for China. 

China likely believes denuclearizing North Korea through economic and diplomatic pressure without causing state collapse is all but impossible, but if it can advance its interests elsewhere by giving the United States the impression that it is ready to finally take North Korea to task, all the better. 

The United States would be wise to steer clear of this quid pro quo trap. 

Instead, it should insist China meet unconditionally its international security responsibilities as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

China’s Next South China Sea Act
Following China’s recent South China Sea victories, the table is now set for an even bolder move to further cement Beijing’s de facto control of its expansive Nine-Dash Line claim. 

This could come in many forms, such as declaring an ADIZ or maritime base points from various occupied islands and shoals, as mentioned above, or by simply beginning routine military operations from its occupied reefs. 

The U.S. Navy has increased its South China Sea patrols (on pace for nine hundred days in 2017, up from seven hundred in 2016), and its freedom-of-navigation operations near Chinese-claimed and occupied territory. 

And, Vietnam sent its defense minister to Washington in August and subsequently agreed to host a U.S. aircraft carrier on a port visit. 

But neither will deter China from pressing forward more aggressively in the South China Sea this winter and into 2018.
China is getting much more comfortable challenging the U.S. Navy. 

Each year the Chinese Navy grows in size, capability, and proficiency. U.S. freedom-of-navigation operations are simply going to become a lot more risky in the future, to the point where the potential cost to continue them may outweigh the benefit. 

As for Vietnam, China knows Hanoi remains ambivalent about getting too close to the United States and will prefer to hedge its relationship, considering its proximity to China and its close defense relationship with Russia. 

Unlike with the Philippines, the United States has no formal security relationship with Vietnam. Pulling the Philippines even partly out of the U.S. orbit is far more valuable to China than a few more U.S. Navy port visits is to Vietnam.
Threatening war with China over the South China Sea is not credible. 

But that does not mean the United States should not step up its efforts to make China pay a more serious price for such a flagrant disrespect for international law. 

As Ely Ratner so thoughtfully pointed out recently in Foreign Affairs, the United States has yet to employ many tools in this regard, and its lack of a comprehensive policy underscores how confused and inconsistent its approach has been over the past decade or so. 

In many ways, the South China Sea is no less a supreme test of U.S. leadership than the Korea crisis. Trade disputes come and go, given the ephemeral and complex nature of global economics. 

Giving up on the South China Sea will cast a much longer shadow on the viability and credibility of international law.

Five Shades of Chinese Gray-Zone Strategy

Washington should be wary about a Beijing that has taken incremental steps toward small-stick diplomacy.
By James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara

Deterring aggression in the “gray zone” is hard.

The keeper of an existing order—an order such as freedom of the sea—finds itself conflicted. 

That’s because gray-zone aggressors deliberately refuse to breach the threshold between uneasy peace and armed conflict, justifying a martial response. 

Instead they demolish the status quo little by little and replace it with something new.
Piecemeal assaults compel the status quo’s defenders to consider unappealing options. 

They can act first and bear the blame for the outbreak of war, for taking excessive risk, for provoking the revisionist power or for destabilizing the peace. 

Or, unwilling to incur such costs, they resign themselves to inaction or half-measures.
Predisposed to put off difficult decisions, politicians can waffle, and surrender the initiative. 

