Bharat Karnad analyses China’s strategy in the South China Sea, and proposes a regional military solution, leveraging the power of supersonic cruise missiles, to bring about a durable peace.
China has gone some ways to obtaining by force a mere closum (closed sea) in the waters off Southeast Asia without meeting any real resistance to date. The 11 July verdict of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague may have crimped Beijing’s plans but it has not weakened its resolve.
In this context “closed sea” refers to narrowing the marine trade route by creating mid-sea impediments that channelise sea-borne traffic, then controlling and commanding these sea lanes to serve China’s larger purpose of asserting its dominance in the region. But why should the “narrowing” of the South China Sea be a security concern? Firstly, more than a third of annual global trade, valued at over US $5 trillion, passes through the South China Sea. But also, as the naval historian Milan N. Vego predicts, “most naval actions in the future will most likely take place in relative proximity to the shores of the world’s continental landmass, in areas known as ‘littoral waters’, and part of a war in the littorals would take place in the waters of the enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, the popularly called ‘narrow seas’ ”.