Letters from Taiwan

STRATFOR ARTICLE: TAIWAN NEEDS TO BEWARE CHINA’S MARITIME STRATEGY

China’s Opportunities in Taiwanese-Philippine Tensions

May 14, 2013 | 1000 GMT

Summary

MANDY CHENG/AFP/Getty Images

China may use the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman by the Philippine coast guard on May 9 as a chance to build an alliance with Taiwan in maritime territorial disputes where the two countries have shared historical claims, and to justify its aggressiveness in the South China Sea. Compared to most of its neighbors, Taiwan lacks maritime clout and could benefit from following China’s lead in the disputes. But such a strategy may eventually come at the expense of Taiwanese interests. Thus, Taipei has to strike a careful balance between pursuing diplomatic independence and enforcing its maritime claims in a way that would benefit China – still Taiwan’s most serious and enduring security threat.

Analysis

Taipei has been gradually escalating its response to the shooting, which occurred in the Bashi Strait, about halfway between Taiwan and the Philippines in a part of the South China Sea that is disputed by both countries and China. After initially lodging somewhat muted diplomatic protests, Taipei on May 12 dispatched four ships to the disputed waters,including three coast guard vessels equipped with cannons and machine guns and a naval vessel carrying an S70-C helicopter. The administration of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou also vowed to deploy F-16 fighter jets and additional warships, including Kidd-class destroyers, if Manila fails to make an official apology to the fisherman’s family within 72 hours.

The shooting sparked intense public outrage in Taiwan over the government’s inability to protect Taiwanese citizens in the waters in addition to the enduring perception that Taipei has a weak position in its ongoing territorial disputes in the East and South China seas. To enforce Taiwan’s position, demand on the island has been increasing for some sort of territorial cooperation with China over mutual maritime interests. According to a survey conducted after the shooting, roughly 69 percent of Taiwanese residents support working more closely with China to pressure the Philippines in the maritime disputes.

Taiwan’s Challenge

But such cooperation would highlight Taipei’s constant struggle to reinforce its territorial claims without undermining its independence. Despite its early claims to parts of the East and South China seas and its relatively advanced military, Taiwan’s position has long been constrained due to its lack of international recognition and its complicated relations with China, who views Taiwan as a disobedient province that will eventually be subsumed by the mainland.

Because China and Taiwan share a similar historical basis for their maritime assertions, Beijing believes that Taipei’s territorial claims validate the South China Sea as rightly Chinese territory. Beijing also believes that Taiwan’s weak position in the maritime conflicts can be exploited for Chinese interests. Thus, Taipei has long believed that its vulnerable position in the maritime disputes would eventually force it to support Chinese aggression in the waters, thereby threatening Taiwanese independence.

Immediately after the shooting, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the incident, urging Manila to apologize and to launch a thorough investigation. An editorial in China’s semi-official Global Times then called for heavier Chinese pressure on the Philippines in support of Taipei. Beijing is hoping such gestures highlight its common ground with Taipei, considering that they share concerns over their identical claim against other claimant countries. 

Beijing’s Interests

Indeed, China has long been seeking to facilitate some sort of cross-strait collaboration over maritime disputes as something that could lay the groundwork for future civilian cooperation on other matters. This strategy has proved somewhat effective previously in the dispute with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands (known as the Diaoyutai in Taiwan) in the East China Sea. Since the 1970s, Taiwanese activism over the islands has been seen by Beijing as an anchor of cross-strait cooperation and international justification for anti-Japanese protests in China. Beijing is hoping to follow a similar course in the current maritime disputes, where cooperation could strengthen China’s territorial claims and its relations with Taipei.

But in 2012, Taiwan attempted to reassert its independence in the East China Sea by signing a fishing agreement with Japan concerning the waters around the disputed islands – a move that undermined Chinese interests. Thus, China is hoping to use the May 9 incident to demonstrate that it is better equipped to protect Taiwanese maritime interests than other regional states and deter Taipei from looking elsewhere for support.

