Carbon Copy or Specific Strategy?
How Can The Relationship Between The PRC’s Approach
To The Indian Ocean And The South China Sea Be
Explained?
Master Thesis in Political Science
Track: International Relations
By: Alexander Viehmeier Student Number: 12306711
Supervisor: dr. J.Y. (Julian) Gruin 2nd Reader: dr. Julia Bader
“Instead of breaking up China’s maritime ambitions into different regional
seas, it is more appropriate to group them together in a grand, overarching
strategy”
Abstract
While the PRC’s increasingly assertive behaviour with especially its artificial island-building in the South China Sea has been the topic of a great number of academic studies, the Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region has been investigated to a significantly lesser extent. Although the PRC might not be engaging in such land reclamation activities in the Indian Ocean Region, a closer look on that maritime sphere might suggest, that there could be striking similarities in the way the PRC behaves in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean Region. This thesis tries to connect the two maritime areas and advances the argument that the relationship between both maritime spheres can be explained as a transfer of policy, courtesy of the PRC, which will be examined and illuminated on three different cases in the Indian Ocean by the use of the methodology of the Foreign Policy Analysis. This thesis comes to the result, that the PRC transfers its maritime policy of the South China Sea onto the Indian Ocean along the lines of the ‘emulation’ model in two out of the three cases.
List of Abbreviations
AMTI Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative
BRI Belt and Road Initiative
CMC Central Military Commission
CMPort China Merchant Port Holdings Company Limited COPHC China Overseas Ports Holding Company Limited CPEC China Pakistan Economic Corridor
DWT Deadweight Tonnage
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
FAWLSG Foreign Affairs Work Leading Small Group FONOP Freedom of Navigation Operation
FPA Foreign Policy Analysis
GPA Gwadar Port Authority
LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
MFAPRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China MNDPRC Ministry of National Defence of the People’s Republic of China NSC National Security Commission
PBSC Politburo Standing Committee
PLA People’s Liberation Army
PLAAF People’s Liberation Army Air Force
PLAN People’s Liberation Army Navy
PRC People’s Republic of China
SCIOPRC The State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic
of China
SLOCs Sea Lines of Communication
SLPA Sri Lanka Port Authority
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
p. 1
2. Literature Review
p. 5
3. Theory: Policy Transfer
p. 8
4. Methodology
p. 14
a. Foreign Policy Analysis
p. 14
b. Case Selection
p. 18
c. Data Collection: Triangulation Method
p. 20
5. South China Sea
p. 21
6. Analysis: Indian Ocean Region
p. 27
a. Military Support Base in Djibouti City (DJ)
p. 28
b. Dual-Use Port in Gwardar (PK)
p. 34
c. Commercial Port in Hambantota (LK)
p. 40
7. Conclusion
p. 47
8. References
p. 51
9. Appendix
p. 65
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1. Introduction
Imagine a shallow and uninhabitable reef somewhere in the middle of the vastness of the South China Sea. Barely – if at all – above sea level at tide, not able to support human life and remote from the next island of the group, let alone any other land. Yet, this reef is claimed by a number of different parties. In 2013, a dredging ship is anchored next to this reef for weeks without doing anything but floating in the waves of the South China Sea. One day in late summer, however, the vessel of the largest claimant starts massing up sand onto the reef at a record speed in order to create a new mass that is capable of supporting military facilities and actions. Only a few years later, the plan has become reality and fighter jets are able to start and land on an artificially constructed runway on a man-made island in between the swells of the South China Sea.
What could be the opening premise of a movie, however, is exactly what happened in reality on different reefs of the Spratly and Paracel Island groups in the South China Sea. According to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (hereafter AMTI) the People’s Republic of China (hereafter PRC) has engaged in unprecedented artificial island-building practices on such reefs and, since 2013, created more than 3,200 acres of new land mass which is able to house military and support operations of the People’s Liberations Army Navy (hereafter PLAN) and the People’s Liberations Army Air Force (hereafter PLAAF) (AMTI 2019). The land reclamation on the reefs reportedly began in late 2013, and by 2018 they have been transformed into military outposts that include air strips suitable for military-style planes, hangars and radar and communication facilities (Specia & Takkunen 2018). As of today, the PRC now has 20 outposts in the Paracel Islands and seven outposts in the Spratly Islands, and has conducted artificial island-building on all seven of its features in the Spratly Island group (AMTI 2019). While this has not been the first land reclamation operation in the South China Sea, neither by the PRC nor by any other adjacent state – as the PRC started to fortify Mischief Reef in the Spratly Island group in 1995, for example (Cole 2010: xviii) – the new island-building practices set new records in terms of pace and extent (Paul 2016: 5). After a relatively calm period at the beginning of the twenty-first century, this has led to a higher frequency of confrontations between Beijing and other neighbouring claimants, starting in 2009. These confrontations encompass a wide range of activities in order to defend or solidify the respective claims (Ba 2011: 269-270). Recent reports reveal that in November of 2018 the PRC started building new structures on Bombay Reef of the Paracel Island Group, which is said to be positioned in a “strategic location” as the reef is located right next to the “major shipping lanes that run between
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the Paracel [Islands] and the Spratly Islands.” This would make the reef a perfect location for Chinese radar facilities that gather intelligence. However, at the point of reporting it was not clear yet, what purpose the new structures on Bombay Reef were supposed to serve (Blanchard & Liangping 2018).
While the Chinese land reclamation activities and the competing territorial claims of the South China Sea adjacent states found great attention in public news reports, just as well as in the scholarly world, the increasing Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region is significantly less covered. China is now involved in more than twelve infrastructure projects in cooperation with other countries of the Indian Ocean Region and while the focus is on the infrastructure side of things, there is a decidedly militaristic connotation to some of them (Bedford 2009: 38). Included in those projects are planned and partially-built dual-use port facilities in a coastal area of Pakistan, a commercial port on the southern tip of Sri Lanka and even a military support base in Djibouti (Mourdoukoutas 2018; Brewster 2019). Although Beijing might not be building artificial islands in the Indian Ocean, a closer look on its local maritime strategy therefore might suggest, that there could be striking similarities in the way the PRC behaves in the South China Sea and how it approaches the Indian Ocean. Whereas most of the research done on the PRC’s presence in the Indian Ocean Region focuses on its strategic behaviour and how that could possibly be embedded in the context of the broader theoretical debates about the Chinese rise and Beijing’s new assertive behaviour in international relations, this thesis sets out to examine striking similarities and differences between the approaches of the two different maritime areas of the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean Region on concrete cases. Consequently, the research question of this thesis is ‘What is the nature of the relationship
between the Chinese artificial island-building policy in the South China Sea and their approach to the Indian Ocean Region and how can it be explained?’