Or they can escalate, and see their nation branded a bully.
An unpalatable choice.
Gray-zone strategies are designed precisely to impose such quandaries on custodians of an existing order.
The stepwise approach is reminiscent of the late Thomas Schelling’s parable of the rebellious child who whittles down his parents’ willpower at the seashore.
“Tell a child not to go in the water,” maintains Schelling, “and he’ll sit on the bank and submerge his bare feet; he is not yet ‘in’ the water. Acquiesce, and he’ll stand up; no more of him is in the water than before. Think it over, and he’ll start wading, not going any deeper; take a moment to decide whether this is different and he’ll go a little deeper, arguing that since he goes back and forth it all averages out. Pretty soon we are calling to him not to swim out of sight, wondering whatever happened to all our discipline.”
Over the past couple of decades, likewise, Beijing has devised a variety of stratagems to flummox those who defy its claims to sovereignty over islands, sea and sky. 
China started out with light-gray, largely inoffensive gray-zone tactics twenty-five years ago, but they darkened into coercion over time as its ambitions and power mounted.
First, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership codified its claim to offshore territory in domestic law in 1992, proclaiming that China held jurisdiction over disputed land features in the East and South China seas along with the surrounding waters.
Western governments and press outlets deemed this development barely newsworthy, in large measure because Beijing made little effort to enforce the law.
Though light in tincture, however, this Law on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone comprised an extravagant statement of purpose toward China’s near seas.
This largely forgotten edict prepared the way for additional assertions of legal authority while justifying more muscular gray-zone strategies.
In 2009, for instance, the CCP leadership delivered a map of the South China Sea to the United Nations bearing a “nine-dash line” that delineated its claim to “indisputable” or “irrefutable” sovereignty over some 80–90 percent of that waterway.
It later flouted a 2016 ruling from the Permanent Court of Arbitration that gutted its legal case for sovereignty. 
Beijing has little fealty to commitments it has freely undertaken—commitments such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea—when operating in the gray zone.
China also projected its claims skyward.
In 2013 the leadership declared an air-defense identification zone over the East China Sea, encompassing Japanese- and Korean-administered islands. 
It asserted the power to regulate air traffic moving up and down the Asian seaboard, parallel to the coast, rather than traffic bound for China.
Controlling airspace—not defending China against inbound aircraft—represented its true aim. 
Yet here, too, Beijing has only halfheartedly sought to enforce its air-defense zone—most recently by challenging a U.S. Air Force bomber bound for South Korea.
Its skyward strategy remains light gray in execution, if not in principle.
Second, China’s “smile diplomacy” ranked as the lightest of light-gray ventures.
Commencing in the early 2000s, Beijing fashioned a diplomatic narrative drawing on the charisma of China’s ancient mariner, Zheng He.
The Ming Dynasty admiral commanded a series of “treasure voyages” six centuries ago, reinvigorating China’s tribute system in Southeast and South Asia without indulging in territorial conquest.
Modern-day officialdom took pains to reassure fellow Asians that China would follow Zheng He’s pattern.
It would make itself a potent yet beneficent sea power.
It could be trusted not to abuse lesser neighbors.
In short, smile diplomacy constituted an effort to brand China as a uniquely trustworthy great power—and mute resistance to its maritime rise.
Until the late 2000s, when China turned more assertive, regional audiences were by and large receptive to this soothing message.
Third, gray-zone tactics tended in a darker, more coercive direction after Beijing unveiled the nine-dash line in 2009. 
Zheng He found himself summarily jettisoned in favor of what we dubbed “small-stick diplomacy.”
Rather than flourish the big stick of naval power, that is, CCP leaders unlimbered the small stick of maritime law enforcement coupled with militiamen embedded within the fishing fleet.
Small-stick diplomacy represented a masterful gray-zone strategy. 
The small stick was big enough to cow Asian neighbors whose navies barely rated as coast guards, but it was too small to goad the United States into sending its navy to defend allies and friends.
Routine harassment of Asian coastal states projected the image that China’s coast guard and maritime enforcement services were simply policing waters that had belonged to China since "remote antiquity". It was an effort to quash lawbreakers trespassing on Chinese territory.
Small-stick diplomacy, in short, comprised a gray-zone strategy vis-à-vis the U.S. Navy but exhibited a dark, coercive hue toward Asian claimants.
And that dualism suited Beijing just fine.
Fourth, China attempted a variant of small-stick diplomacy in the East China Sea but found the setting far less permissive. 
Since 2010 or thereabouts, China’s coast guard has conducted regular patrols in the waters around the Senkaku Islands.
Its purpose: to challenge Japan’s administrative control of the islands and adjoining seas.
For its part, Tokyo has staged a standing coast-guard presence in the archipelago’s territorial sea, buttressing its own control. 
The result is a curious form of joint Sino-Japanese administration of waters around the islets.
Both sides police what they regard as their own.
While the Obama administration and Trump administration have reaffirmed that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands, obliging Washington, DC to help defend them against attack, China’s East China Sea strategy displays the same kind of dualism as in the South China Sea. It’s coercive toward Japan yet stops short of triggering U.S. countermeasures. 
This tactic was enough to alter the status quo in China’s favor but not enough to trigger escalatory action-reaction cycles with Japan. 
And it keeps in play Tokyo’s insecurities about America’s commitment to Japan’s defense, granting China leverage over the alliance. 
In all likelihood this state of affairs will persist so long as Beijing refrains from trying to wrest the islets from Japan—so long, that is, as China keeps its strategy gray.
And fifth, CCP chieftains have discovered that building artificial islands—or fortifying existing ones—constitutes an effective gray-zone strategy. 
Its island-building enterprise has taken several forms over the years.
In 1994, for example, China occupied Mischief Reef, deep within the Philippine exclusive economic zone.
It commenced constructing structures at the reef soon afterward, converted it into a military outpost in 1998, and expanded it sufficiently to host an airstrip and defensive armaments by 2016.
If gradualism suited its purposes at Mischief Reef, China has exercised even more forbearance at Scarborough Shoal, another feature within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Its occupation of Scarborough Shoal in 2012 marked the final transition from smile diplomacy to small-stick diplomacy.
China’s seagoing law-enforcement services shooed away Philippine mariners from this traditional fishing ground, imposing control over access to the shoal.
Engineers, however, have yet to begin reclaiming seafloor around it to erect another armed redoubt.
Why such restraint?
Geography may have dissuaded Beijing from acting.
Unlike the other contested features, Scarborough Shoal perches near the principal Philippine island of Luzon.
China’s leadership may fear drawing in the U.S. military, which is obligated to defend the Philippines under a longstanding mutual-defense pact, if it constructs a fortified outpost so close to an American ally. 
Politics is at work as well.
Elected in 2016, furthermore, Rodrigo Duterte has signaled his willingness to loosen the alliance with America while cozying up to China. 
That being the case, refraining from provocative acts probably appears prudent to CCP leaders. 
Why alienate a new ally?
And lastly, China went big, and fast, elsewhere in the Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes.
Starting in 2013, civil engineers manufactured island bases from rocks and atolls scattered across the South China Sea.
Xi Jinping pledged not to “militarize” the artificial islands, freezing any serious response from the Obama administration, only to proceed with construction of airfields and other infrastructure. 
The result: a fait accompli.
It’s one thing to deter an aggressor from seizing ground, quite another to evict an aggressor from ground it has already seized. 
Island-building tactics of all three varieties have left China in possession of territory—and it’s hard to see how such gains can be reversed short of open warfare. 
Beijing has, in essence, forced the region and the United States to live with a new and largely irreversible strategic reality.
This typology of gray-zone tactics suggests that China is bringing to bear all elements of national power on the maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas.
Beijing has employed legal, diplomatic, maritime and material elements of statecraft to chip away at the U.S.-led liberal international order. 
Even its construction prowess, honed over decades of massive infrastructure-building, has been on dazzling display in the heart of the South China Sea—contributing to strategic success.
For custodians of the current order, consequently, it is not enough to think exclusively about the marine dimensions of strategy.
To balk China’s gray-zone stratagems, Washington and its allies must take a page from Beijing and adopt a holistic, grand-strategic posture that applies patient, vigilant countervailing pressure on many fronts simultaneously. 
In short, the defenders of the status quo must think in shades of gray and must accustom themselves to acting in the twilight between peace and war.
To do any less would concede to China the initiative—and the future shape of the regional order.
Thomas Schelling would nod knowingly at the challenges before Washington and its partners.
Unlike his milquetoast parents, let’s muster some strategic discipline.

