Is China at war in the South China Sea?

Is China waging war in the South China Sea? Decide for yourself.

What is indisputable is that his behavior is belligerent – and that has consequences for those who oppose his transgressions. On June 19, the BBC reported on what it described as the latest in a series of clashes between Chinese naval forces, mainly the Chinese coast guard, and the Philippine coast guard and navy. Chinese coast guard cutters intercepted Philippine vessels attempting to deliver supplies to Second Thomas Reef, where soldiers are occupying the grounded wreck Sierra Madre to assert Manila’s claim to the disputed territory.

The encounter turned ugly. General Romeo Brawner, the Philippines’ top military commander, reported that Chinese ships rammed their Filipino counterparts, costing a Filipino sailor a thumb. Ramming has been part of the Chinese repertoire for some time. This time, however, Chinese coast guards also brandished sharp weapons such as swords, knives and spears. According to Brawner, they boarded Filipino vessels and seized weapons and other property. He accused the Chinese coast guard of “piracy,” adding: “They have neither the right nor the legal authority to hijack our operations and destroy Filipino vessels operating in our exclusive economic zone.”

Not quite.

The reality is even worse than General Brawner admits. Pirates are private sailors who attack ships for private reasons. The Chinese Coast Guard is a public institution of the People’s Republic of China – in other words, an instrument of Chinese statecraft – that uses methods favored by corsairs since ancient times against ships from a neighboring state. Banditry is Chinese foreign policy in action.

In a way, Beijing has done us all a favor. China watchers, myself included, have long characterized China’s naval strategy in the South China Sea as a “gray zone” that does not lead to open fighting. The darkness makes it difficult for China’s adversaries to counteract: anyone who pushes too hard against aggression looks like an aggressor. But the gray zone in Southeast Asia is hardly gray anymore. Thanks to dominant Chinese tactics, the situation is becoming clearer and clearer.

Strategic clarity leads to solutions.

But this is not the answer to the question of whether China is at war. Let us consult the strategic canon. In his masterpiece On War, the Prussian soldier-writer Carl von Clausewitz defines war as “an act of violence to compel our enemy to do our will” (emphasis Carl’s). It is hard to believe that China does not use violence to compel others to do its will in Southeast Asia. Ramming and boarding, its preferred tactics, have been tried and tested tactics in naval warfare for many centuries. In this age of precision weapons, few naval captains fancy ramming an enemy ship. They prefer to stay at a distance and fight. But since time immemorial, ships have rammed each other under extreme circumstances, in times of war. This is not a relic of times long past.

Ramming may be out of fashion, but it remains part of the naval force. It is an act of armed force. So China uses force as a political tool, and it does so routinely.

For the sake of argument, let’s raise the bar on the definition of war. Small linguistic choices can make a big difference in how we perceive the world around us. “Violence” is a more accurate translation of the German word “Gewalt” than “force,” the word used in the standard (1976) edition of “On War.” Let’s make the substitution and set this as our yardstick for judging Chinese behavior: “an act of violence to compel our enemy to do our will.” Have Chinese naval forces—the Chinese Coast Guard, supported by the Maritime Militia and the People’s Liberation Army Navy—used acts of violence to compel others to recognize Beijing’s illegitimate claims in the South China Sea?

If this is true, then China is definitely at war by Clausewitz’s standards.

This is trickier. Yes, Chinese coast guards have waved live weapons at their Filipino counterparts during ramming and boarding operations. But clearly they did not strike even when they threatened Filipino sailors. And yet Clausewitz could still judge their tactics at Second Thomas Reef as acts of war. What matters is how one interprets the relationship between “fight” and war. Clausewitz proclaims that combat between contending forces is the only means of warfare, but at the same time adds the caveat that combat can be far removed from “the brutal discharge of hatred and enmity” in hand-to-hand combat. It is less passionate. It is not necessarily mass murder.

For him, combat – a term we usually associate with fighting – has countless shades of grey, some involving minimal or no violence.

I know, this is puzzling. Clausewitz claims that “everything that happens in war is done by military force, but where military force… is employed, the idea of ​​struggle must necessarily underlie everything.” Ideas matter. A struggle occurs when opponents believe fighting might occur and when they anticipate who would win or lose if such a situation occurred. “If the idea of ​​struggle forms the basis of every employment of armed forces,” Clausewitz writes, then a struggle has occurred—even if no actual combat occurs. And virtual battles influence the behavior of commanders on real battlefields. A force might abandon the field rather than face a supposedly invincible enemy. Or it might give in if an enemy cannot be defeated at a cost acceptable to the ruling government and society.

Indeed, peacetime deterrence and coercion are about waging war through the perception of relative power and resolve. A rational competitor will refrain from taking actions that its opponent warns would entail unacceptable risks or costs. Or the opponent will issue a fearsome threat that forces the leadership to do something it would rather not do. This is China’s game in the South China Sea. It has superiority over any single competitor and can therefore hope to intimidate its neighbors into submission one by one without risking a major battle.

The Clausewitzian view of war is sympathetic to Communist China. Clausewitz points out that aggressors love peace! They prefer their opponents to submit without a fight. Xi Jinping & Co. are the epitome of aggressors. They strive to win with the minimum necessary force – without force if possible – and to minimize the dangers, costs and repercussions inherent in war. This, too, is nothing new in China’s style of diplomacy and war. The founder of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, paid homage to Clausewitz, but with a twist. After reflecting on the relationship between war and politics, Mao asserted that “politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.” In other words, the party wants to win. It will do so through laborious peace politics if possible, by force of arms if necessary.

By any means necessary.

The belligerent impulse permeates everything the party does, in peacetime and wartime alike. That is why Chinese commentators talk about waging “war without the smoke of guns” in the maritime region of Asia and use other catchy slogans. In that sense, it is certainly correct to conclude that China sees itself as being at war. And it is at war 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Think about the asymmetries with competitors that wish dearly not to be at war with China. Competitors like the Philippines or its ally America.

Sooner or later, there was bound to be an escalation in Southeast Asia. You don’t have to believe that China is pursuing a maritime insurgency to overthrow the regional order to see that it is using insurgent methods at sea. It has. So intelligence on insurgents and counterinsurgency applies.

The ultimate goal of any insurgency – by definition the weaker combatant – is to cease to be an insurgency. This requires a strategy of patience. A Maoist insurgency behaves strategically defensively while remaining outgunned by the opposing force. It harasses the ruling power’s army at the edges and weakens enemy forces while gathering resources and manpower. If defensive efforts are successful, the insurgency achieves strategic parity with the ruling power for a time. Warfare begins to take on an offensive coloration. Sustained success allows the insurgents to transition to a conventional counteroffensive and achieve a decisive victory on the battlefield.

Those who were once weak become strong – and triumph.

The brutal behavior of China’s naval forces of late may be a sign that China’s communist magnates have decided the time is ripe for an offensive. The balance of power favors them. If that is the case, the Chinese coast guard and other naval forces will use increasingly aggressive tactics. They are already on the brink between peace and war. They may press their advantage. In that case, it is appropriate for Southeast Asian states and their extra-regional allies and partners to accept the reality that a war mentality prevails in China – and consider what they are prepared to do should Beijing allow the situation to escalate further. Inaction will lead to defeat and disaster.

Apathy kills.

About the author: Dr. James Holmes

James Holmes is the JC Wylie Chair in Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation & Future Warfare at the Marine Corps University. The views expressed here are solely his own.