EXPLAINER: New Zealand’s navy expects to join a British-led flotilla in a tour of the Indo-Pacific in the coming months, including passing through the contested South China Sea. Tensions in this region have been growing. Why does this bit of ocean matter, and why are we sending our navy there? National Correspondent Lucy Craymer reports.
Defence Minister Peeni Henare announced earlier this month he had spoken with his counterpart in the UK and the expectation was the country’s navy would be sending forces to join the flotilla. The trip will include port visits with friendly countries and training exercises.
But it will also likely include traversing the contentious South China Sea. Some analysts say this shows New Zealand is prepared to put muscle behind words condemning growing tensions in the region, and China’s decision to ignore an international ruling against its claim.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says the exercise marks 50 years of the Five Power Defence Arrangements between Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom and that is why it is participating.
The move comes at a time when New Zealand has stepped up rhetoric about Beijing’s behaviour. In recent weeks both the foreign affairs minister and the prime minister have voiced concerns about how China is treating its neighbours, human rights abuses in Xinjiang and breaches of international law.
Most recently Jacinda Ardern told those gathered at the China Business Summit that “as a growing power, the way that China treats its partners is important to us”.
So what do people mean when they talk about issues in the South China Sea?
The South China Sea is in the Western Pacific and is bordered by China along with the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam and Indonesia. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea these countries have the right to control the waters 22 kilometres -12 nautical miles – from their shores. The same law allows for governments to regulate economic activities like mining and fishing up to 370km from shore.
However, China’s claim is larger than just the area near its coast.
It claims around 80 per cent of the region’s water and underlying seabed based on both historic rights - it has through periods of history ruled this area, and maritime rights - it occupies islands and reefs in the region and should therefore control waters around them. Some of the claims stretches up to 2000km from the mainland.
Neither of these historic or maritime claims are universally accepted.
Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at Washington DC-based think-tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says the other countries make their claims in the context of accepted international law and even though some of those claims overlap, they are within a system set up to resolve such issues.
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“Only one country is making claims that are disputed by the rest of the world,” he says. “China’s claims are entirely outside the system. That’s what makes them so dangerous and so intractable - there is no room for compromise.”
In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague ruled in part against China’s claim to the region, finding in favour of the Philippines, which had brought the case. China refused to participate in the hearing and does not accept it.
Both the US and Australia have publicly rejected Beijing’s territorial and maritime claims. New Zealand has not gone this far but has appealed for an easing of tensions and the acceptance of international law.
In early May, leaders from G7 countries said they remained seriously concerned about the situation in and around the East and South China Seas and strongly opposed any unilateral actions that could escalate tensions and undermine regional stability.
The leaders “express serious concerns about reports of militarisation, coercion, and intimidation in the region”, their statement says.
Hold on, did you say China built islands?
Over the past six years, Chinese contractors have dredged sand from the sea floor to build up reefs, shoals and other maritime features that the country occupies in the Spratly and Paracel Islands to construct land masses that are now inhabitable.
The industrial-sized construction effort has created a number of man-made islands, some of which satellite imagery show have been heavily fortified. One reef is even home to a farm, according to Chinese media reports.
The Defence Force’s briefing last December to Henare noted China had created and extended multiple artificial island features upon which it has constructed bases. “These posts now feature radar and communications arrays, airstrips and hangars, deep water harbours and weapons systems,” the briefing notes.
These islands are dots in the South China Sea. Why does everyone want it?
The South China Sea is an important trade route used by cargo ships to move goods from the Pacific Ocean to countries with ports in the Indian Ocean. For New Zealand, ships laden with milk powder and other agricultural goods pass through this slice of ocean on their way to consumers around the world. One-third of all international trade passes through these waters, or around $3.4 trillion worth, estimates the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
If China gains control of the South China Sea it could also control the movement of all this trade.