To begin with, this research question firmly rests on the inherent assumption that the artificial island-building in the South China Sea is indeed a part of a concise maritime strategy. Likewise, this research question assumes that the PRC has a strategy for the Indian Ocean Region which may or may not be influenced by its actions in the South China Sea.
Although the motivations behind Beijing’s South China Sea strategy and – albeit to a lesser extent – the manifestations of the Indian Ocean approach have been, just as indicated, subject to academic research, it is still striking to many observers that the PRC is engaging in constructing outposts not only in Southeast Asian waters but also in its counterpart situated to the West. Furthermore, it seems as if researchers consistently focus on one maritime area or
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issue only and, by that, do not connect them to any other part of the Chinese foreign policy. In doing so, academic studies seem to neglect the developments indicating how the PRC’s overall foreign policy is becoming increasingly globally encompassing and that, for instance, the land reclamation activities in the South China Sea and the increasing presence in the Indian Ocean Region are a vital part of such a concise strategy. It therefore seems not only worth researching where certain similarities and differences in the PRC’s strategy to the Indian Ocean Region and the South China Sea stem from and how they can be explained, but also seems to be desperately needed to connect both maritime areas in order to illustrate a bigger and more coherent picture of the strategic behaviour of the PRC.
This thesis advances the argument that the relationship between both maritime spheres can be explained through the theoretical lens of a policy transfer, and therefore proposes, that the PRC is transferring its maritime strategy from the South China Sea onto the theatre of the Indian Ocean Region. In order to properly answer its research question, this thesis will examine the similarities and differences of the cases in the Indian Ocean and the Chinese artificial island-building in the South China Sea. As will be explained in the theory chapter, the process of transferring a policy can occur in different degrees. This thesis argues that the PRC’s policy transfer from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean occurs on the level of ‘emulation’, which means that the underlying ideas of a strategy are transferred, expecting the different cases to display functional similarities and comparable geopolitical situations and analogous instruments. This suggests that the analysis will uncover similarities in how the respective strategies work, just as well as distinct differences in the mentioned categories between the chosen cases.
By trying to uncover this topic and answering this research question, this thesis makes an attempt at connecting otherwise rather isolated Chinese maritime issues or disputes in order to create a more coherent picture of the PRC’s strategic behaviour in its maritime areas. This, in light of the scholarly research rather focusing on specific strategic instruments or rather isolated maritime conflicts, will provide a much clearer and much bigger picture of Beijing’s naval approach. In turn, this will help academic researches and foreign policy makers all over the world alike, to better understand and subsequently accommodate a more active and increasingly important PRC in the region. Such better understanding seems to be in dire need, considering that both scholars and foreign policy makers still try to make sense of whether the PRC is rising peacefully or not, and what her true intentions are. The answer to the research question ultimately will contribute to research of how countries transfer policies from one field of its
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foreign policy to another, where they take their inspiration from and possible obstacles of transferring strategic policies to a different maritime area.
This thesis is structured as follows. It will first bring forward a brief literature review displaying the state of the art of the research on Chinese foreign policy and strategic behaviour in its different foreign and maritime policy theatres. This will be followed by a theoretical chapter that illuminates the theory of policy transfer in order to explain how the process of transferring a policy from one place to another is going to look like and why states would engage in such a process. The fourth chapter of this study will tackle all the methodological questions of this thesis, starting with the research design of a Foreign Policy Analysis according to the works of Graham Allison and the scholars who enhanced his studies. Afterwards the chapter will explain the case selection of this study, according to the diverse-case model. To end that chapter the data collection, the obstacles faced when doing so and helping concepts such as a triangulation method will be displayed and clarified. Chapter five will subsequently show the PRC’s approach to the South China Sea and therefore dive deeper into the legal and diplomatic situation of the competing claims and into the artificial island-building practices on the reefs that (not only) the PRC engages in. Furthermore, different other strategic instruments of Beijing’s arsenal will be illustrated briefly. Chapter six then concentrates on the PRC’s strategic approach to the Indian Ocean region, and especially the three cases of its military base in Djibouti, the planned and already partially built dual-use facilities in Gwadar on Pakistan and the commercial port in Hambantota on the southern tip of the island of Sri Lanka. The last chapter of this thesis will be the conclusion and will display the results of this study based on the different hypotheses of this thesis. Examining the corresponding areas of interest for the respective hypotheses in turn should lead to a well-informed picture in order to find an answer for the research question of this body of work.
Based on examining the hypotheses of this thesis, it comes to the result that a policy transfer along the lines of ‘emulation’ is plausible for the cases of the Chinese military support base in Djibouti just as well as for the multi-purpose port facilities in Gwadar. The commercial port in Hambantota, however, does not fit a single type of policy transfer and the findings indicate that, while the port in Gwadar unquestionably contributes to that, the Hambantota project is first and foremost a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (hereafter BRI)-led Chinese economic foreign policy with only few similar characteristics to the artificial islands in the South China Sea.
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2. Literature Review
Just as indicated, a great number of researchers has already contributed to the state of the art considering Chinese foreign policy, their strategy in territorial conflicts or its behaviour in the South China Sea. However, almost no academic research tries to connect the two different maritime spaces of the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea and no research connects those policy areas with the concept of a policy transfer, resulting in a significant gap in research. If filled, it would give a significantly better understanding of the PRC’s maritime policy as a whole, instead of seeing different maritime areas as places for isolated maritime policies.
In terms of the Chinese foreign policy, some researches focus on the instruments that Beijing uses to conduct interaction between states. A number of scholars argues that the PRC uses coercive elements in its the foreign policy, whether that is the use of geo-economics1 (Allison
2017: 20), the coercive use of its economic might in terms of economic sanctions or exploiting asymmetrical economic relations with smaller states (Ravindran 2012: 106) or coercive diplomacy by means of threats against other countries in order to move them to reconsider a position (Wiegand 2009: 171). Otherwise, the PRC has also yielded the policy instrument of issue linkage to resolve an entirely different problem by linking it to the original foreign policy issue (ibid.).
Regarding the land reclamation activities, academics avidly debate the reasoning behind that strategy. Some argue that it stems from trying to ease negative feelings about the century of humiliation (Bräuner 2014: 443). Different scholars, however, contend that it rather is a way of alleviating pressures created by the so-called Malacca Dilemma, as a sharp decrease in its oil imports due to a block or a natural disaster in the Malacca Strait would endanger the economic and geopolitical security of the PRC. Chinese leaders are, therefore, said to believe that the sea lanes of communications (hereafter SLOCs) can be regulated by “controlling the continental shelf and archipelagos” (Blazevic 2012: 87), as that would substantially extent the operating distance of its coast guard and military (Paul 2016: 15). However, this is contested by academics who maintain that Beijing is rather trying to diversify sources and travel routes for their oil imports, whether that is by a pipeline through Myanmar or via a land connection through Pakistan. Moreover, these researchers bring forward, that the PRC additionally is rather developing its own petroleum reserves, developing plans for less reliance on oil and strengthening of its naval capabilities in order to relieve the tensions cause by the Malacca
1 Which is defined as the use of i.e. economic instruments such as trade, investment policy and/or foreign aid policy in order to attain geopolitical goals (Allison 2017: 20)
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Dilemma than to use the land reclamation activities for such a purpose (Zhang 2011: 7614; Chen 2010: 13). Strikingly, similar motivations and reasonings – especially regarding the SLOCs – have been brought forward for the increased Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region.
