Increasing tensions in the South China Sea

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 3rd of September. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Mary, so good to have you back, easing into hosting again!

REICHARD: Listen, it’s hard to articulate just how profound that statement is! I mean, I’m just glad to be here on the planet for a while longer.

EICHER: Well, we’ll take it slow. Speaking of which, that’s not necessarily happening on the South China Sea.

SOUND: [Boat being rammed and people talking]

That’s a Chinese Coast Guard vessel ramming a Philippines fishing boat last week. It was not an accident.

It happened in waters that both the Philippines and China claim. For some time now, there’s been a cool standoff that has at times heated up.

REICHARD: U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. Among other issues while in Beijing, Sullivan addressed the South China Sea. You’ll hear him say PRC. He’s referring to the People’s Republic of China.

JAKE SULLIVAN: …nobody is looking for a crisis, not the Philippines, not the United States, and we hope not the PRC, but I did raise our concerns about some of the destabilizing actions that have taken place…

EICHER: How concerning is the dispute, and what does it mean for the U.S.?

Joining us now to talk about it is Joshua Eisenman. He’s a Senior Fellow for China Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington.

RECHARD: Joshua, good morning

JOSHUA EISENMAN: Good morning. It's good to be with you.

REICHARD: So glad you're here. Well, we have followed conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe pretty closely on this program, but not so much what's happening in the South China Sea. Can you fill us in on what's going on there now?

EISENMAN: Well, what's going on there now is China is in tension with the Philippines over a place called the Sabina Shoal, which is very close to the Philippines and very far from China. And this is a product of China's claims in the region—used to be called the nine dash line, now the 10 dash line—which bring it into conflict with numerous countries in Southeast Asia which have competing claims. The UN ruled in 2016 that the Philippine claims were legitimate and that China's claims were not. That has not stopped China from trying to enforce its claims, you know, based on some historical precedence that it points to, and using a variety of different techniques that we've seen most recently, including denial resupply of ships in the region. And so, what we see is the kind of outgrowth of these tensions with no end in sight.

REICHARD: And what is the role of the United States in this situation? I mean, I recall that the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, met with President Biden earlier this year, and Biden said U.S. commitment to the Philippines defense is “ironclad.” So what does that mean in concrete terms, if China and the Philippines were to come to blows?

EISENMAN: Well, it means a lot, because the Philippines is the only U.S. treaty partner in Southeast Asia, and the U.S. has been, as you say, continuously reminding Manila that it's going to be there to support it. In fact, the relationship got even closer under the current president when they allowed the U.S. access to a variety of islands which are extremely close to Taiwan, in the case of a Taiwan contingency. But in terms of the South China Sea, the U.S. is committed to defending the Philippines in the case of violent actions towards it, and has even volunteered to escort Filipino ships through these disputed areas. The Philippines has been reluctant to take that because they don't want to escalate the situation. However, the U.S. has that as a standing offer, and it's likely at some point that we will see U.S. ships escorting Filipino ships through their own sovereign waters. So, the U.S. relationship with the Philippines has expanded quite significantly under the current president, and the trajectory seems like it will continue.

REICHARD: I want to go back to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan's trip to China. The Wall Street Journal reports that Xi Jingping used the meeting to “push for stability in ties between the two global powers,” ahead of the U.S. presidential election. What do we know about President Xi’s priorities?

EISENMAN: Well, President Xi's priorities are to continue to have the Communist Party of China rule China, and to do everything in his power to make that happen. And one of his key foreign policy priorities is to retake Taiwan. I guess he would call that a domestic policy priority, but for the rest of us, it's a foreign policy priority. He also wants to have, I think, a workable relationship with the United States. And there's a bit of concern about what the U.S. presidential elections will bring. China's in kind of wait-and-see mode. And while some have suggested that this would be a good time for China to move on Taiwan, I would actually think that it would be a pretty bad time, since any administration, especially one like the Biden administration, which doesn't have a future, certainly has no reason not to respond robustly. The idea that America would be distracted with an election, I just don't see that to be the case. So I think rather the opposite, that China would prefer to not see itself take front and center stage in the U.S. political arena.

REICHARD: Well, speaking of the U.S. election coming up, our candidates, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, talk about foreign policy, they tend to talk about the Middle East and Ukraine. That's their biggest focus. What do we know about their policy views on China?

EISENMAN: Well, it's a great question, because surprisingly little, right? Donald Trump, when he came into office, turned the tables on U.S.-China policy in a way that I think was actually necessary. From Henry Kissinger to a lot of the folks on the left also were enamored with China for various reasons. And I think that Donald Trump brought a kind of realistic slap in the face to both sides, and in many ways, changed the China discussion in Washington forever, or at least for the time being: from one that was focused on engagement to one that was focused on avoiding conflict, but maintaining a pretty rivalrous relationship. And I think that's become bipartisan China Policy at this point.

So, I think that they're both similar in that regard. I don't imagine that either one would walk back tariffs or any of that. However, the Trump group has made some suggestions which suggest it might not be as friendly to Taiwan as it was in the first term, which is to say that Donald Trump has referenced Taiwan “stealing our chips,” talked about, you know, paying the fair share and kind of riding on U.S. coattails. So, whereas in the first Trump administration, you had an outreach to Taiwan, an expansion of government-to-government engagements, even military relations expanded, we don't know if that is what will happen under the next Trump administration if he were to win the presidency. Moreover, the GOP platform does not mention Taiwan at all.

By contrast, the Democratic platform actually does mention Taiwan, and it mentions the six assurances to Taiwan. At the same time, the Biden administration actually did quite a lot to build on those aspects I mentioned that the Trump administration created, and even made four statements independent that the U.S. would defend Taiwan in case of a military crisis.

So, there is really a question going forward about whether the Harris administration would maintain that policy. My hunch is they would. But I think there's more questions about whether a Trump administration would be able to maintain the alliance structure that the Biden administration has constructed to bolster U.S. interests, and whether or not it would actually come to Taiwan's aid.

REICHARD: Joshua Eisenman is a Senior Fellow for China Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council. Thanks for your time!

EISENMAN: Thank you. It was great to be here.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.