In the past four years, President Xi Jinping and President Obama have held long and intensive meetings, on many occasions focusing on building the new model of major-country relations between China and the U.S. and on how to overcome resistance and cultivate mutually beneficial cooperation. Although the U.S. remains apprehensive about China's initiatives, the two sides are not far apart in their belief that China and the U.S. should not move to confrontation or conflict and that they should pursue win-win cooperation.
As the U.S. presidential election is approaching, China-U.S. relations will move into a new political cycle. Consequently, the top-level strategic dialogue is all the more important and it is hoped that the China-U.S. presidential meeting in Hangzhou will offer guidance to ensure the two countries can better manage their differences, thus paving the way for the next stage of their fruitful crucial bilateral relationship.
China and the U.S. Need to Manage Differences over the South China Sea
Relations between China and the U.S. in the run up to the Presidential meeting in Hangzhou have hit some rough patch caused by the South China Sea arbitration. The question is, what exactly are the two nations competing over in the area? And more importantly, can they find a mutually acceptable way to move forward? How the two countries perceive and handle these issues will define the future of the evolving situation in the South China Sea.
The U.S. claims that its interest in the South China Sea is to ensure freedom of navigation. Indeed, critical shipping lanes run through the area, and keeping them open is important to all countries. China, a major global trading power, attaches no less importance to freedom of navigation than the U.S. does, perhaps even more.
Obviously, however, that's not all the U.S. is concerned about. Its worry is mainly about preserving freedom of navigation for naval warships and other non-commercial vessels. Here, admittedly, there's a gap between how China and the U.S. each interpret the relevant provisions in the the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), as well as corresponding customary rules of international law.
In particular, the two sides have significant differing views on the kind of military activities allowed within another country's 200-mile exclusive economic zone, or EEZ. China, as a developing country, highly values its national sovereignty and security. It holds that under UNCLOS, the principle of freedom of navigation shouldn't be used to undermine the security of coastal countries, and that military activities in a country's EEZ should be under certain constraints. On the other hand, the U.S., as global maritime power, has traditionally believed that its military is entitled to absolute freedom of navigation in other countries' EEZs, including oceanographic surveying, surveillance and military exercises.
Now, just as there's no dispute over allowing freedom of navigation for commercial ships in the South China Sea, there's no reason why the two sides couldn't also wisely manage their differences over the rules for naval vessels. What the U.S. really wants, though, goes beyond its expressed concerns.
In fact, the U.S. views frictions with China from a geo-strategic perspective, seeing the South China Sea dispute as a test of which power will predominate in the Asia Pacific. Ever since U.S. leaders started talking about a "pivot" or "rebalance" to Asia, they've worked under the assumption that a stronger China will inevitably pursue expansionism--and thus needs to be countered by the U.S. and its allies.
Against this background, any move by China naturally looks like an attempt to weaken U.S. strategic primacy in the region. And at the same time, American rhetoric and activities clearly targeted at China are bound to trigger a strong Chinese reaction. Given such a "security dilemma," the risk of escalated China-U.S. confrontation or even conflict is becoming increasingly serious and the international community are more worried about the possible geo-competition between the two countries, which also calls China to pay attention to and avoid.
The recent Arbitration ruling in the case brought by the Philippines against China has aroused strong rhetorical reaction in China, which is not opposed to the UNCLOS, or even to arbitration as a means of dispute settlement, but simply to the way this particular tribunal was constituted and chose to rule, which has been perceived as an abuse of power. Hopefully, given the fierce debate over the tribunal's verdict, people in the region will again see the wisdom of dealing with such issues through friendly dialogue rather than confrontational means.