A different line of research is concerned with the PRC’s behaviour and track record in its territorial conflicts, as the dispute around the South China Sea maritime features is sometimes considered as such. In his seminal studies, Taylor Fravel tries to explain why Beijing shows restraint in some of its territorial conflicts and does not in others. Based on a list of all its territorial conflicts, he argues, the PRC compromised in 17 out of 23 disputes and did so because it wanted to stabilise the power of its government in internal issues (Fravel 2005: 52). Fravel contends that if the PRC decides to use force in a conflict, it is because its own bargaining power in a conflict is decreasing, which creates preventive motivations to use force (Fravel 2007/08: 48). However, Fravel additionally details alternative and contesting explanations for the PRC’s use of force in conflicts, such as a favourable situation in bargaining power or domestic political incentives (idem: 78-80) highlighting a possible behaviour in the Indian Ocean Region, should it come to a conflict.
In terms of the South China Sea, much has been written about the newly found assertiveness of the PRC. Scholars agree on the fact that the PRC has become more assertive in defending its claims and status in the South China Sea. However, the exact starting point differs according to various researchers. Some argue that the new assertiveness started in 2009 (e.g. Saich 2015: 313; Paul 2016: 9), others maintain that it started in 2011 (Thayer 2011: 78) while a third line of researches contend that first assertive actions could be observed as soon as 2009, but what came to be known as the ‘new assertiveness’ started in 2012 (Sutter 2013: 170; Zhou 2016: 889). This increasingly aggressive behaviour of the PRC manifested itself through challenging claims by other states by targeting their commercial operations of oil explorations, deploying maritime vessels, and finally creating new structures on reefs in the South China Sea (Thayer 2011: 78; Sutter 2013: 170). Zhou argues that this behaviour is sparked by the “national grand strategic goal of rejuvenating the Chinese nation” (Zhou 2016: 869), whereas other scholars contest that and argue that the PRC “is now moving inexorably in the direction of imperial expansion, conditioned by realpolitik concerns” (Morton 2016: 910). This has led some observers to contend that the South China Sea has become the prime theatre for the growing rivalry between the United States and the PRC (Buszynski 2012: 139-140).
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Concerning the amount of overlapping territorial claims by the adjacent states of the South China Sea, an often-mentioned argument is that the “exceptional importance of the sea lines of communication and a reservoir of resources has made the South China Sea […] the object of overlapping regional territorial claims by China and Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam” (Paul 2016: 8). Academics moreover see eye to eye in that the uncertain bases of the claims create problematic situations (Busyznski & Sazlan 2007: 143; Ba 2011: 271) A number of claimants have to deal with legally weak claims, as their origins are rather unclear. Scholars point out that while the claim of Vietnam is unclear due to an uncertain French claim as their previous colonial power, Beijing’s claim remains vague as it is based on historical documents dating back to the Republican era (Hayton 2014: 95; Morton 2016: 919; Buszynski 2012: 140). However, they further argue that the PRC prefers the legal ambiguity, because it serves as a convenient means to gather nationalistic support and to avoid solving up a situation that may necessitate them to back away from claims, which would be “impossible for any Chinese leader” (Morton 2016: 920; Saich 2015: 322). Additionally, the uncertainty makes it harder for other states to repudiate the Chinese claims (Paul 2016: 10). Therefore, Katherine Morton argues that in order to create a legitimate maritime order a number of things have to change, first and foremost the basis of the PRC’s claims, as it is the main claimant and has its assertion footed on historical records only (Morton 2016: 917).
While – as shown here - many different parts of the Beijing’s maritime strategy and approach to the South China Sea have found quite prolonged success in the academic literature, the same cannot be said about its counterpart to the West, the Indian Ocean Region. Much less attention has been paid to the fact that the PRC is increasingly active in the Indian Ocean, whether that is by a naval base, commercial ports in different countries or special economic corridors in the region. A closer look on the Indian Ocean strategy of the PRC might suggest that there could be similarities in the way it behaves in the South China Sea and how it approaches the Indian Ocean.
Previous academic studies on Beijing’s maritime strategy in the Indian Ocean largely debate why an increased Chinese presence in these waters has come to be. In those studies, the researchers often-times argue that realistically feasible missions for the PRC encompass increasing the security of the SLOCs, the safety of nationals and assets in the region and improved peacekeeping operations (Brewster 2019). Others go further and argue that the increased presence has its cause in trying to encircle India “by turning trade outposts into military outposts” (Mourdoukoutas 2018). While some academics vehemently contested such
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an idea (Yung 2015, Dixon 2014: 391) it also has found proponents, that termed the Chinese Indian Ocean strategy a ‘String of Pearls.’ With that moniker, they describe a model in which they see the PRC acquiring outpost – or pearls – in the form of military bases or dual-use ports on a proverbial string stretching all the way from the South China Sea towards the Gulf of Aden, therefore making faint attempts of connecting the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean. The focus of these studies, however, almost exclusively remains on the latter maritime area (Yung 2015; Holmes 2014; Bedford 2009: 37). Similarly, scholars argue that the PRC is going to use these pearls in order to alleviate a “serious national security dilemma” in terms of its energy security policy (Bedford 2009: 37). Yet, while the pearls are first and foremost motivated by infrastructure, a certain military connotation cannot be denied (idem: 38) and the dual-use character of the facilities enables the PRC to possibly convert them into military bases in the future (Dixon 2014: 392). However, not only the idea of using trade outposts to eventually built military bases in order to project power in the Indian Ocean, but also the model of the ‘String of Pearls’ has found its critics. Yung argues that the model runs counter to the PLAN planning strategy, as it would prefer not to position assets in the vicinity of India (Yung 2015). Furthermore, Dixon maintains that using such infrastructure projects as military bases seems highly unlikely as they are situated in either politically unstable regions or strategically useless areas. He moreover contends that the ports should not be seen as military installations, but rather and more accurately as “pockets of Chinese influence within the regions” (Dixon 2014: 395).
Consequently, while the motivations of the newly increased Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region have been examined to some extent, certain striking similarities and differences between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea have not found as much success in the academic literature. Thus, this manifests a gap in the existing research that seems to stand as a symptom for the greater trend of not connecting two different areas of foreign policy. Therefore, a study aiming to examine just that seems to be long overdue.