China Lake

Aircraft hangars, radar installed on artificial islands

• Hangars can accommodate combat aircraft or surveillance planes
• Militarization will help China establish an Air Defense Zone

By Ben Westcott

Dozens of aircraft hangars and high-end radar capabilities on China's man-made islands in the South China Sea are almost operational, according to new satellite imagery released by a US-based think tank.
The new facilities will further establish China's military dominance over the highly contested region, experts told CNN, and could help China establish a controversial Air Defense Identification Zone in the area.
Images released by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, AMTI, taken in early March, show nearly completed defense infrastructure on three of China's largest artificial islands in the disputed Spratly chain: Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs.
Each of the islands has new aircraft hangers, capable of holding 24 military aircraft, as well as several larger hangars that can hold bombers or surveillance planes.
Though completion of these facilities in early 2017 was expected, the question remains: Where does China go from here?
"I mean, you don't build facilities like that and then not use them," Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Yusof Ishak Institute, told CNN.
A Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman said Tuesday she wasn't aware of the report's details but reiterated the Spratly Islands were Chinese territory.
"Whether we decide to deploy or not deploy relevant military equipment, it is within our scope of sovereignty. It's our right to self-defense and self-preservation as recognized by international law," Hua Chunying said.

A satellite photo of China's artificial island on Fiery Cross Reef, taken on March 9, and highlighted by AMTI.

New hangers, radar almost complete
Fiery Cross, Mischief and Subi reefs are the largest of seven artificial islands built by China in the Spratlys.
China claims the majority of the South China Sea as its territory, despite overlapping claims by a number of other Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Vietnam.



Four bigger hangars have already been completed on Subi Reef, AMTI said, as well as another four on Fiery Cross Reef. 

Hangars to accommodate five larger planes, such as bombers, were in the final stages of construction on Mischief Reef.
"China's three military bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracels will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea," AMTI said in a statement.
In addition to the hangars, new radar domes are in various stages of construction on each artificial island, about three arrays on each reef. 

Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs now all also have shelters for mobile missiles launchers, according to AMTI.

Subi Reef, taken on March 14, with new Chinese military infrastructure highlighted, courtesy of AMTI.

Air Defense Zone planned
The establishment of an Air Defense Identification Zone, dubbed ADIZ, in the South China Sea has long been considered a possibility by analysts, especially in the wake of July's international court decision against China's maritime claims.
China declared its East China Sea ADIZ in November 2013, antagonizing Japan and the United States, who both said they didn't recognize it.
A similar zone in the South China Sea could rapidly increase tensions in the region, experts said.

New radar arrays and an aircraft hanger freshly completed at China's artificial island on Fiery Cross Reef, according to AMTI

"The worry has to be that if China bases its military aircraft (in the South China Sea), they could fly up and challenge anyone's military aircraft or civilian aircraft if they wanted to," said Carl Thayer, regional security analyst and emeritus professor at the University of New South Wales.
China had very rarely enforced its previous ADIZ, and any new zone in the south sea would start out as mostly "symbolic," Storey said.
"And the US will ignore it as it did with the East China Sea ADIZ," he said. 

"The interesting question is really how the Southeast Asian states will respond."

