The US Navy announced on Tuesday that Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group had entered the South China Sea for “routine operations” amid a confrontation between the Chinese maritime militia and the Philippines. China’s challenge comes as Russia has grown closer to Ukraine. The Biden administration could receive an early test if its model of liberal multilateralism can discourage revisionist powers pushing US interests.
The Philippines began sounding the alarm last month about Chinese militia boats, at one point totaling 220, occupying the Whitsun Reef west of the archipelago. The naval equivalent of Russia’s “little green men,” China’s military-affiliated fleets, can be disguised as fishing fleets to give Beijing a plausible denial as it takes root in disputed waters.
An analysis by two researchers at US Naval War College last week found “no evidence of fishing in any way during these laser-focused operations, but every clue to the troll for land claims.”
For more than a decade, China has been moving aggressively to establish a dominant position in the waters surrounding the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan, building military installations and harassing merchant ships of other nations. In 2016, an international court ruled that China was breaking the law in the South China Sea. The Trump administration last summer sanctioned companies involved in building illegal islands there.
China seemed to be slowing down its military accumulation on the islands, but now it can resume. He seems determined to dominate the waterways in Southeast Asia, which, among other things, would put him in a stronger position to invade Taiwan. Slowing down or reversing the process will require coordination with the “Quad” – Japan, Australia and India – as well as with the countries of Southeast Asia whose sovereignty is directly violated by incursions. Vietnam was among the most vocal nations in Southeast Asia in denouncing China’s maritime adventurism.