3. Theory: Policy Transfer
The term ‘Policy Transfer’ over time found itself as the moniker describing a number of different, but inherently related concepts. While the names of the subfields may change and their respective focus may vary, “all of these studies are concerned with the process by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements,
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institutions and ideas in another political system” (Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 5). These different political systems can stretch from the present to the past (Benson & Jordan 2011: 366). While the majority of studies maintains that policy transfer is taking place between two different systems, the transferring of policy just as well may take place in the same system across a different period of time (Evans & Davies 1999: 361; Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 12). Richard Rose even goes as far as saying that “within a nation copying is often possible, using practices elsewhere literally as a blueprint” (Rose 1991: 21).
The act of transferring policies from somewhere else is not a novel invention. “As early as 315BC, Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics advised his fellow citizens of the rationality of engaging in lesson-drawing from positive and negative experiences in the development of great city states” (Evans 2009a: 237). The concept in research, however, has its roots in the comparative policy analysis in the United States (Benson & Jordan 2011: 366).
The analytical framework of the seminal study of Dolowitz and Marsh is organized around six different questions: “Why do actors engage in policy transfer? Who are the key actors involved in the policy transfer process? What is transferred? From where are lessons drawn? What are the different degrees of transfer? What restricts or facilitates the policy transfer process? [and] How is the process of policy transfer related to policy ‘success’ or policy ‘failure’?” (Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 8). Outlining a heuristic framework meant to be developed and improved by everyone who works with it (Dolowitz & Marsh 2012: 339), both scholars identify six key categories with these questions: (1) reasons for transferring policy, (2) involved actors, (3) the transferred content, (4) origins of such, (5) possible obstacles in the process and, ultimately, (6) the outcome of the transfer.
As for the (1) reasons why an actor of some sort would engage in transferring a policy, academics bring forward that this is done either to innovate and improve their own context (Benson & Jordan 2011: 371) or because they are faced with a problem or a policy issue that requires a specific policy as an answer, which has been used elsewhere previously (Dolowitz & Marsh 2012: 340; Rose 1991: 4). Another reason might be that an actor is faced with an entirely new policy area and therefore wants to transfer a previous policy from another area onto the new place. For the two different policy theatres of the Indian Ocean Region and the South China Sea that would mean that if there are similarities in the geopolitical situation, a transfer of its maritime policy is more likely. Accordingly, this thesis suggests, that similarities between the two geopolitical scenarios exist:
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H1: Similarities between the geopolitical situations of the Indian Ocean and the South
China Sea exist.
Dolowitz and Marsh furthermore distinguish between a voluntary and a coercive policy transfer (2000: 8). While the previously mentioned reasons are forms of voluntary policy transfer, it might as well be the case that an actor is pushing or even compelling another actor to adopt – or transfer – a particular policy against its own will (Evans & Davies 1999: 380; Evans 2009a: 245). In such cases the reason for the policy transfer is that an actor is forced to do so. For the specific case of the PRC that would mean that if there cannot be identified any exogenous pressure, a voluntary policy transfer can be expected. This thesis therefore suggests that there is a lack of exogenous pressure for the PRC:
H2: By the virtue of a lacking exogeneous pressure, the PRC’s policy transfer was
voluntary.
In the field of policy transfer research, a number of (2) actors have been mentioned that could be involved in the process of transferring a policy in a different role, whether that is as an example of a policy, an active part in transferring a policy or an advising role for such a process. These actors include jurisdictions on all spatial levels, international organisations, supranational governmental institutions, transnational corporations, cities, think tanks, policy-makers, elected officials, policy entrepreneurs, experts and consultants (Rose 1991: 4; Evans & Davies 1999: 368; Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 10; Benson & Jordan 2011: 371; Dolowitz & Marsh 2012: 340). For the case of the possible policy transfer from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean region the transferring actors will remain the same, as the foreign policy is drafted by the highest offices of the Chinese government, both for the Indian Ocean Region and for the South China Sea.
In their seminal article Dolowitz and Marsh acknowledge that basically every type of (3) content can be transferred, however, they identify eight different categories of transferable content. These are “policy goals, policy content, policy instruments, policy programs, institutions, ideologies, ideas and attitudes and negative lessons” (Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 12). Additionally, policy structures, policy style and administrative techniques can be transferred (Evans & Davies 1999: 379). Thus, the theory suggests that a higher degree of similarities in terms of the instruments used indicates a policy transfer. Again, for the specific case of the PRC transferring its maritime policy from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, this thesis suggests that similar instruments are being used in both maritime theatres:
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H3: Similar instruments are used for the two policy theatres of the Indian Ocean and the
South China Sea.
Likewise, for the case of the PRC and its two maritime policy areas, it can be expected that functional similarities of maritime features occur in both regions:
H4: The maritime features in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean show functional
similarities.
However, “policy transfer is not an all-or-nothing process” (Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 13). Therefore, different degrees of transfer can be identified which commonly are labelled as
copying, which describes a complete transfer; emulation, which describes a transfer of the
underlying ideas of a policy; combinations or hybridization, which describes a mixture of several different policies; and inspiration, where another policy elsewhere inspires a policy change without actually drawing on the original (Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 13; Evans 2009b: 245-246). Additionally, the transfer degree called synthesis can be found, which describes a combination of familiar elements from three or more places (Rose 1991: 22). For the case of the PRC that leads us to expect, that the greater the degree of the similarity between both maritime policies is, the likelier it is, that one of those policies has been copied. Likewise, it can be expected that the smaller the similarities are, the likelier ‘inspiration’ was taking place. If there are no similarities at all, it is likely that no policy transfer happened at all.
The (4) origins of the transferable policy is just as manifold as the number of actors itself. Generally, they are categorised into two groups: endogenous sources and exogenous sources. While the former implies that a policy can be transferred from within their own (e.g. domestic) context, the latter one describes sources of policies that are, for example, from foreign political systems or jurisdictions (Benson & Jordan 2011: 371; Marsh & Sharman 2009: 271). As all the previously mentioned actors can play different roles in the process of policy transfer, such as the entity transferring the policy or the entity advising such a process, all of them can just as well constitute an exogenous source for the process of a policy transfer. Therefore, entities involved into these processes can be categorised as borrowers and lenders of policy (Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 10). All these actors can be situated across five levels of spatiality, whether that is transnationally, internationally, nationally, regionally or locally (Evans & Davies 1999: 368). As this thesis argues that the Chinese maritime policy in the Indian Ocean Region was transferred from the South China Sea to some sort of extent, there won’t be any hypotheses on that, since the argument assumes that the borrower in that case is the PRC’s South China Sea strategy.