Planes yet to arrive
Though the infrastructure is almost completed, no military aircraft has been deployed to the islands yet, Thayer and Storey said.
China's next step would be to very slowly deploy planes to the artificial islands to gauge the local and US response, Thayer said.
"What China's going to do is habituate," he said. 

"You land one there, and then you fly it out, report it in the state media and see what the reaction is."
"Then you add two or three or four, land one and repair it, see what the response is," he said.
South China Sea tensions generally had waned in the past nine months, since Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte took power and sought a closer relationship with China, Storey said.
If China deploys aircraft, "there will be pro forma protests from certain countries, Vietnam in particular. There will be grumbling from certain ASEAN members," he said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. 

"Then, over a period of time, this will become the norm."

China is preparing to test President Trump

• Authoritarian regimes like to test a new White House early on
• Beijing will soon look to stress-test the new White House over South China Sea

By Jennifer Harris

Major geopolitical crises have a way of greeting US presidents soon after taking office.

Nazi Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations in 1933, the Soviet-led construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 -- all were among the most daunting tests of US foreign policy in the past century, and all came less than a year into the tenures of new US administrations.
This is no accident. 

Authoritarian regimes like to test a new White House early on. 

Indeed, Russia appears to have already commenced its testing of Trump's Washington; a resurgence of heavy fighting in Eastern Ukraine suggests Moscow may be embarking on an offensive that could redraw Ukrainian borders beyond Crimea.
If past is precedent, Beijing will also soon look to stress-test the new White House. 

How President Trump responds could well determine whether he stays in the driver's seat of his own legacy.
Already, there are concerning signs of conflict to come, and the Trump administration's early missteps on the South China Sea conflict could give Beijing the pretext to manufacture a crisis. Should he take the bait, President Trump risks allowing external foreign policy crises to define his tenure, not unlike the way 9/11 reshaped George W. Bush's presidency.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson suggested during his confirmation hearing that the United States would block China from accessing islands it has built in the South China Sea, islands Beijing has outfitted with weapons systems and military-grade airstrips.
While much of Washington sprung into damage-control mode, the White House doubled down on Tillerson's comments, raising the possibility that a US blockade of China in the South China Sea means just that.
Beijing so far has shown marked restraint, at least in its official statements. 

The Chinese Foreign Ministry downplayed Tillerson's initial comments and refused to speculate on how it would react to a "hypothetical" situation. 

Its message for domestic audiences, though, was less conciliatory.
"Unless Washington plans to wage a large-scale war in the South China Sea," the nationalist-leaning Global Times warned, "any other approaches to prevent Chinese access to the islands will be foolish."
For a country whose largest challenge is arguably in managing the expectations of its own people, such hawkish messages may be the more reliable sign.
Such escalations are likely to come in two varieties. 

Most obviously, Beijing could respond militarily. China could declare an "air defense identification zone," or ADIZ, in the South China Sea, just as it did in the East China Sea in November 2013. 

This would effectively mean Beijing drawing lines in the air to mirror its claims in the South China Sea waters below.
More worryingly, China could begin building out more of the military infrastructure it has already installed in certain pockets of the South China Sea. 

China has already militarized its artificial islands, equipping them with weapons systems and military-grade landing strips. 

If they were to do likewise near the Scarborough Shoal -- within striking distance of the Philippines and US military bases -- this would almost certainly cross a red line for the United States.

A composite image of Gaven reef taken on November 17.

But while Washington tends to focus on military scenarios, China is just as skilled at using economic instruments to advance its maritime claims. 

Unlike the legions of Pentagon strategists poring over military scenarios, much of China's economic coercion goes unnoticed and unanswered by Washington.
It has already proven effective.
For example, the Philippines won a three-year UN arbitration case against China this past July. 

Yet by the time the ruling was issued, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had already undermined much of its force. 

Duterte repeatedly hinted at possible concessions in exchange for economic cooperation with Beijing, even going so far as to offer to "shut up" about the dispute in return for investment.
Any escalation between Washington and Beijing, coming just as Russia seems to be mounting a major offensive in eastern Ukraine, would stretch the Trump foreign policy team well beyond its depth. 

So what can the administration do to head off a crisis? 

Three broad actions are urgently needed.

1. First, US military leaders must provide much-needed clarity, signaling precisely what countermeasures China can expect should Chinese officials opt to declare an ADIZ in the South China Sea, militarize near the Scarborough Shoal, or otherwise escalate militarily.
2. Second, US congressional leaders must pass new legislation (known as AUMF) more clearly delineating the President's unilateral discretion concerning the use of US military force -- and reasserting Congress' role in green-lighting US military combat, especially in cases involving war with China.
3. Third, Congress and the White House together must work to equip US policymakers with the option of reaching for something other than military might.
   
   If Washington is to curb Beijing's expansionism, it will need to make China bear the economic costs of its growing bellicosity.
   It will also need to steel its Asian allies, countries such as Japan and the Philippines, against Chinese economic bullying.

Why China Could Declare a South China Sea ADIZ Right About Now

By Harry J. Kazianis

The People’s Republic of China loves testing American Presidents. 

