China has also challenged US aircraft carrier deployments in its littoral waters, including in the East China Sea. China is also probing far out into the South Pacific, on Australia's eastern flank, in Kiribati in the second island chain.3
China's navy is no match for the US navy, let alone the navies of the US and Japan combined. But China does not need to develop maritime power commensurate with that of the United States in order to make the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. The Chinese have the advantage of proximity within the Taiwan strait and in relation to the South China Sea to the extent that they can provide long range air cover.
Accustomed to dealing from a weak hand, China is showing amazing hubris. Like the unlamented Soviet Union, China asserts that no world problem can be solved without its participation. In February 1999, China used its veto in the United Nations Security Council to prevent the extension of the mandate of UN peacekeepers in Macedonia. China's motive was to punish Macedonia for recognizing Taiwan.
By offering 'strategic partnership' to China, the current US administration has done much to feed China's ambition and sense of self-regard. 'Engagement' cannot work if the other side thinks solely in zero-sum terms. And a growing economy can also nurture the sinews of war.
But those who advocate 'containment' of China are not thinking strategically either, albeit for opposite reasons. China does not represent anything remotely approaching the level of threat posed by the Soviet Union when it possessed enormous military power, and stretched across Eurasia, threatening US allies at both ends. 'Containment' of China would be tantamount to a declaration of war, as well as economic embargo. No US ally would support such a policy.
Response must be commensurate with the level of threat. If China asserts hegemony, the only remedy is determined resistance, plus appropriate rewards―preferably economic―for good behavior. That must be carefully handled, lest China eat the carrot and ignore the stick.
But if the maritime powers remain supine, China will continue to seek the regional dominance which will turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake. As China's uncontested power and reach grow, the archipelagic and peninsula states in the middle of the first island chain will increasingly acquiesce in Chinese power. They know that China will always be there. Will the US? Once the slide towards preemptive capitulation is underway, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to reverse. It's time that the US and Japan reasserted their interests in maritime passage, and combined with others in defense of freedom of the seas.