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A transfer of policy, however, can be influenced by a number of (5) obstacles such as “path dependen[cies] arising from previous decisions; institutional and structural impediments; a lack of ideological compatibility between transferring countries, and insufficient technological, economic, bureaucratic and political resources on the part of the receiving country” (Benson & Jordan 2011: 372). Even if these characteristics are given, it is not guaranteed that the receiving entity applies the information needed for a policy transfer in a suitable fashion (Dolowitz & Marsh 2012: 340). For the case of this thesis, we can assume that the obstacles are relatively minor. Since the policies are transferred from the own country, questions of ideological compatibility or insufficient resources of different sorts should not be of any problem and therefore can be disregarded.
Lastly, even when the process of the policy transfer is completed, a positive (6) outcome cannot be guaranteed either. While the respective actors transfer the policy with the underlying assumption that the policy has been successful for one actor, therefore it will be successful for another, transferring a policy is a contested political process and therefore it is not sure that the lessons drawn from other places are both desirable and practical (Rose 1991: 6; Dolowitz & Marsh 2000: 17) The process of the policy transfer itself, it is argued, takes place through policy networks, that enable all the parties to exchange information about the respective systems (Evans & Davies 1999: 375). In terms of any success of a transfer of policy in the given case, one has to have in mind that, as the theory established, the judgement whether a transfer has been successful comes from the transferring body itself, as only that can perfectly evaluate the success of a policy against the backdrop of its envisioned strategic goals. Furthermore, this thesis assumes that, by the virtue of transferring a policy, the transferring actor assumes that the original policy has been successful. Observing certain similarities in the area that the policy in question has been transferred to, would seem to suggest a successful policy from the start.
A theory such as policy transfer, however, does not stay without its critics. The theory has been criticised for not distinguishing itself enough from other forms of policy-making, not explaining why it occurs rather than some other forms of policy making and what its particular effects are (James & Lodge 2003: 180). Proponents counter, however, that the framework of Dolowitz and Marsh was designed to incorporate “a vast domain of policy-making activities by classifying all possible occurrences of transfer, voluntary and coercive, temporal and spatial” (Evans 2009b: 254). Furthermore, proponents of the theory are not overly concerned with “classificatory schemes” as the main point rather is that “these literatures share an overlapping conceptual core and a complementary interest in a related class of empirical phenomena”
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(Marsh & Sharman 2009: 271). They additionally contend that while the concept is “undoubtably related to other concepts such as policy diffusion, lesson drawing and policy innovation, it is fair to say that policy transfer now represents a distinct research focus in its own right” (Benson & Jordan 2011: 367). Constructivist criticism of the policy transfer theory points out that the concept downplays the “fundamentally social – practical, interpersonal, institutionally embedded, yet fluid and processual – character of policy making”, to which advocates of policy transfer theory answer that constructivists, in turn, “tend to downplay the importance of structures and institutions and privilege the role of agencies and ideas/narratives” (Dolowitz & Marsh 2012: 343). Additionally, policy transfer theory is criticised for not providing a rigorous evaluation for when a policy transfer has occurred or not and that the theory ultimately is not relevant for “the world of practice” (Evans 2009a: 238). Proponents of the theory, however, postulate that “the proof of policy transfer lies in its implementation” (Evans 2009b: 246).
As has become apparent by now, multiple related, yet different, concepts have been subsumed under the overarching term of policy transfer (Dumoulin & Saurugger 2010: 10). The many different concepts therefore, have been conflated numerous times. For example, policy diffusion and policy transfer often-times are seen as one and the same abstract concept, “however, these terms point to important differences in how change results in a policy interdependent world” (Stone 2012: 484). Whereas policy transfer focuses on a conscious act of importing a policy in some way, diffusion suggests that “policy change occurs by osmosis; something that is contagious rather than chosen” (ibid.). Similarly, decisive differences exist between policy transfer and policy translation. While the former concept does not necessarily need more than one actor, policy translation requires two or more actors “to communicate policy-relevant information, through either one-way or two-way communication patterns” (Park et al. 2014: 400). Nevertheless, what all the different concepts have in common is a relation to the concept of policy learning. Indeed, “some degree of learning is necessary in the movement of a policy from one context into another (idem: 399). The definitions of policy learning are manifold, but elements that feature in most definitions maintain that learning is a change of beliefs or the degree of confidence in one’s beliefs as the result of experience (Levy 1994: 283 & 291; Argote 2011: 440). Therefore, learning models “assume causal relationships between inferences from past events and current beliefs and between beliefs and policy preferences and decisions” (Levy 1994: 306). Philip Tetlock argues that foreign policy beliefs are organised hierarchically, with fundamental assumptions at the top, strategic policy beliefs in the middle and tactical beliefs at the bottom. He contends that fundamental assumptions can
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only be cause by considerable exogenous shocks and, therefore, the most learning is likely to take place at the tactical level at the bottom (idem: 286). Internationally, learning occurs when “new knowledge is used to redefine the content of the national interests” (Nye 1987: 378). However, it is important to remember, “policy learning is not synonymous with policy adoption; decision-makers can learn ‘negative lessons’ where learning from the ideas that are diffused help crystallize what ideas and policy paths they do not wish to follow (Stone 2012: 488).
4. Methodology
The following chapter will discuss the methodological model of the Foreign Policy Analysis according to Graham Allison, the case selection of the (1) the Chinese military support base in Djibouti, (2) the dual-use port facilities in Gwadar, Pakistan and (3) the commercial port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka. Furthermore, the data collection via a triangulation method will be outlined.
a. Foreign Policy Analysis
In order to find an answer for the research question and to shed light on the previously developed hypotheses, this thesis will employ the methodological framework of the Foreign Policy Analysis. This methodology is derived from “universal theories that do not seem to perfectly suit non-hegemonic political societies” (Lopes et al. 2016: 2). It has its origins in the 1950s political science of the United States and from its outset “emphasised the need to disaggregate the state and to look at the dynamics within it to explain foreign policy” (Baumann & Stengel 2014: 491). Its landmark study came roughly two decades later when Graham T. Allison tried to analyse why “the United States chose the naval blockade in Cuba as a means of persuading the Soviet Union to withdraw the missiles it had placed in Cuba” in his seminal book Essence of Decision in 1971, by creating three different models through which he examined and explained the Cuban Missile Crisis from 1962 (Khong 2014: 83; Vanhoonacker & Wangen 2015: 274-275; Lopes et al. 2016: 14).