Taiwan Escalates Tensions Over Maritime Claims

Beijing also sees the tensions between Manila and Taipei as an opportunity to justify its recent forceful actions in the disputed waters, in support of its broader strategy in the South China Sea. Since tensions over the waters renewed in 2010, Beijing has been more aggressive against the Philippines than it has been against Vietnam and other claimant countries. In April 2012, for example, a Philippine warship attempted to board Chinese fishing vessels anchored in the contested region. Beijing used the opportunity to seize control of Scarborough Shoal, an island also known as Huangyan in China and Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines. Meanwhile, China has continued to make moves around contested parts of the Kalayaan island chain and other areas within the Spratly Islands, an archipelago also claimed by the Philippines.

A Balancing Act

From Manila’s perspective, in light of Beijing’s ongoing occupation of Scarborough Shoal, the Philippines risks losing 38 percent of its exclusive economic zone to China, forcing Manila to rely fully on an outside power (such as the United States) or an international tribunal to counter Chinese aggression. Although China may pursue a strategy of gradually containing Philippine influence in the South China Sea and strengthening its own presence in the waters, Beijing’s recent eagerness to take on Manila stems primarily from the Philippines’ insufficient naval and coast guard capability, as well as the current lack of attention given to the issue by the United States – Manila’s main military ally. Future incidents like the May 9 shooting could provide additional opportunities for Beijing to assert its presence in the contested waters.

While Beijing may seize the opportunity in the latest tensions to shape its political sphere and bolster its alignment with Taipei, it may not prove accommodating to Taiwanese interests. Taiwan’s relatively weak position in the maritime issues has forced its claims to be marginal, yet pragmatic.The country can seek to secure its interest either with its limited navy or by exploiting the rivalries among other claimant countries’ space. Nonetheless, Beijing’s escalated rhetoric and gestures could further squeeze Taipei, even though Beijing has been careful to avoid pushing Taiwan further away.

Ultimately, since China is Taiwan’s top security threat, Taipei may enjoy Beijing’s maritime protection to varying degrees while still pursuing an independent course in territorial issues. The fisheries pact with Japan in 2012 clearly demonstrated Taiwan’s willingness to ignore Beijing’s interests in pursuit of Taiwanese claims. In a similar manner, Taiwan may seek to avoid locking itself in an antagonistic relationship with Manila that would benefit China.

H/T to MT for forwarding this on to me.

Key points to note:

• Beijing has identified the Philippines as the ‘weakest link’ in the South and East China Seas nations that it wishes to establish maritime hegemony over.  Accordingly, the Scarborough Shoal occupation marks their first experiment in gauging the reactions of the Philippines and the US.  This will then inform their calculations for enforcing claims to other regions either within or outside the spurious nine dotted line.
• President Ma’s One China policy is effectively acting as a facilitating mechanism for Beijing’s maritime adventurism - since tensions with Taiwan are muted, those tensions are now displaced to other maritime nations in the region.  Ma’s obsession with the Senkaku Islands enables Chinese intervention and confrontation with Japan.
• Chinese maritime strategy of expansion follows a similar pattern. It uses fishing rights conflicts as a pretext to declare an area as sovereign Chinese waters and then send 'Maritime Surveillance’ vessels to occupy an area.   Only Japan and Vietnam have thus far made any real efforts to resist this strategy.  The weak state of the Philippines navy and coast guard made it an obvious first target for testing the effective limits of the strategy.
• President Ma’s insistance that the ROC sovereign territory includes Taiwan and all of the PRC and the Spratley islands in the south as well as the Senkaku Islands is seen by Beijing as a tacit acknowledgement of Taiwan’s willingness to act as a partner, or at least not an obstacle to, Beijing’s maritime strategy.  Furthermore, it is an implicit acknowledgement that Taiwan must at some point be subsumed into the PRC since Ma regards Taiwan as only a region, and not an equivalent, of the ROC. Ma’s 'One China with Two interpretations’ policy signals clearly that Taiwanese independence, outside and as a part of the ROC, is already stamped with an expiration date.   For Ma, the remaining question is how to facilitate the transition from de facto ROC independence into de facto ROC SAR status within the PRC.