US showdown with Beijing looms over Chinese military build-up

Momentum is building strongly for the US to confront China over its military build-up on ­artificial islands.

US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.

Momentum is building strongly in Washington for the US to confront China over its construction of military capable runways on ­artificial islands as part of massive land reclamation projects in disputed territories in the South China Sea, according to senior Washington sources.

The Abbott government would be almost certain to provide diplomatic support to such an American move, which would inevitably provoke new tensions in Can­berra’s relations with Beijing.

The Americans are planning a freedom of navigation exercise that would involve one or more US ships sailing within 12 nautical miles of territory in the South China Sea which Beijing claims. It could also involve US aircraft flying over the artificial islands.

The US would do this to establish freedom of navigation and freedom of the air and to demonstrate that it rejects the militarisation of the South China Sea implied by Beijing’s construction of the airstrips, including one of 3000m length, in disputed territory.

In response to an inquiry by The Australian, a spokesman for the Defence Department reiter­ated Canberra’s opposition to Beijing’s island-building activities in the South China Sea.

“We are concerned that land reclamation activity by China and other claimants raises tensions in the region and ... we urge claimants to halt such activities,” he said.

Some of the Southeast Asian nations that claim the disputed ­islands, which are much closer to their territory than to China, have also engaged in land reclamation activities, but these are on a min­uscule scale compared with China’s activities.

The new US policy assertiveness is being led by new Defence Secretary Ashton Carter and newly appointed Pacific Commander Harry Harris, who takes up his post shortly.

Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for Asia in the first four years of the Obama ­administration, told The Australian: “The combination of new ­Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, and Admiral Harry Harris has brought a much needed strategic focus to what the US needs to do in the South China Sea to underscore its commitment to firmly held international principles, such as freedom of navigation and the legal resolution of territorial disputes. If you’re looking for consistency and continuity of US policy over decades, between Democrats and Republicans, it is around the issue of preserving the sea lines of communication.

“It is clear the US wants a good relationship with China but these principles are not up for negotiation.”

Mike Green, who was the Asia director at the National Security Council in the first administration of George W. Bush and who ­remains a central figure in Washington’s Asia policy, told The Australian that the Obama administration’s views on the South China Sea had firmed up ­recently. “There was no consensus within the administration about the root causes of tensions in the South China Sea 18 months ago,” Dr Green said. “There is now a consensus that something has to be done. They (the Obama administration) haven’t yet decided from the menu of options.”

Last week a leaked story ­appeared in The Wall Street Journal reporting that Mr Carter had asked the Pentagon to prepare ­options for possible US action in the South China Sea to underscore its commitment to freedom of navigation.

The US is not considering any forceful action to dislodge Chinese facilities, merely to fly and sail near them to assert freedom of navigation and freedom of the air.

A wide range of Washington sources said The Wall Street Journal story had been leaked by the US Pacific Command, which was extremely concerned about Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea.

Since the appearance of the story in the Journal, momentum in favour of the freedom of navigation action has increased.

The effect of the leak is that if the Obama administration now does not undertake a freedom of navigation action, it will be seen to have backed away from asserting America’s core traditional position.

When Beijing declared an air defence identification zone over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which it disputes with Japan, the US and Japan flew aircraft through the ADIZ to demonstrate that they did not accept, recognise or abide by the Chinese claim.

Australia and South Korea formally protested against the Chinese declaration of an ADIZ. This led to a furious denunciation of Australia by the Chinese Foreign Minister at a joint news conference in Beijing with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop.

Southeast Asian officials are extremely worried that once the Chinese have established military facilities in the South China Sea they will declare an ADIZ in one or more locations and have the military grunt to monitor, if not enforce, such a claim.

Peter Jennings of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute told The Australian it would be “wise for the Americans to do this (a freedom of navigation operation) now”.

“For all of the countries that say they prize freedom of navigation, sooner or later they will have to physically demonstrate that if they want to keep it,” he said. “It’s a case or use it or lose it.”

Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, former consultant to the Pentagon and the State Department and nonresident fellow of the Lowy Institute, told The Australian she thought Washington would undertake such action.

“A prime response would be to sail ships through the 12-nautical-miles space around such rocks and possibly fly through that airspace too, in line with long existing US policy to maintain freedom of navigation throughout the world,” she said.

Ms Glaser said China’s reclamation activities would soon give it the capacity to deploy there large warships plus capable law-enforcement vessels, as well as military aircraft, into the South China Sea. “It will acquire a greater capacity to conduct the kind of disruptive activity in which it has already been engaged for years, interfering with foreign shipping and energy exploitation, especially in Vietnamese and Philippines waters,” she said.

Washington sources said Mr Carter was proving a strong and assertive defence secretary.

Mr Obama was unable to get his first choice — Michelle Flournoy — to take the post to succeed Chuck Hagel, who was widely regarded as a poor defence secretary somewhat overwhelmed by the job.

Washington sources suggested senior Democrats, who believed they might have a cabinet-level future under a Hillary Clinton presidency had no desire to serve in the last year of the Obama administration, which is widely seen as having been weak on defence, poor at foreign policy and ineffective in Asia. Mr Carter, these sources say, is now widely seen as the leading figure on Asia in the Obama administration.

The timing of any US operation in the South China Sea remains delicate. Mr Carter is scheduled to deliver an important address to the Shangri-La Defence Dialogue in Singapore at the end of the month. China’s President, Xi Jinping, is scheduled to visit Washington in September.

Sources suggest that a US operation would likely occur after Mr Carter’s Singapore visit but before Mr Xi’s Washington visit.

Tony Abbott recently reaffirmed that freedom of the sea and freedom of the air was “absolute”. While Canberra is not believed to be urging the US to undertake a freedom of navigation operation, there is a regular dialogue between the two nations over the South China Sea.

The White House has not yet made a final decision on such an operation. Any Pentagon plans supported by Mr Carter would need the President’s direct approval.

One former senior US national security official told The Australian that the recent visit to Beijing by Secretary of State John Kerry had not made any difference to the calculations involved.

“No one listens to anything he says and he says it interminably,” the official said.