Asia's maritime order and New Zealand's response: Robert Ayson comments on the South China Sea, Asia's regional security and New Zealand foreign policy.

• Author: Ayson, Robert

As the powers jostle in a more competitive Asia-Pacific region, it may seem counter-intuitive to call for a clearer New Zealand position on the South China Sea disputes. But even as regional tensions grow, Wellington can stick up for its principles without joining a chorus of China criticism. Under the Key government, New Zealand's alignment with the United States is becoming more pronounced through a series of small but cumulatively important steps. This makes it even more important for New Zealand's policy to be staked out clearly, including in written form accessible to the public discussion.

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On the eve of this year's Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, 1 argued in a newspaper opinion piece that New Zealand needed to express some concern about worrying developments that have been occurring in the South China Sea. (1) The immediate backdrop for my argument was the tense standoff between China and Vietnam. Vessels were being rammed, water-cannons were being used, and some destructive demonstrations had ensued in Vietnam. These events were associated with the movement of a Chinese drilling rig into a disputed area not far from the venue of a minor conflict between the two countries over 25 years ago. Maritime territorial tensions have also been apparent for many years between China and the Philippines, another South China Sea claimant, but unlike Vietnam a formal ally of the United States. The China--Philippines standoff in 2012 over the Scarborough Shoal, and Chinas subsequent restriction on access to this feature, strikes many regional observers as a reflection of a considerably more active approach by Beijing in recent years. China seems ready to do more to enforce the claims that it has for some time held towards the vast majority of the South China Sea.

The reasons for this more active approach by China are a matter of some debate. Of course Beijing has also been asserting its claim to what it calls the Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea. Japan calls the same features the Senkaku Islands, and steadfastly denies that a dispute actually exists. In this particular case, there are some very specific China--Japan animosities and rival nationalisms at work. But even here, given that China and Japan were able to enjoy more amicable relations during parts of the Cold War period, we have to wonder why things have been recently coming to a head. Perhaps even more intriguing is quite why things have become so tense in the South China Sea, where China is competing in its claims with a series of smaller South-east Asian powers, and not with its main rival for North Asian leadership. China has tended to argue in each case that it has been provoked into action, and that it, therefore, did not initiate these difficulties. But there is at least some reason to think that Beijing's policy is linked to the consolidation of power by Xi Jinping, and is part of a more confident assertion of China's growing power. (2)

The discussion of the rights and wrongs of this situation, let alone the attribution of responsibility or blame, is potentially never-ending. Those who suggest that the South China Sea disputes can be resolved have a very challenging case to make. But what is clear is that some of the actions that are occurring in the South China Sea disputes, and particularly those between China and Vietnam, and between China and the Philippines, are challenging some of the principles of international conduct that are in New Zealand's interest to help promote and protect. These principles include the peaceful settlement of disputes, the importance of international law as a common reference point for approaching territorial disputes and the freedom of navigation.

Care needed

My purpose in arguing that New Zealand needed to say something about what was going on in the South China Sea was not to suggest that New Zealand should take sides or align itself with a particular group of countries. Great care is needed in what one says about the South China Sea developments. On the East China Sea tensions involving China and Japan, even greater care is needed. The newly elected Abbott government was rather too keen and too quick to push Australia into a chorus of criticism with Japan and the United States, its trilateral strategic dialogue partners, after China abruptly announced an Air Defence Information Zone in the East China Sea last year. In some of the language they have been using, Australian leaders have been coming too close to buying into Japanese formulae that are part of their security partners very bitter relationship with China. At that time New Zealand's response was quite different. It was one of studied silence, at least in public, and there was something to be said for this cautious stance. (3)

But I do not think that this approach can always work. And in the first half of this year it became increasingly clear that a New Zealand statement of concern about at least some of Asia's maritime developments was needed. Two things made this necessary: first the level of regional concern about mounting tensions between maritime territorial claimants in the South China Sea, and second the pressure being placed on the system of norms that is in New Zealand's interests to protect. New Zealand's interests in making its views known were clear, even if one was to define our foreign policy principles in purely commercial terms. At risk are some of the principles upon which the sanctity of international agreements, the stability of property and the free flow of commerce (including by sea and air) depend. So even for a...