Today, one can say that Foreign Policy Analysis “is a subfield of International Relations that focuses on foreign policy decision-making and implementation by individuals and collectives of individuals (Brummer & Hudson 2017: 157). It is different to mainstream approaches
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because it proposes the opening of ‘the black box’ of the state to analyse foreign policy making (Potter 2010; Baumann & Stengel 2014: 491). “At its simplest, [Foreign Policy Analysis] seeks to illuminate the factors and processes that led state A to adopt policy B with respect to issue C. […] The holy grail of [Foreign Policy Analysis] is to explain the decision outcome […]” (Khong 2014: 83). Graham Allison himself proposes that “in searching for an explanation, one typically tries to put himself in the place of the nation, or national government, confronting a problem of foreign affairs, and tries to figure out why he might have chosen the action in question” (Allison 1971: 3). Anne-Marie Slaughter additionally proposes to start thinking about “[…] a world of governments, with all the different institutions that perform the basic functions of government – legislation, adjudication, implementation – interacting both with each other domestically and also with their foreign and supranational counterparts. States still exist in this world; indeed, they are crucial actors. But they are ‘disaggregated’” (Slaughter 2004: 5). Therefore, Foreign Policy Analysis will focus on many different aspects such as for example actors and their fundamental beliefs, input from other actors or activities from actors that are not involved in the process itself (Khong 2014: 83). Consequently, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Foreign Policy Analysis draws from many different places. It employs case studies drawing on qualitative content but it also uses experiments, simulations and quantitative content analysis (Baumann & Stengel 2014: 502) Nonetheless, the concept of the case study analysis is the most frequently employed instrument within the methodology (Potter 2010).
In the history of Foreign Policy Analysis, there have been a few key assumptions. Most of the studies employing this methodology assume the state to be the most important actor in the international system, the state to be a rationally acting entity and states to be primarily focused on their security (White 2004: 48). However, as has been indicated by the previous Anne-Marie Slaughter quote, the state-centricity is getting progressively dismantled in more recent studies. Furthermore, studies using the Foreign Policy Analysis methodology assume that the all the elements of its framework – such as actors, processes, issues, instruments, context and outputs – are interrelated and “constitute a foreign policy system in action (idem: 54). Accordingly, there are a number of standard questions that serve as a starting point for an analysis with the Foreign Policy Analysis methodology that inquire about exactly these elements of the framework: (1) Who makes foreign policy? (2) What is the nature of the policy process? (3) What issues constitute the foreign policy agenda? (4) What instruments are deployed by the foreign policy? (5) What is the context within which foreign policy is made? and (6) What are the outputs generated by the policy process? (White 2004: 54). In order to answer these questions and analyse a certain foreign policy, a number of different models have been
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developed. Most notably these are the ‘political process model’, the ‘inter-branch politics model’, the ‘organisational process model’, the ‘bureaucratic politics model’ and the ‘rational actor model’ (Norwich University 2017). The ‘political process model’ proposes a concept that focuses on the creation of a foreign policy as a result of a bargaining process between a large number of different actors across various power centres at the governmental level who are trying to achieve their respective goals. The final foreign policy is the product of such a process. The ‘inter-branch politics model’ on the other hand, focuses on groups and entities and “evaluates actions and their outcomes based on the combined effort and cohesiveness of different groups and their progress toward achieving collective goals” (ibid.). The latter three models have all been created by Graham T. Allison in his seminal study in which he examines the Cuban Missile Crisis through all three of these models (Vanhoonacker & Wangen 2015: 275). The Governmental Politics Model (which is also called Bureaucratic Politics Model or Model III) proposes that “happenings in foreign affairs are understood, […] neither as choices not outputs. Instead what happens is categorized as outcomes of various overlapping bargaining games among players arranged hierarchically in the national government” (Allison 1969: 690; Allison 1971: 173; Vanhoonacker & Wangen 2015: 276). This national government, Allison argues, consists of a number of different players. Groups of such individual players aggregate the agent for the government’s decisions and actions (Allison 1971: 164). The bargaining of key players at the highest level is often times touted as the explanation why states seemingly do not act rationally all the time (Norwich University 2017). Closely linked to the previous model, however, still distinguished (Vanhoonacker & Wangen 2015: 277), the Organisational Process Model (or Model II) understands a government as consisting of different organisations who act along a fixed set of standard operating procedures. The behaviour by those organisations is, thus, determined by existing routines established in that organisation prior to an instance (Allison 1971: 68). Therefore, the behaviour of the government can be understood “less as a deliberate choice of leaders and more as outputs of large organisations functioning according to standard patterns of behaviour” (Allison 1969: 698; Allison 1971: 67).
The PRC’s foreign policy and especially its maritime policy have been described as ‘rational’ and as an employment of ‘realpolitik’ in the past (e.g. Bedford 2009: 37; Morton 2016: 910). Additionally, even though there has been a considerable broadening in the foreign policy process, through the years the foreign policy making of the PRC was remained centralised with the ultimate decision making power at the highest levels of the government (e.g. the PBSC, CMC or FAWLSG or the newly created NSC), currently chaired by the paramount leader Xi Jinping (Barnett 1985: 2; Whiting 1986: 537; Cabestan 2009: 64-65; Zhang 2016: 769).
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Therefore, it makes perfect sense for this body of work to use Graham Allison’s last remaining model of his seminal study: The Rational Actor Model (or Model I).
The Rational Actor Model predominantly builds on the rational actor paradigm (Vanhoonacker & Wangen 2015: 275) and, therefore, tries to understand foreign policy actions as “the more or less purposive acts of unified national governments (Allison 1969: 690). The governments, all with specific goals and a set of specific options, Allison puts forward, will “select the action that will maximise strategic goals and objectives” in order to address a strategic problem “that the nation faces” (Allison 1971: 32-33; Norwich University 2017). Allison specifies, that in order to do so, states will consider their strategic goals and objectives in regard to national interest and national security, identify all the relevant options and weigh their respective consequences in terms of benefits and costs and finally take the choice of the option that is maximising the value in terms of the benefit and cost calculation (idem: 33). The explanatory power of this model originates from its inference pattern which assumes that if a nation performs a particular action, it must have been the decision that furthered its strategic goals the most (ibid.) For the process of the Foreign Policy Analysis itself, Allison postulates, that the analyst has to put him or herself in the place of the nation or government in question when being faced with a “puzzling occurrence.” Afterwards the analyst will examine the given strategic problem, the choices at hand and the final decision. “Evidence about details of behaviour, statements of government officials, and government papers are then marshalled in such a way that a coherent picture of the value-maximising choice (from the view of the nation) emerges” (idem: 35).
Consequently, in order to explain similarities and differences in the PRC’s approach to the Indian Ocean Region and the South China Sea, and where they come from, this thesis has to examine the geopolitical situation in which the Beijing’s foreign policy making takes place. This includes any indications of possible external pressure that could have forced the Chinese government to adopt a certain policy that it might not actually wants to pursue. Furthermore, the thesis needs to analyse the instruments being used in the respective foreign policy approach, and the functional characteristics of these instruments. At last, this thesis then examines the degree of similarity in order to feed back into the theory and work out whether the strategic behaviour in the Indian Ocean Region was copied from the South China Sea, whether it was emulated, whether it was inspired rather, or whether they do not have anything in common.
