We Asked an Expert if It's a Bad Idea for Australia to Challenge China’s New Islands in the South China Sea

For months, China has been piling rocks and dredged soil on top of reefs and islands in the South China Sea and using this reclaimed land to build military bases. As you can imagine, this is making the rest of the world a little bit uncomfortable.

About a fortnight back, Australia agreed to aid the US in challenging China's territorial claims. That means that if American warships start prowling the waters around these new bases, Australia would presumably offer support. But there's still a lot of ambiguity about what support will look like, or even what the US plans to do.

To find out, VICE caught up with Professor Hugh White, an expert on Asia-Pacific security issues and defense strategy with the Lowy Institute. He gave us his thoughts on Australia's efforts with the US, as well as some analysis of what might happen should it all go pear-shaped.

VICE: Hi Hugh, let's start with China's claim that these islands are theirs. Is this a legally valid argument?
Professor Hugh White: In international law there is nothing inherently wrong with China developing contested features that it occupies. A country that occupies land that is claimed by another country is entitled to develop it.

So what's the issue?
It's the fact China claims a 12-nautical-mile zone around some of these new features. China is entitled to claim 12-nautical-miles around islands that it occupies, even if that claim is contested. But some of these features they've built, for example off Fiery Cross Reef, don't count as islands or rocks. If they're submerged at high water than they count as reefs rather than rocks and under international law, they don't qualify for a 12-nautical-mile zone.

So to be clear, China claims 12 miles of Chinese territory around each new base and the US wants to challenge these claims. How will they do this?
This is very unclear at the moment. There are reports that Australia will not actually accompany the US through China's 12-nautical-mile claims. But if we did, one possibility is that the US will conduct a freedom of navigation transit with a coast guard vessel rather than a navy vessel. In Australia's case, we don't have that kind of vessel so we might use a warship. But then the Chinese could accuse the US of militarizing the situation. The Chinese could say what we are doing is provocative— We are claimants to these islands and we occupy them. You are not even a claimant and you are sailing through our zones. That line wouldn't be absolutely unjustified.

Related: Watch our documentary on naval hardware, 'The Future of Amphibious Warfare'

Given this prospect, why are we keen to sail through the SCS?
Because in international law if a claim doesn't get contested, it becomes accepted. So, if we don't believe China is entitled to claim territory around islands built on reefs, then sailing through their 12-mile-zones demonstrates that we don't accept the claims.

Where does Australia sit in all this?
The problem for Australia is that we want to support US primacy but we don't want to find ourselves backing up a weak and ineffective US response and pissing off the Chinese. Although reports suggest a decision has already been made, I don't think this is right. Senior US officials, such as the Secretary for Defense speaking at the AUSMIN last week, are being very careful not to commit to a particular time and it's far from clear that the US have made a decision to go ahead. The chance of it ending well for the US is not high.

How will this affect our relationship with China?
You've got to pick your fights. My view is that this isn't the right place. The legal argument is too weak and it is too unlikely that we will have satisfactory outcome. You don't want to pick fights you're unlikely to win, and I don't think Australia and the US can win this one.

What will this mean for future disagreements between China and the West?
That's the big question. The big underlying issue here is that the US and China have different visions how they think things should work in Asia over the next few decades. America wants to keep the old system where they're in charge but the Chinese want to build what President Xi Jinping calls a new model of great power relations in Asia. This means China would be in charge, or at least that the US wouldn't.

Essentially the US and China have very different aims. Really mutually incompatible aims and unless both shift from their respective positions towards some sort of mutual accommodation we can expect the rivalry between the two will escalate. This whole scenario in the SCS is really just a symptom of a deeper rivalry. These islands are just chess pieces on a board.

So hypothetically speaking, if an American or Australian was attacked, what could we expect?
That's the challenge. The government would be faced with a limited number of very unattractive options. One is to return fire, in which case you're starting what could be an escalating conflict and no one knows where that'll end or who will win. Or you can sail away looking weak.

Either of those outcomes would be very bad for everyone. If China and the US find themselves in a shooting conflict there would be a significant risk of escalation. Most people would think it would be mad to allow for a small clash like that to escalate but once fighting starts it's very difficult for either side to back down. Although you'd hope sober thinking prevails, you wouldn't want to bet on it. Big wars have started from less.

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