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After Show of Military Might, China Offers to Restart S. China Sea Talks

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - China has agreed to restart talks with worried
   Southeast Asian countries on a maritime code of conduct to restore its
   image abroad after COVID-19 and months of reminders that it's the
   waterway's most militarily powerful country.

   Beijing said July 1 in a consultation with Southeast Asian leaders that
   it would resume negotiations on a code, pending since 2002, that would
   help ships avoid mishaps and resolve any accidents in the vast, crowded
   South China Sea.

   China and its negotiation counterpart the 10-member Association of
   Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has shunned the topic so far this year.
   Both sides grappled instead with the COVID-19 outbreak, which cast wary
   eyes on China as the disease's origin.

   Also in the first half of the year, China [1]flew military planes at
   least eight times over a corner of the sea near Taiwan and sent survey
   ships to tracts of the waterway claimed by Malaysia and Vietnam. Last
   week it held South China Sea military exercises with an apparent focus
   on amphibious assaults.

   "I think that the reason why China is offering the talks is because it
   feels very confident that it's in a position of strength and it can
   shape the direction or the trajectory of the discussions and its
   counterparts are not in a strong position, because of coronavirus (and)
   because they haven't any assets in the seas," said Stephen Nagy, a
   senior associate professor of politics and international studies at
   International Christian University in Tokyo.

   ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam claim parts
   of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. China and Taiwan claim nearly
   all of it. Rival claimants value the waterway for its fisheries,
   shipping lanes and fossil fuel reserves.

   After doing little on the code for years, China and ASEAN agreed in
   2017 to work on it again. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang estimated in 2018
   the code could be wrapped up by 2021, but last year Chinese Foreign
   Minister Wang Yi said via state media that it could happen even sooner.

   The COVID-19 outbreak, which hit China in February before coursing into
   Southeast Asia, has blocked progress on a code year to date, analysts
   believe. The last talks took place in October.

   China's recent military activities and previous land reclamation for
   artificial islands in the sea give it more bargaining power as well as
   tarnishing its image elsewhere in Asia, scholars believe. Southeast
   Asian claimants particularly resent China for adding an estimated 3,000
   acres of landfill into the sea and using some newly created islets for
   military installations.

References

   1. https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacific/voa-news-china/china-sends-8-military-planes-taiwan-airspace-analysts-see-move

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