World must oppose China maritime claims – US Congress leader

WASHINGTON – China’s maritime claims in the East and South China Seas are dubious and its grand designs must be opposed by the free world if peace in the region is to be preserved, Dana Rohrabacher, chairman of the US House subcommittee on foreign affairs, said.

At a subcommittee hearing on China’s maritime and other geographic threats on Wednesday, Rohrabacher – a Republican from California – said Beijing’s long-standing, deliberate strategy was to extend, provoke, challenge and ultimately dominate the region.

The US pivot to Asia is hollow if America is not clear about the threat in this theater, he said.

Richard Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in his testimony said China’s use of military pressure in pursuit of its territorial claims is increasing the prospect for military clashes, especially with Japan and the Philippines.

Beijing’s military buildup and intimidation of US allies is intended to challenge Washington’s ability to defend its friends and thereby diminish the credibility of US alliance commitments in the region, he said.

Japan has been in a near constant state of non-violent engagement with China’s military and paramilitary forces over control of the Senkaku/Daiyou Islands, but the chances of a military incident are increasing, he said.

The Philippines is also being pushed by Chinese forces from areas in or near its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Steven Mosher, head of the Population Research Institute, an advocate for human rights in China, said a government that rules its own people by brute force is naturally inclined to treat its smaller, weaker neighbors the same way, especially if they were tributary states in the past.

This accounts in part for the palpable disdain with which Beijing treats the other claimants in the South China Sea dispute, including Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which have stronger claims to the Spratlys and Paracels than does China itself, Mosher said.

Only the continued presence of the Japan-based US Seventh Fleet in the Far East stays China’s hand.

Without the Seventh Fleet, there is little doubt that China would occupy the remaining islands in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea by force, ejecting the garrisons of other nations, he said.

China could then demand that ships transiting its “interior waters” first seek permission to do so or run the risk of being boarded and quarantined.