Fishing For Power: Tensions in the South China Sea

In 2016, just after the UNCLOS Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled “overwhelmingly” in favor of the Philippines in its case against China’s South China Sea claims, US Air Force Officer Adam Greer suggested that “the South China Sea dispute is really a fishery dispute”.   Though the South China Sea makes up only 8.6% of the ocean’s surface, it is home to over 22% of known fish species, comprising over a tenth of the global fishing population.  But fishery is only one aspect of the lucrative South China Sea. With its large reserves of oil and gas, and its role as a major shipping lane, carrying one-third of global shipping, the South China Sea has long been regarded by regional and global actors as an area of both great economic and strategic importance. This has led to frequent disputes between claimant states in the Sea. China, with its nine-dash line, lays claim to over 90% of the Sea; Vietnam and the Philippines each claim islands in the region; and both Brunei and Malaysia claim maritime territory in their exclusive economic zones.

“While fishery resources may drive aspects of the South China Sea dispute, the crisis in the South China Sea is rather just another manifestation of a growing struggle for power in the Indo-Pacific.”

A rising demand for seafood, declining fish stocks in traditional grounds, and warming temperatures were the first sparks for a South China Sea fishing crisis, beginning in the early 2000s, as more and more fishermen ventured into disputed territories.  Though this increasing competition did quickly cause a “tragedy of the commons”-eque overfishing problem, the real “crisis” over fishery in the South China sea only grew because of existing geopolitical tensions.  For Vietnam and China, a rise in fishing made the South China Sea an important theatre for friction in bilateral relations.  Though, by 2003, they had resolved their land-border disputes, growing involvement of both parties in the South China Sea via fishing manifested as disputes over claims of Paracel and Spratly Islands.  Wrestling for control, China banned Vietnamese fishing, and in retaliation, Vietnam declared their undisputed “sovereignty” over the islands.  Tensions between the two states in the South China Sea would continue for decades to come, exacerbated by events such as the cutting of Vietnamese ship cables by Chinese patrol boats in 2011, to an oil rig conflict between the two sides, leaving seven Vietnamese injured.  Under the guise of this “fishing crisis”, the South China Sea has increasingly become another ground for the assertion and counter-assertion of power between regional stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific.

Further, the South China Sea crisis has facilitated the growth of the voice and influence of historically neutral players in the region, the most significant being India.  Conflict in the South China Sea has provided India with a unique opportunity to leverage its regional influence to further its own agenda.  This began in 2016, with a shift from its previously neutral stance on the tribunal award on the South China Sea.  India – though not directly involved in fishery in the South China Sea – has used the fishery crisis to deepen involvement in the region and further its strategy. This includes expressing support for the Philippines’ claims, and the continuation of friendly relations with other regional players to compete with China.  Following the Sino-Indian Doklam border standoff of 2017, the Indian Navy first conducted joint exercises with the US, Japanese, and Philippine navies in the South China Sea, pursuing a show of strength.  A few years later, concurrent with the Sino-Indian Galwan Valley scuffle, the Indian Navy held similar military exercises with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, and Indonesia. Soon after, India also exported the BrahMos supersonic anti-ship missiles to the Philippines and a fully operational light missile frigate to Vietnam.  Though India’s participation may have begun via the fishery crisis, its deeper intervention in the South China Sea geopolitical dynamic, in fields unrelated to the fishery crisis itself demonstrates the way in which this has become a theater for broader contestation and power projection.

As Indo-Pacific states continue to develop economically at increasing rates, competition among them is inescapable, and their shared vested interests in the South China Sea are bound to exacerbate these tensions as partnerships continue to form, grow, and change on a global scale.  The South China sea continues to serve as “a backyard” for the Indo-Pacific, reflecting tensions within the region in varying degrees of both cold and warmer conflict.  As The Diplomat’s Niang Peng frames it, “Any conflicts in the South China Sea could threaten the free navigation in the world’s busiest maritime transportation line and thus jeopardize India’s trade ties with the Southeast Asian states as well as its economic security.”  But the South China Sea also serves as a global backyard–and if the rival US-China drills earlier this year in the South China Sea, with China showcasing fighter-jet firing missiles, are anything to go by, the South China Sea will continue to be an epicenter of this power struggle as China continues attempts to assert its power in the region, and its rivals attempt to disrupt that rise.

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