By Greg Austin
It’s time for the Pentagon to issue a sober and balanced public assessment on the South China Sea territorial disputes.
On 27 May 2015, Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr, the newly promoted Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said that one of his main challenges, alongside a nuclear armed and erratic North Korea, would be “China’s preposterous claims to and land reclamation activities in the South China Sea.” So now a coral reef with an airfield is as dangerous as a nuclear weapon?
Harris’ statement was widely interpreted as meaning that China was engaged in an unjustified land grab, tantamount to coercion of or even aggression against the country’s southern neighbors. Three days later, a Chinese general repeated to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that China has shown “great restraint” in defending its territorial claims against unreasonable derogation by its southern neighbors. China sees its actions as defensive and in no way constituting aggression. There is a highly significant discrepancy between the two assessments. If Harris is wrong about the Chinese motivation, this must represent a significant intelligence failure by the United States. There is nothing more essential to national security intelligence than a correct assessment of a potential adversary’s motivations (intent) in the military sphere.
For the record, China is a country with more than 4,000 km of coastline in the South China Sea. Under international law, it is entitled to claim an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 200 nm from the baselines of its territorial sea. On a rough estimate, it is entitled to around one million sq km of EEZ in the South China Sea based just on its mainland coast and the coast of Hainan Island.
Read the full story at The Diplomat