And, as the years have gone by, they’ve started doing it sooner and with more intensity.
Recent research seems to back up this assertion. 

As Andrew Erickson of the US Naval War College recently pointed out, Beijing undertook 44 “increasingly aggressive intercepts leading up to the EP-3 incident” back in 2001, only 77 days after George W. Bush entered the oval office. 

The crisis, according to Erickson, was “intended to test [Bush’s] intentions and persuade him to adopt a more conciliatory approach to China.”
Obama also had his own China test – this time a meager 44 days after his inauguration, in what is widely referred to as the USS Impeccable incident. 

According to Erickson, the move was designed as “part of a concerted Chinese effort to test [Obama’s] mettle and see if he could be pushed to reduce lawful US surveillance and reconnaissance operations in international waters and airspace.”
So what will Beijing do when it comes to Donald Trump? 

Let’s step back for a second and focus less on what China will do, but when it will do it— and that could be quite soon, as in now.
With Washington seriously distracted at home, the door is open for a number of actors (think not just China but Russia, Iran and/or North Korea) to make their move — and according to sources I have spoken with at the Pentagon, there is a real fear Beijing could make some sort of play fairly quickly.
I would argue that there could be no better time to test the Trump Administration from a Chinese perspective. 

In fact, there might not be a better time in the next several years to make a bold play in one of the strategically most important areas that Beijing considers its “core interest” and gain an important advantage over America. 

And these days, that likely means the South China Sea.
Consider where the United States is today, politically — a yuge, self-induced mess. 

Thanks to a number of what I would consider “unforced errors”, the new administration in Washington is constantly having to work through mini-crisis after mini-crisis. 

Whether it is the un-needed controversy over crowd sizes at the inauguration, near hourly “breaking news” over the latest Trump tweet and now a budding showdown over Trump’s executive action on refugees entering the country, foreign policy is not exactly front and center these days here in the nation’s capitol.
And from there things only get worse. 

There might not even be enough mid-level staffers, the backbone of many federal agencies, to respond to a crisis. 

When combined with the fact that many of the US State department’s most important positions are vacant, along with a rebooted National Security Council that just lost two of its most important members – none other than the heads of the Joint Chiefs and National Intelligence – there is what I could consider an obvious experience gap that is ripe for exploitation.
So, if China did decide to act swiftly, and specifically in the South China Sea, what would be its best play? 

My money is on an action that is bold, reinforces China’s claims of sovereignty and, most importantly, won’t be easy to retaliate against.
If I was Xi Jinping here is what I would do to test the new administration’s intentions and at the same time see Trump squirm: declare an Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, in the South China Sea.
Now, on the surface, such a move seems highly escalatory, and not in line with other Chinese moves intended to test Bush or Obama. 

However, the stakes in Asia are greater than ever before, and with President Trump’s rhetoric on the South China Sea and Taiwan much bolder than that of any other new US administration just taking office, China might decide quickly it needs to see where the rubber meets the road — and fast. 

And there is no better way to do that than a South China Sea ADIZ.
How would Beijing make such a move? 

Easy, just dust off the playbook it used in 2013 when China did the same thing in the East China Sea.
Beijing may not be able to actually police either sea with great credibility if Washington or Tokyo really decided to press the matter, and in fact, to this day – according to senior officials in the Pentagon I have spoken with – it does not enforce its claims “with much vigor”. 

Nevertheless, four years ago it was able to set an important marker in the East China Sea opposite Japan. 

In the South China Sea Xi might not be able to enforce the zone through the whole breadth of the massive nine-dash-line area, but he could create a credible military deterrent by permanently basing HQ-9 air-defense platforms and advanced fighter jets on as many of China’s “fake islands” as possible to make the zone as real as possible in a short amount of time.
So how would President Trump respond? 

Likely just as Obama did: send advanced bombers to fly into the zone right after it is declared. 

Trump could even order a naval response, conducting multiple freedom of navigation operations to make the point clear that Washington won’t ever fully accept China’s aggressive actions.
However, when it comes to such an ADIZ, it won’t be just China, America, or US allies who have the final say on its success or failure. 

Airlines that fly in the new the zone won’t risk their passengers lives with non-compliance and a possible shoot-down if a plane is misidentified, so they will of course send their flight plans to Beijing, making such a zone a reality.
But all of this should be no shock. 

A Chinese ADIZ in the South China Sea has been something that has been discussed and theorized for years now. 

And there might not be a better time to try and make it a reality.

Sina Delenda Est

It is High Time to Outmaneuver Beijing in the South China Sea
By Ross Babbage

The policy of the United States in the South China Sea has failed. 

Repeated statements of limited interest accompanied by occasional ship and aircraft passages have failed to prevent Beijing’s program of island creation, nor have they meaningfully forestalled China’s quest for military dominance in the region.
In seeking to minimize the risk of confrontation at every step, the United States have effectively ceded control of a highly strategic region and presided over a process of incremental capitulation.

Bad precedents have been set, and poor messages have been transmitted to the global community. 

