US congressmen want tough stance vs China

‘Salami-slice’ policy hit

WASHINGTON – China came under fire Tuesday at a US House joint committee hearing for its alleged propensity to use coercion, bullying and “salami slicing tactics” to secure its maritime interests in the East and South China Seas.

Republican Rep. Steve Chabot called China “dangerously aggressive” and said it was attempting to take disputed territories by gradual force with the “misguided hope that Japan, Southeast Asian nations and the US will just grudgingly accept it.”

Democratic Rep. Ami Bera called for a strong, bipartisan message from Congress that China’s “threatening and provocative moves to assert their maritime territorial claims are unacceptable.”

Republican Rep. Randy Forbes said the US must be “100 percent intolerant of China’s territorial claims and its continued resort to forms of military coercion to alter the status quo in the region.”

China’s pursuit of its “salami slicing” strategy is through a steady progression of small steps which – while not casus belli – can gradually change the status quo in its favor, said Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Sometimes China’s actions are unilateral and unprovoked, such as its annual fishing ban and its assertion of expansive fishing rights in the South China Sea and the West Philippine Sea.

Other times, China’s moves are in response to perceived provocations by other countries, which Beijing deliberately escalates in an attempt to create a new status quo in its favor, a tactic described by some experts as “reactive assertiveness.”

In the most egregious example of such behavior in the South China Sea, the standoff between vessels from China and the Philippines in April 2102 at the Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal ended with the Chinese occupying the shoal in violation of an oral understanding reached with Manila to withdraw all vessels from the area, Glaser said.

The standoff began when Chinese maritime surveillance vessels stopped Philippine Navy personnel from arresting Chinese poachers and seizing their illegal catch of giant clams, endangered corals and sharks. The poachers were allowed to leave with their illegal cargo.

The Panatag incident constituted the first instance of a change in the status quo of a land feature in the South China Sea since 1995 when China seized control of Mischief Reef.

Disputes over territory and maritime jurisdiction are a major source of rising tensions and instability as regional nations take tit-for-tat measures to assert their claims, Glaser said, adding the risk of a clash is highest between China and Japan in the East China Sea.

Glaser was one of three experts who testified on Tuesday at a joint House Foreign Affairs subcommittee and a House Armed Services subcommittee hearing on China’s maritime disputes in the East and South China Seas.

Calculated moves

Peter Dutton, professor and director at the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College, said Chinese activities are carefully calibrated to achieve their objective without provoking outright conflict with the United States. China’s strategy can best be described as non-militarized coercion, he said.

Non-militarized coercion involves the direct and indirect application of a broad range of national capabilities to favorably alter the situation at sea in China’s favor.

The operational aspects of the strategy include stepped up operations by maritime law enforcement vessels in disputed areas in coordination with civilian fishing vessels in “what might be termed a maritime-style people’s war,” he said.

But in this strategy there is also an important indirect role for the Chinese military, which is never far from any action, to deter China’s opponent from considering escalation.

While the US and China have numerous disagreements over everything from cyber security to intellectual property, human rights, and trade practices, “our disagreement in the realm of maritime security presents arguably the greatest potential for miscalculation, escalation, and conflict,” said Jeff Smith, director of South Asia Programs at the American Foreign Policy Council.

Testing boundaries and establishing new status quos favorable to China has been a defining feature of China’s regional policy in recent years, he said.

When the US and other countries have faltered in the face of this policy, as was the case with the Philippines at Panatag Shoal, China has advanced its goals and established a new status quo, Smith said.

However, where the US has held firm in its position and demonstrated resolve, Beijing has backed down.

Smith said Washington must do a better job drawing clear red lines between acceptable and unacceptable behavior in the maritime arena, and take decisive steps if and when these lines are crossed.

He added the US should continue regular surveillance activities and other operations aimed at preserving freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. It should also be ready to challenge unlawful or provocative acts by China, he added.

Glaser, on her part, said the US Congress should encourage other governments and legislatures in the Asia-Pacific to back the Philippines’ right to use available international arbitration mechanisms to address its territorial dispute with China.

So far, only the US and Japan have explicitly endorsed the Philippine government’s decisionto file a case with the UNCLOS arbitration panel.

If a large number of countries, including members of ASEAN, speak out in support of the application of international law to resolve disputes, Beijing might conclude that flouting the ruling of the tribunal is too costly, Glaser said. – With AP