For the sake of transparency, it has to be noted here, however, that the methodological concept brought forward by Graham Allison is not without its challenges and critics. One of the most
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frequently voiced criticisms of the Foreign Policy Analysis are, that it is too state-centric and still predominantly uses the state and the governmental power as the central conceptual building block of its analysis (White 2004: 48; Baumann & Stengel 2014: 491; Vanhoonacker 2015: 275) “In that sense, paradoxically, Foreign Policy Analysis – as one of the fiercest critics of state-centrism – itself remains in a sense state-centric” (Baumann & Stengel 2014: 491). Nevertheless, this will not play a major role in this body of work. Since this thesis tries to examine the relationship between two maritime policies drafted by the same state government, the selection of the PRC as the main actor is a necessity rather than a deliberate decision in order to analyse the foreign policy of an actor. Additionally, Foreign Policy Analysis has been described as biased towards the selection of cases that include the United States as an actor (Brummer & Hudson 2017: 160) and as too simplistic overall (Bendor & Hammond 1992: 302; Vanhoonacker & Wangen 2015: 275). In this thesis, however, the PRC will be the main actor and the United States as an international player of transferring policies won’t find much of a voice in this body of work. Therefore, the bias towards choosing the United States as a main actor can be neglected. The criticism of the Rational Actor Model being very simplistic leads right into a further critique of the method, as one of the biggest challenges of this methodology is “an unavoidable tension […] between the accuracy needed for policy relevance and the scope needed for generalisability” (Potter 2010). The simplicity of the Rational Actor Model used here could contribute to the generalisability of the study and should therefore be seen as one of the strengths, rather than a weakness. Furthermore, the characterisation of the PRC’s foreign policy as ‘rational’ presents a valid argument for the use of exactly that model due to its focus on just that. Considering these criticisms of the concept, this thesis joins the proponents of the method, who, besides all the mentioned critiques, still maintain that, conceptually, the method is “quite well prepared for the analysis of complex foreign policy making (Baumann & Stengel 2014: 502).
b. Case Selection
To analyse whether the PRC is actually transferring its maritime policy from one place to another this thesis follows a diverse case selection method. This method has as its primary objective the achievement of maximum variance along relevant dimensions (Seawright & Gerring 2008: 300). This is likely to increase the representativeness of the study. However, one needs to be aware of the fact that a full range of variation of cases might distort the actual distribution of those cases across the spectrum (Gerring 2007: 100). Nevertheless, if the
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categories are carefully constructed and chosen, the researcher should “be indifferent among cases within a given category […]” (Seawright & Gerring 2008: 301). The diverse case selection method “requires the selection of a set of cases – at minimum, two – which are intended to represent the full range of values characterizing X, Y, or some particular X/Y relationship […]. For a continuous variable, the researcher usually chooses both extreme values (high and low) and perhaps the mean or median as well” (idem: 300). The scale on which the chosen cases will be arranged will be based on the perceived character of each of the cases ranging from military character to non-military character, as many observers wonder whether the Chinese facilities in the Indian Ocean serve a military or a non-military purpose. Because this thesis aims to illuminate how certain aspects of the PRC’s maritime policy in the South China Sea appear in the Indian Ocean, all the cases to be examined need to be located in the Indian Ocean Region as a minimum requirement.
It is important to note that a number of different options could have been chosen to serve as cases for this study, since the PRC is involved in a number of additional projects in the Indian Ocean Region. Possible other cases, for example, could have been commercial port facilities in Kenya, a potential naval base on the Maldives, commercial and military facilities in Chittagong in Bangladesh or a commercial port with oil terminals and a planned pipeline from the coast of Myanmar all the way to the Chinese border on the other side of the country, just to name a few. All of them do display a differing amount of military character reaching from none to decisive. Therefore, an unbalanced case selection in one or the other direction of that spectrum could have painted the result of the entire study in a certain way.
However, this study’s first chosen case will be the Chinese military support base and its facilities in the African country of Djibouti, just west of its capital Djibouti City2, which is displaying a decisive military character. The second case will be the Chinese dual-use port facilities in the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar3, which due to the dual-use purposes of the facilities as a commercial port, but possibly also as a military port, displays a commercial or civilian character mixed with a military character. The third and last case will be the Chinese port facilities in Hambantota4 on the southern tip of the main island of Sri Lanka which seems to be used commercially only and, therefore, does not display any military character at all. Following the diverse case selection methodology, the chosen cases are consciously selected to ensure maximum variation across such a scale. This way, the case selection fulfils the
2 See figure 1. 3 See figure 1. 4 See figure 1.
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requirements of having both extremes of a continuous scale in ‘decisively military character’ and ‘no military character’. Additionally, the middle ground with the dual-use facility will be examined. Therefore, a distinct variation of cases will be subject to the analysis of whether the PRC does indeed transfer its maritime policy from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
c. Data Collection: Triangulation Method
It is known, that authoritarian states such as Iran and North Korea but also, and specifically in this case, the PRC have not been particularly transparent when it comes to their policy making processes and the data needed to analyse this. Especially in the realms of foreign- and security policy, the access to official data sources from the government is scarce (Baumann & Stengel 2014: 503). For this reason, this study will make use of a triangulation method in regards to the data collection. The goal of a triangulation methodology is to explain a certain phenomenon from more than one standpoint, whether that is through the use of different methodologies or the use of different sources of data (Cohen et al. 2011: 195). Data triangulation, in that regard, is meant to check the credibility of the data by the means of finding data on the same phenomenon from different sources. A varying degree of the content of such data subsequently allows the researcher to judge the credibility of the found data altogether (idem: 197).
Foreign Policy Analysis usually employs multiple different methods to gather the required data. While existing academic literature and secondary data can go a long way in Foreign Policy Analysis, it is common to see archival research of original source material, content analysis by the virtue of coding elite communication, interviews with high ranking officials or focus groups of experts discussing a certain topic contributing to the data used to analyse a foreign policy decision (Potter 2010).
This study will mostly rely on the former three ways of gathering data. While literary research and secondary data will be the foundation of this study, the data set will be enhanced by archive documents and publications of the Chinese government in the form of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC (hereafter MFAPRC), the Ministry of National Defence of the PRC (hereafter MNDPRC), the State Council Information Office (hereafter SCIOPRC), and the State Council of the PRC itself. Furthermore, sources directly from different infrastructure project such as the respective port authorities and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (hereafter CPEC) will be used. Finally, as a source of grey literature, Chinese state-run media outlets will
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serve to illuminate Chinese perspectives. The retrieved data then will be checked against the data of, for example, think tanks around the world that deal with the respective issues.