In parts of the Western Pacific, the allies are in danger of losing their long-held status as the security partners of choice.
Why has Washington been so flat-footed? 

Why has it taken so long to develop an effective counter-strategy to Beijing’s island creation and militarization in the South China Sea?
Part of the reason is the way that China has asserted its sovereignty over some 80 percent of this strategic waterway. 

The South China Sea is a stretch of water that carries more than half of the world’s merchant tonnage and serves as an important transit route for the militaries of the United States and many of its allies and friends. 

During the last five years, Beijing’s footprint has expanded markedly with the dredging-up of new islands and the construction of facilities for surveillance, anti-air, anti-shipping, and strike forces. Beijing’s campaign has been cleverly conducted via a succession of modest incremental steps, each of which has fallen below the threshold that would trigger a forceful Western response. 

As a result, Beijing now has significant facilities on 12 islands in the South China Sea and operates by far the largest military, coastguard, and maritime militia presence in the region.
Amongst the military capabilities that the Chinese appear to be installing on these artificial islands are surveillance and intelligence gathering facilities, long-range anti-aircraft and anti-ship missile installations, and numerous missile and gun point-defense systems. 

Three of the islands in the Spratly group, towards of the middle of the South China Sea, now possess 10,000 foot airfields that are more than adequate to handle Boeing 747 operations. 

Hardened revetments to house 24 fighter-bomber aircraft are nearing completion on these three islands together with what appears to be extensive maintenance and storage facilities for fuel and other supplies. 

Aircraft operating from these facilities could range as far as the Andaman Sea, Northern Australia, and Guam.
These newly created islands also appear to have capacities to house, as well as operate at short notice, significant numbers of short-and medium-range ballistic and cruise missiles with capabilities to strike both land-based targets and ships at sea as far away as the Sulu Sea in the Philippines and Singapore and Malaysia to the south.
Port facilities have also been built on these islands capable of refuelling and replenishing significant numbers of naval, coastguard, and maritime militia vessels. 

In addition, these islands appear to have the potential to support an underwater acoustic surveillance network across the South China Sea that would significantly enhance China’s capabilities to prosecute operations against allied submarines in the theater.
Because these three primary islands are not very small, there is space to disperse most deployed People’s Liberation Army (PLA) assets in a crisis and complicate targeting by allied forces. 

Fiery Cross Reef is now about the size of a mainland fighter base. 

Subi Reef is about 50 percent larger and roughly comparable in area to Pearl Harbor Naval Base. 

Mischief Reef is substantially larger again and would barely fit within the boundaries of the District of Columbia. 

In consequence, China appears well on the way to converting the South China Sea into something approaching a heavily defended internal waterway.
At present, innocent passage, especially by commercial vessels, is being respected. 

However, Beijing is making clear that the terms and conditions of foreign activity, even by other littoral states, will be determined and enforced by China. 

Relevant Chinese authorities have signalled that Beijing is considering the declaration of an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the entire South China Sea. 

Military facilities now nearing completion will permit Chinese forces to enforce any such declaration with fighter intercepts of non-complying aircraft.
Although most international observers had few doubts that many of China’s actions in the South China Sea were serious breaches of international law, the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration for UNCLOS in July 2016 made the extent of Beijing’s transgressions clear. 

It concluded unanimously that there was no legal basis for China’s claim of historic rights to the sea areas and artificial islands falling within the nine-dash line claimed by Beijing.
When confronted by China’s territorial and military expansion in the South China Sea, American leaders have almost always responded by repeating a standard mantra: We have a strong interest in free sea and air passage, we have no national claims to territories in the area, and we call on all parties to exercise restraint and resolve competing claims in accordance with international law. 

In token support of these interests, allied ships and aircraft have periodically transited the region, though they have rarely challenged China’s territorial claims directly. 

This response has clearly failed to deter Beijing’s territorial expansion.
Why has the approach of the United States been so timid and ineffectual? 

There have been several factors at play.
First, many in Washington and in other allied capitals have viewed the problems in the South China Sea as unwelcome distractions of little consequence that are best ignored. 

Some policymakers and commentators have argued that there is little sense in risking a major power confrontation over a “few scattered rocks” in a far distant theater.
Second, the level of importance accorded to the strategic future of the South China Sea varies greatly between allied and partner capitals. 

The general view in Washington is that the South China Sea is important but not vital. 

It is simply one of many troubled areas with which the United States must deal. 

In Tokyo, Seoul, and Canberra, the South China Sea is far more important because of its intrinsic strategic value and critical importance to their close partners who are maritime members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). 

For the littoral states of the South China Sea, the strategic balance and effective sovereignty of the region is critical for their future security and economic well-being. 

These differences in priority between the Western Pacific allies and their friends are placing strains on long-standing security relationships.
A third serious constraint has been imposed by the hub-and-spokes alliance model that has been in place in the Western Pacific since the 1950s. 

Cross-alliance (outer wheel) cooperation and combined security planning is not well-developed amongst the Western Pacific allies. 