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“China’s interpretation of the territorial sea is that the state has the exclusive right to make, apply and execute its own laws in that space without foreign interference,” says Oriana Mastro in a recent piece for Australian think-tank the Lowy Institute. Under the Law of the Sea all ships – civilian or military – enjoy the right of innocent passage through other states’ territorial seas.
There is also important fishing here, which all the various countries want access to, to feed growing populations. And then there is ownership of the minerals below the sea - the US Energy Information Administration estimates that there are 11 billion barrels of oil reserves and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in the South China Sea.
The US, Australia and other Western powers often have military forces in the region. What’s this about?
As a result, countries - particularly the US - send naval ships up to pass through the ocean conducting what are known as Freedom of Navigation passage: this means they pass through the waters while remaining 22km from land.
The New Zealand Defence Force says in a statement that on a number of occasions it sent ships to this region, such as in 2017 when HMNZS Te Kaha and HMNZS Endeavour made calls in a number of South East Asian ports, including visits to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and then in 2018 the HMNZS Te Mana transited through the Spratly Islands.
New Zealand Air Force planes also participate in United Nation’s security council monitoring activities
“While deploying through the South China Sea, ships and aircraft exercise freedom of navigation and overflight in accordance with international law,” it says.
The massive British flotilla heading to the region will be the biggest deployment by the UK Navy since the Falklands War.
These missions have been largely without incident.
But now tensions are bad
The administration of former US President Donald Trump increased the number of Freedom of Navigation trips undertaken by the US Navy and Coast Guard vessels in the region. At the same time China has continued to increase its presence in the region.
China sends its own navy, coast guard and armed militia down to the region along with fleets of fishermen to support its claim.
Since March 2021, tensions between Beijing and Manila have increased after several Chinese boats were seen in the region.
A statement from May 3, the Filipino coast guard condemned China’s coast guard for participating “in shadowing, blocking dangerous manoeuvres and radio interference”. Furthermore, it called on China to respect its sovereignty.
In the past week, both China and the US have issued statements about the other’s activities in the region, while the People’s Liberation Army has dropped thousands of munitions in the sea in recent days as part of military exercises.
Poling says that he sees the risk of a shooting war starting in the South China Sea between the Chinese and US military as unlikely, but there was the possibility of a fatal collision between a Chinese vessel and one of its neighbours, which could then escalate.
On a number of occasions the Chinese coast guard has been accused of ramming fishing boats belonging to neighbouring countries.
It’s still unlikely that there will be a shooting war, Poling says “but the chances are greater than zero”.
Should New Zealand be getting involved?
For countries outside the region, including New Zealand, the dispute is important for several reasons.
Analysts say Beijing claims are of concern because it shows it does not follow international laws when they doesn’t suit it. And secondly, for exporting countries it’s important that trade routes are kept open and that China doesn’t have the power to prevent ships moving goods through the sea.
Mastro, a fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute, says that if one country has all the power over the region then the other countries can be held hostage.
“We’ve seen that where China’s had economic power they’ve not been afraid to use it to punish countries and where China’s had political power they’ve not been afraid to leverage it to get countries to do things,” she said.
Alexander Gillespie, an international law expert at Waikato University, said however if New Zealand is now willing to actually use a show of strength and join one of those expeditions it’s a good thing.
“New Zealand is trying so hard to sit on the fence with China and not be offensive, but sometimes you have to do more to show some things mean more to you,” he added.
What is Beijing going to think about New Zealand sending a vessel up there?
Analysts seem divided on how China will view NZ Navy ships in the South China Sea. There is no doubt China does not like foreign interference in the region but how it will react will come down to how New Zealand’s presence is perceived.
“It depends on what they see our motives as being,” says Jim Rolfe, a senior fellow at the centre for strategic studies at Victoria University of Wellington.
“If we are there on a routine exercise and visit programme, they have no problem at all. If we are only making a point and trying to poke them in the eyes with a sharp stick while simultaneously telling the world via press release and social media (that is to say, megaphone diplomacy), they will have problems.”
He adds that if they do respond it won’t be with military force but rather economic action.