5. South China Sea
The International Hydrographic Organisation describes the South China Sea5 as the waters that are engulfed by Singapore, the Malacca Strait and the East coast of Sumatra on the South and the West coast of Borneo and the most Southern tip of Taiwan in the East. The Western limit of the South China Sea is marked by the Gulf of Thailand and the East coast of the Malay Peninsula while the most Southern point of Hainan Tao and the Chinese coastline form the Northern border of the South China Sea (1953: 32-33). Similarly, the PRC understands those waters to be situated South of the Chinese mainland and connected by “narrow straits and waterways with the Pacific Ocean to the East and the Indian Ocean to the West.” It furthermore is described as a semi-closed sea extending from Northeast to Southwest (MFAPRC 2016a). The waters of the South China Sea span an estimated area of 3.5 million square kilometres and are bordered by six different countries; those being the PRC, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Taiwan (Morton 2016: 914). Today, the most commonly used name for these waters remains ‘the South China Sea’, although that maritime area is also known as the ‘East Sea’ in Vietnam and the ‘West Philippine Sea’ in the Philippines (Hayton 2014: ix).
The PRC claims to have exercised control over the islands in the South China Sea since the Northern Song Dynasty from 960-1126AD (SCIOPRC 2014b). In more contemporary times, World War II, however, reset the struggle for ownership of the maritime features in the South China Sea anew. Immediately after World War II had ended and the allies had left their positions, no island or feature of the Paracel Islands and the Spratly Islands was controlled or occupied (Hayton 2014: 61). The PRC contends that all the features in those island groups are part of their sovereign territory since its inception in 1949 (MFAPRC 2016g), but it had to fight off other claimants in recurring battle episode in 1946/47, 1956, and the early 1970s (Hayton 2014: 61). In the 1970s both the PRC and South Vietnam occupied features in the Paracel Islands in light of possible economic revenue which led to reoccurring clashes that saw both states sending naval vessels. Ultimately, Beijing came out on top and has continuously occupied the Paracel Islands ever since 1974 (Fravel 2007/08: 76). After a period of relative calm, the
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South China Sea experienced an increasingly hostile environment starting in the late 2000s (Ba 2011: 270), characterised by numerous clashes between adjacent claimants of the maritime features, most notably the PRC, Vietnam and the Philippines (Buszynski 2012: 142). These issues exist, of course, because Beijing does not see any “dispute about sovereignty as the contested areas belong to [the PRC] and thus its actions do not constitute interference in the affairs of others” (Saich 2015: 323). Most recently, the PRC delineates its claims with a U-shaped line6, which seems to date back to the Republican era and appears to be created by a “middle-ranking official working for the Land and Water Inspection Committee in the 1930’s” (Morton 2016: 919). Due to its ambiguity, however, the practical significance of the nine-dash line remains unclear (Paul 2016: 10). The claims it delineates are contested by competing claims7 of all other respective adjacent states, which are Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, the Philippines and Taiwan (Morton 2016: 919). Within this nine-dash line, the PRC claims the territorial maritime features, their territorial sea, a contiguous zone, and EEZ, the continental shelf and historic rights (MFAPRC 2016g). The maritime claims by Beijing however, are legally unclear. As they are footed on historic rights and maps predating the existence of the state, it cannot be said conclusively whether the PRC is the legitimate successor of the Republic of China, or whether Taiwan holds a similar claim to these islands (Hayton 2014: 95). Additionally, according to UNCLOS, some of the features that the PRC declares to be part of their territory in the South China Sea, such as Mischief Reef and Subi Reef, cannot be legally claimed at all, since these reefs are naturally submerged at high tide. That forbids them to be subject to any claims by any nation (AMTI 2015b). Furthermore, Vietnam’s claim rests on an uneasy ground as well, as it is tormented by the unclear bid of its former colonial power France, who, to this date, has not officially rescinded its claim (Hayton 2014: 97-98). The Philippines, who established their claim in the basis of UNCLOS, initiated arbitration of the competing claims at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, however, the PRC rendered the ruling “null and void” and declared that it had no binding effect (MFAPRC 2015d). Beijing would not accept any third-party settlement resulting from a unilateral action by a state, who, by doing so, would break a previous agreement (SCIOPRC 2014a; MFAPRC 2016a).
Besides competing claims and reoccurring clashes between the claimant states, the most recent geopolitical situation in the South China Sea has been decisively characterised by land reclamation activities, most notably of the PRC. In 1988, Beijing started creating land on Fiery Cross Reef for the first time. The reef formerly saw only little parts not submerged at high tide,
6 Which is also known as the ‘nine-dash-line’, as it is depicted with nine dashes in multiple different maps. 7 See figure 3.
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however, after the PRC’s land reclamation activities the reef had grown by more than 8,000 square metres of dry land (Hayton 2014: 82-83). In 1995, Beijing continued its sporadic land reclamation activities by fortifying Mischief Reef (Cole 2010: xviii). Besides the PRC, other adjacent countries engaged in land reclamation activities and building military facilities on reefs in the South China Sea as well. Vietnam, for instance, has been building military structures on Sand Cay and Western London Reef, whereas the Philippines has upgraded naval facilities on the Spratly Islands and Taiwan has extended a previously existing air strip on Itu Aba (Morton 2016: 921-922). Similarly, Malaysia has modernised an air strip on Swallow Reef, capable of supporting both military and civilian aircrafts (Chase & Purser 2015). In late 2013, however, the PRC started land reclamation activities and the construction of military facilities on the newly-created land at unprecedented pace and scale, that no other adjacent state could match. In between September 2013 and June 2014 “more than ten million cubic metres of sand and cement were taken to five different reefs in the Spratly Island area” (Paul 2016: 5) in what some dub as a “provocative alteration of the security situation in the South China Sea” (AMTI 2015b). In an opinion piece in the Japan Times the Indian academic and author Brahma Chellaney argues that the PRC did not just start its new reclamation activities unplanned or even untested. According to him, Beijing ran a number of different tests to gage the reaction of the international community. These involved seizing Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in June of 2012, which did not cause any tangible response from other international players. Immediately after that, Chellaney contends, the Chinese Shipbuilding Industry Corporation published draft blueprints for man-made islands upon reefs, which have since been removed. In September of 2013 this was supposedly followed by a Chinese dredger ship being anchored next to Cuarteron Reef and Fiery Cross Reef of the Spratly Island Group for about three weeks respectively, again with little to no reaction from the international community. Only afterwards, the PRC proceeded to engage in artificially building islands on reefs in the South China Sea. With that, Chellaney argues, Beijing managed to successfully alter the “territorial status quo without any international pushback” and therefore is now better positioned to project power across the Indian Ocean Region and the Western Pacific (Chellaney 2018).
As of now, the PRC has 20 outposts in the Paracel Islands, seven outposts in the Spratly Islands and controls Scarborough Shoal “via constant coast guard presence.” Since 2013, it has created more than 3,200 acres of new land and increased its presence in multiple places in the South China Sea (AMTI 2019). Much of the island-building took place in the Spratly Islands, predominantly at maritime features such as Subi Reef (which now has been expanded to a size of 3.95 square kilometres), Mischief Reef (5.85 square kilometres) and Fiery Cross Reef (2.74
