Countering Maritime Gray Zone Challenges in Southeast Asia: Examining the Strategic Context (original) (raw)
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Navigating China's Gray Zone Strategy in the South China Sea
OSSSM Digest Vol 25, No. 4, 2020
“Gray zone” strategies are situations characterized by competitive interactions between and among state or non-state actors which exist short of a formal state of war. The coercive actions in a “gray zone” vary and fall below key thresholds of conflict that could prompt a conventional military response. These are situations that have the following features – aggressive, perspective-dependent, and ambiguous – and the following elements – revisionism, gradualism and unconventionality. This article was an assessment of the challenges in the South China Sea from these “gray zone” strategies of China and its impact to Philippine national security. This paper attempts to situate “gray zone” strategy and other such operations within China’s overall grand strategy and assess AFP’s readiness to respond to these challenges.
2012
The article looks at the increasing assertiveness of China in its coastal areas and examines the response of the U.S. and other regional actors. The article analyzes the major causes of the tensions arising in South China and East China Sea and provides an outlook into the future. It argues that China’s rise and the consequential hedging against its growing power by other regional actors and related disputes over territory have a potential of complicating the future security in Asia. It concludes that the U.S. must continue to play a key role as a guarantee of the regional order in Southeast Asia. Keywords: US, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, South China Sea, East China Sea, Japan, Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, ASEAN, UNCLOS, territorial disputes, EEZ, arms races, hedging
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The asymmetric distribution of power in the Asian maritime region is favoring China, increasing the apprehension of its neighbors that, faced with their evident vulnerability, fear about Beijing's intentions. In this context, the balance of power maintains the status quo and limits China's behavior against other coastal countries. Given the disparity of military and economic power between Southeast Asia and China, this balance can only be achieved with the intervention of an extra-regional power, the United States. The renewed American participation as a guarantor of regional security has created new bonds of strategic dependence for Southeast Asia, which in turn have economies that mainly rely on China. The South China Sea conflict is then posing two dilemmas for the region: China's increasing economic leverage and Washington's reactive and challenging Indo-Pacific policy, which might make a stalemate in the maritime conflict possible.
China's Gray Zone Tactics in the Indian Ocean – South Asian Voices
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While there has been much discussion about China’s openly aggressive behavior in the South China Sea (SCS), these potential gray zone actions in the IOR deserve attention and can have long-term strategic implications for IOR littoral states in South and Southeast Asia.
Facing China: Crises or Peaceful Coexistence in the South China Sea
Revised edition: Due to serious technical mistakes during the editing-process, the original version of this PRIF-Report contained numerous errors distorting the meaning of the text. These mistakes have been corrected in the revised edition. Content: The past few years are characterized by increased Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea that resulted in various confrontations with the Philippines and Vietnam and an enhanced involvement of the United States. The core question is what other states, especially China‘s adversaries, can do, to evade spirals of escalation without compromising their claims. This report compares the crisis-prone Sino-Philippines with the rather harmoni- ous Sino-Malaysian relations. It extends analysis backwards to the early days of Chinese assertiveness in the late 1980s. This allows the author to show that Chinese behavior in the territorial conflicts co-varies with the contender’s level of recognition of the benign Chinese concepts of national self and world order. Displaying respect towards China mitigates Chinese conflict behavior without compromising the opponent’s territorial claims.
Considering a Long-Term U.S. Policy Strategy to PRC Challenges in the South China Sea - April 2016
As we approach the remainder of 2016 – the last year of the Obama presidency – U.S. allies and partners across Asia will continue to look to U.S. leadership and guidance on regional security matters. Obama’s two terms saw a considerable increase in U.S. attention to the region, including greater U.S. force deployment, an emphasis on a rules-based international order, liberalized trade regimes through the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and cooperation with allies such as Japan, Korea, and Australia, as well as emerging partners such as Singapore, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia. These political developments are set against a backdrop of security challenges in Asia, including maritime disputes and North Korean provocations, as well as emerging asymmetric threats such as terrorism, cyber espionage, and natural disasters. Yet while sustained DPRK concerns and asymmetric challenges monopolize political bandwidth, the South China Sea (SCS) continues to be Asia’s preeminent “simmering cauldron” – a phrase aptly captured by Robert Kaplan. This security paradigm is driven largely by China’s non-reconciliatory approach to land reclamation, energy exploration, force deployment, and (as a result) increasing de facto territorial hegemony in the South China Sea. As the Obama administration comes to a close and the United States is embroiled in a contentious election, U.S. officials must anticipate that China will test U.S. resolve in this period of political transition to press its claims. To navigate this, there must be a fundamental U.S. survey of dynamics in the South China Sea – an effort that predicates any institutionalized U.S. strategy to reassure claimants and neutralize destabilizing PLA actions. This essay therefore provides a survey of China’s recent actions in the South China Sea, examining their motives and drivers, and recommends discrete U.S. policies to mitigate these Chinese actions through the years ahead.
China as a Rising Power and Her Growing Assertiveness in the South China Sea
International Journal of Advanced Academic Research (IJAAR), 2018
Ever since Deng Xiaoping " s 1978 economic reform began fully in 1979, the People " s Republic of China (PRC), for more than three decades now, has been experiencing an unprecedented economic growth rate of 9-10%. The " economic miracle " that ensued the economic reform has in effect not only transformed the communist State from a Third World country to an emerging economic power, but also an ascending military power which under the leadership of the incumbent President, Xi Jinping, has become more assertive in the disputed South China Sea like never before. The approximately 3.5 square kilometres South China Sea (SCS), is a semi-enclosed geostrategic sea in the Western Pacific region. Over the years, the control and ownership of the sea " s waterways, geographic features and natural resources led to contested sovereignty and jurisdiction claims between the heavyweight, China and the diminutive littoral States – Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei that imperfectly ring the South China Sea. This paper therefore, take first and foremost, a critical look at whether rising China " s growing assertiveness in the disputed South China Sea is legally justifiable, and lastly, to consider the roles international law and diplomacy can play in the peaceful resolution of the multifaceted South China Sea disputes. The research methodology for this paper includes the historical and analytical approach as well as the qualitative method of data collection.
The South China Sea: Still No War on the Horizon
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