Dr Carla Freeman
KOTA KINABALU: Dr Carla Freeman, the director of John Hopkins Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, United States of America, has expressed hope for Asean to work harder to develop a coherent position on the issue involving China’s development in the South China Sea.
She is of opinion that there should at least be a coherent position by Asean on how to move forward including pressuring China for a time table on the Code of Conduct which was mooted years ago.
Dr Carla who is also the School of Advanced International Studies’ Associated Research Professor, China Studies is of the opinion that the link between domestic interest and this international situation in the South China Sea needs to be made more clear.
This is because what is happening has also caused increased militarisation around the region.
“I think looking at data on military expenditures arising around the region as a percentage of the GDP, that obviously takes away from development priorities.
To the question of whether China would be willing to see the issue settled, Dr Carla replied: “Given the expansiveness of its claims, if it were to negotiate a settlement, it would have to compromise.”
China has been quite adamant about its claims but it has not actually said that it claims all of the waters and maybe that ambiguity leaves some room for negotiation because China has also stressed that it is committed to peace and peaceful development in the region, she pointed out.
“So maybe there is space for negotiations and some optimism although they do expect China to react negatively to the Philippine arbitration if it indeed works out the way we expect and rules against China’s claims, have argued that perhaps that could be an opportunity for negotiations.
“Once that finding is out for the international community to react, perhaps that will catalyse negotiations,” she said.
“At least China has made it very clear that it wants to negotiate bilaterally with countries and work on an agreement to manage stability in the region multi-laterally.
“Although China has implemented a series of a well-organised series of manoeuvre to assert its claims that does not mean that it will not be willing to negotiate as all countries in the region are extremely important to China economically,” she said.
Dr Carla said one of the positive characteristics of the region and regional governments here is that they have a lot of pragmatic people and what is needed is a will to find a way.
“The region is capable of finding a way forward.
“I think China is asserting its claims and would like the situation to work out to its full advantage but I think it also recognises that it has to work with its neighbours and it is not helpful to its global ambitions to have a lot of tensions in its immediate region.
“I think there is a way to negotiate with China-one possibility would be that everyone agrees to return to what was Deng Xiao Ping’s policy of setting aside disputes for a joint development and essentially what all countries could agree to disagree about their claims and say that do not renounce their claims but they would not try to acquire any additional features in the sea.
“But they would hold on to the maritime features they have. And then they would agree to jointly develop the maritime resources.
“So that might be one way to move forward. My hope is that pragmatism prevails,” she said.
When asked to describe the worst case scenario that could happen, Dr Carla pointed out that it was a tense situation in the area.
“And because not only do you have disputes among regional claimants, you also have a US presence in the region and the US and China are facing off on the principle of Freedom of Navigation.
“You have a situation where it is possible that there could be a collision or some other error in judgement that lead to some loss of lives involving claimants in China or China and US and that could ratchet up tensions to a point that risks conflict.
“There have been some efforts between the US and China to establish rule of the game in terms of encounter at sea,” she said adding that China needs to be very careful about how they seek to enforce their claims and their principle about what’s possible for other countries to do in the EEZs.
“That is another area the region can work on, that is to improve management of these encounters at sea; maybe do joint drills to diminish the prospects of an accidental collision or loss of lives that could lead to conflict,” she said.