While some progress has been made in recent years in strengthening operational coordination between Japan, Australia, South Korea and some partner countries in Southeast Asia, it is still limited and much of it is not routine. 

Washington has certainly encouraged closer cross-alliance cooperation but and it has a long way to go to approach the type of combined security planning that is habitual in Europe.

In consequence, timely, efficient, and effective alliance cooperation in response to Beijing’s operations in the South China Sea has not been straightforward.
Fourth, most citizens, almost all journalists, and many congressional and parliamentary representatives are poorly informed about Chinese operations in the South China Sea and, indeed, Beijing’s broader strategic behavior during the last decade. 

The mainstream media and Western government agencies have done a poor job of displaying the reality of what has been happening and explaining the implications.
Fifth, the development of an effective response to China’s creeping incrementalism in the South China Sea has been intrinsically difficult. 

Beijing has employed a very sophisticated strategy and operational concept that could be implemented without challenging U.S. alliance commitments or directly confronting American or allied forces. 

Moreover, Western leaders have faced numerous political and bureaucratic distractions, and it has been hard to maintain their attention on this theater.

Sixth, many Western business people and policymakers have wished to avoid any measure that could disturb their business and broader economic relationships with China. 

These concerns have been most apparent in the Western Pacific allies, as well as in American and other corporations that have invested heavily in developing close ties with Chinese enterprises. 

Chinese agencies have been active in fostering these worries, propagating false dilemmas, and exaggerating the potential consequences for regional economies of any actions taken to confront China’s assertiveness.

The success of Beijing’s information operations in Western countries is a seventh factor in accounting for the Western allies’ timidity over Chinese behavior in the South China Sea. 

These operations have been assisted by the Chinese acquisition of media enterprises in Western countries as well as the courting of key decision-makers, journalists, and academics through fully paid visits to China; the contribution of substantial funds to political parties; the establishment of pro-Beijing associations of many types, including Confucius Institutes in universities; the regular insertion of Chinese produced supplements in metropolitan newspapers; and the organization of periodic “patriotic” demonstrations, concerts, and other events by Chinese embassies, consulates, and other pro-Beijing entities. 

Cyber and intelligence operations have been used to reinforce key messages, recruit Chinese intelligence agents and “agents of influence,” and to intimidate, coerce, and deter allied counter-actions.

An eighth contributing factor is cultural. 

Western electorates appear to be more fearful of triggering confrontation and the escalation of an argument than their Chinese counterparts. 

Hugh White, a well-known observer of the region’s affairs, has even argued that the United States should not confront China’s expansionism unless its leaders are willing to “convince a majority of Americans that America should and would be willing to fight a nuclear war to preserve U.S. leadership in Asia.”

Statements such as this reflect flawed assessments of relative power, dubious assumptions about Beijing’s preparedness to use nuclear weapons against the United States, and a failure to consider the range of possible allied strategies and the very large menu of non-military options available to the allies to curb China’s adventurism.
One of the core problems with the approach of the U.S., Japanese, and Australian governments has been their serious misstatement of alliance interests. 

These allies certainly have strong interests in freedom of air and sea navigation and in seeing the competing claims in the region resolved peacefully in accordance with international law. 

However, the most powerful interests of the allies really extend beyond these limited, largely tactical, goals.

1. In reality, the first key interest of the allies is ensuring that China does not dominate the South China Sea to the extent that it can unilaterally determine the regional order and dictate the level of sovereignty to be enjoyed by the littoral states. 
2. A second key interest of the allies is limiting the potential for China’s acquisitive actions in the South China Sea to set a precedent for further, more aggressive illegal actions by Beijing in either the short or the long term. 
3. A third key allied interest is ensuring that China’s serious breaches of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, its dismissal of the findings of the Tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and its direct challenge to international law are not repeated.

In pursuit of these more substantive interests, the allied leaders need to choose a clear strategic concept to drive a counter-campaign. 

The most obvious options are to select a strategy of denial, a strategy of cost imposition, a strategy that attacks China’s strategy, or a strategy that undermines the leadership in Beijing. 

No matter what strategic concept is selected, an essential foundation should be a stronger and more convincing allied military posture in the Western Pacific.
Given Beijing’s actions during the last five years, there is a need to progress beyond the so-called “pivot” and “rebalancing” to a more thoroughgoing military engagement with the region that might be called the Regional Security Partnership Program. 

The primary goals of such a program would be to demonstrate continuing allied military superiority in the theater, deter further Chinese adventurism, and reinforce the confidence of regional allies and partners in the reliability of their Western partners so that they feel able to staunchly resist any attempted Chinese coercion.
The most effective allied strategy will be innovative and asymmetric. 

Just because Beijing has focused its most assertive actions in the South China and East China Seas in recent years using various forms of military, coast guard, maritime militia, and political warfare assets, it does not mean that the allies should counter by focusing all of their efforts in those theaters and employing those same modes. 

To the contrary, the most effective allied options are likely to focus on applying several types of pressure against the Chinese leadership’s primary weaknesses in whatever theater that is appropriate.
Such campaigns should contain a carefully calibrated mix of measures that can be sustained over an extended period. 

