China’s image as an assertive claimant in the South China Sea is not likely to change. Xi Jinping has outlined the direction in which China should pursue its maritime interests in very broad terms by saying that China should “plan as a whole the two overall situations of maintaining stability and safeguarding rights.” But he has not provided specific guidelines on how the two objectives should be balanced. Other officials, among them a diverse set of maritime security actors, will shape the policies and decide on specific actions, often motivated by their own interests. Besides the China Coast Guard, the most important maritime security actors are: senior PLA officers; senior officials in coastal provinces, the Ministry of Public Security, SOA, and NDRC; and senior executives in the national oil companies. These groups will grasp every opportunity to gain commercial advantage, prestige, or government funding. But they also represent key constituencies that keep the CPC in power. Despite his seemingly strong position, Xi cannot ignore the demands of vital interest groups. Some Chinese analysts wonder in private if the PLA generals’ pledge of loyalty in June 2014 should be interpreted as a sign of Xi’s insecurity rather than a sign of his strength. The determination with which Xi These groups will grasp every opportunity to gain commercial advantage, prestige, or government funding.
pursued the anti-corruption drive upon becoming China’s top leader may have increased his popularity among ordinary citizens but it has surely created adversaries within both the government bureaucracy and the PLA. A senior Chinese diplomat called the campaign “an outright attack on the government and PLA.”
The knowledge that there are many disgruntled
senior officials and military officers can only exacerbate the “existential
anxiety” the top leaders live with, fearful that the CPC will lose its grip on
power as the Communist Party did in the Soviet Union.154 China’s actions in the
maritime domain will continue to take place unsystematically and organically,
not as part of a grand strategy. Various actors, for example resource company
executives and local officials, will cooperate when it serves both parties’
interests. However, there is no evidence of a central government-approved
‘grand plan’ that mandates different actors coercing other claimants in a
tailored way towards a mutual goal.
For
international policy-makers seeking to impress upon China the importance of
regional stability, a ‘grand plan’ would in fact be less threatening than the
uncertainty caused by a situation in which various Chinese actors are pursuing
ad hoc measures in their own interests. China’s nationalistic policy
environment now encourages this kind of behaviour. Chinese interlocutors state
that the top leadership keeps closer watch on the East China Sea than the South
China Sea begs the question of whether senior leaders are intentionally giving
freer rein to actors in the South China Sea. It is possible, but it also
depends on the circumstances and timing. When tensions with other claimants
suddenly erupt and look likely to damage China internationally, for example
when the oil rig HYSY-981 led to anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam, the top
leadership decided upon a face-saving explanation and the oil rig was
withdrawn. At other times, the leadership succumbs to domestic pressure and the
demands of various actors to protect China’s sovereign territory (or what China
claims as its own). That said, the East China Sea simply does not offer actors
the same opportunities as does the vast and sprawling South China Sea. The
energy deposits near the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are not considered as lucrative
as those near the disputed Paracel Islands, for example.156 The contradictory
nature of China’s policies in the region will continue. Xi’s foreign policy
speech at a major CPC conference in November 2014 provided as much substance to
those arguing for a conciliatory approach as to those pushing for China to
defend its maritime rights.
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