Candidate measures will likely extend well beyond the standard diplomatic and military domains to include geo-strategic, information, economic, financial, immigration, legal, counter-leadership, and other initiatives. 

Some of these measures would comprise declaratory policies designed to deter Chinese actions, give confidence to allies and friends, and shape the broader operating environment. 

Other measures would be classified and designed in part to keep the Chinese off-balance and encourage greater caution in Beijing.
There will certainly be people in allied countries who would prefer their governments to turn a blind eye. 

However, the nature and scale of the Chinese challenge means that a failure of the United States to respond with a robust counter-strategy would have fundamental implications for global security. 

For a start, it would effectively cede sovereignty over almost all of the South China Sea to China. 

Giving Beijing effective control over such a major transport and communications expanse would have very substantial and enduring geo-strategic implications. 

It would reconfigure major parts of the security environment in the Western Pacific and seriously complicate many types of future allied operations.
The second major consequence would be acquiescence to Beijing’s serious breaches of international law. 

This would do great damage to decades of allied effort to build frameworks of international law that govern international relations, commerce, and international disputes. 

It would signal to the global community that the Western allies are not prepared to defend international law.
A third key consequence is the risk of emboldening China to launch other, potentially more serious, acquisitive operations in coming years. 

Beijing may view the timidity of other nations as an invitation to seize further strategic territories and undertake other highly assertive operations. 

Hence, by remaining timid and flat-footed, allied leaders would run a serious risk of fostering a far more serious conflict with China in coming years that would be much harder and impossible to avoid.
A fourth major consequence of failing to act in a robust manner would be damaging allied deterrence. Weak Western action at this point would send very unfortunate messages not just to Beijing, but also to Moscow and Pyongyang.
A fifth consequence of U.S. inaction would be forcing a major recalibration of defense and broader national security assumptions by almost all allied and friendly states in the Western Pacific, and many beyond. 

Given the ineffective responses of allied leaders to such serious transgressions of international law and global security norms, what changes should they make to their own security planning? 

Some are already exploring new and potentially more reliable security partnerships. 

Others may launch new programs of self-defense, yet others may surrender key elements of their sovereignty to reach accommodations with Beijing or other revisionist regimes.
The security of the Western Pacific remains a core interest of the United States and its close allies. There is a strong imperative for the incoming Trump administration to make the formulation of an effective counter-strategy an early priority.

Casus Belli

Chinese drone seizure a signal to Trump
BY KRISTINA WONG

China's seizure of a U.S. Navy underwater drone Thursday is a signal to President Donald Trump that it won't take his phone call with Taiwan lightly, an expert said on Friday.
"Knowing Chinese military officials for many years and how orders are communicated from the highest power centers in Beijing down to commanders on the ground or water, this was a highly planned and escalatory move to show China will not take matters lightly when it comes to President Trump’s phone call and comments on Taiwan, or Chinese actions overall," said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest.
Trump took a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen congratulating him on his presidential win, breaking decades of diplomatic protocol. 

No U.S. president had spoken with a leader of Taiwan since 1979.
Both Trump and Tsai have played down the significance of the call, but it triggered a formal complaint from China to the U.S.
Kazianis also said he expects China to "aggressively test" the Trump administration once it enters office in January, as it has done with previous administrations in the past.
Kazianis predicts China to declare an air defense identification zone in the South China Sea, as it did for the East China Sea in 2013, as one way to test Trump within the first six months of taking office. 

Such a move could escalate tensions with both the United States and Chinese neighbors concerned about territorial disputes.
"President George W. Bush was tested by China just 77 days from when he took office in 2001 when a Chinese fighter jet smashed into a U.S. surveillance plane — the so-called EP-3 Incident," he said.
"Additionally, Obama was tested by Beijing 44 days from when he took office when Chinese vessels surrounded a U.S. naval ship. Trump, it would seem, is certainly in for the same fate," he said. 

Retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis, former commander of NATO Supreme Allied Command, predicted earlier this year that U.S. adversaries like China, Russia, Iran and North Korea would step up its bad behavior to test the incoming administration.
"I assure you all of the actors who are pushing on the United States now will push even harder on the new administration to try and find out where the limits are, and that will be a period of maximum danger," Stavridis, dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, told The Hill in an Oct. 6 interview.
"There will be an inevitable period of testing that goes on after a new administration comes in and it will require a heightened state of alert and frankly a continued effort to make it clear that we're not going to tolerate encounters that lead to real danger for our people or a danger of escalation," he said.
Earlier this year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told members of Congress that U.S. adversaries are seeking to challenge the U.S. in ways that won't provoke an outright military conflict.
Kazianis echoed that assessment.
“China is clearly trying to test the United States in a way that is very hard for Washington to respond to. In stealing an underwater drone, Washington has very few viable options but to simply ask for it back, or escalate the situation in some manner, driving up tensions," he said.
"Beijing is showing it has the capability to respond in a time and place of its choosing," he said.