西班牙斗牛舞曲视频:China eyes naval track record? - Focus discus...

来源：百度文库编辑：九乡新闻网时间：2024/05/01 18:53:13

China eyes naval track record?

By James R. Holmes

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A South Korean Navy lieutenant approached me after my panel at Tufts University’s Sino-American Seminar earlier this month, at which I gave a rundown on the US force posture in Asia. His question: will China keep inveighing against US military operations in the Yellow Sea should tensions between North and South Korea subside? My answer: yes. Chinese aims at sea transcend any immediate contingency, on the Korean Peninsula or elsewhere in the Yellow, East China, or South China seas. Beijing is trying to establish a track record for opposing military activities it deems objectionable, in hopes that foreign navies will cease such activities along the Chinese maritime periphery.

This isn’t solely a legal question. Commentary on Chinese aspirations in the ‘near seas’ typically dwells on the legal dimension, and understandably so. Many seafaring states fear that Beijing wants to turn its exclusive economic zone into sovereign waters, in effect rewriting the rules of the international system to grant China a maritime preserve along its coastlines. Freedom of navigation would suffer. Such efforts to reinterpret the law of the sea certainly bear watching—and, if they persist, challenging—in the name of freedom of the seas. Surveillance, aircraft-carrier flight operations, and similar activities are clearly aboveboard, as Chinese interlocutors grudgingly admit when pressed.

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But there is precedent for a rising power claiming special prerogatives in its near seas as a matter of policy, not law per se. Look no further than US history. I refer of course to the Monroe Doctrine, the 1823 policy statement by which the United States forbade European empires to reassert control of newly independent Latin American states, either direct or indirect. When President James Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams announced their hands-off policy, the United States had little capacity to make good on it. Only a handful of frigates and lesser craft comprised the US Navy. But over time, as US national power surged, Washington built a navy strong enough to enforce the doctrine.

No European statesman accepted the Monroe Doctrine as law—Otto von Bismarck dismissed it as ‘insolent dogma,’ while Lord Salisbury reminded Washington that international law is not made through unilateral fiat—but Europeans ultimately had to concede that a well-armed, locally dominant United States could get its way in the New World.

Declining to challenge a unilateral policy, then, is tantamount to consenting to it. Which brings us back to China. China appears to be playing the role of the United States sometime in the nineteenth century, when Washington insisted on its hands-off policy but had not yet built a navy strong enough to enforce it. Similarly, by consistently lodging complaints about US Navy aircraft-carrier deployments to the Yellow Sea or maritime surveillance in the South China Sea, Beijing is establishing a track record of objecting to military activities in the near seas. As Chinese sea power matures, the Chinese leadership may assume a more forceful stance, just as the United States did by the 1890s.

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Does this add up to a Chinese Monroe Doctrine for maritime Asia? Not necessarily. But if its build-up of maritime strength—manifest in a powerful fleet supported by shore-based aircraft and missiles—bears fruit, China may ultimately get its way in the near seas. And it may do so even without carrying the day in legal forums. Consequently, the United States and fellow seafaring states like Japan and South Korea must keep conducting lawful operations in the near seas while voicing opposition to Chinese policy. Otherwise they may appear to acquiesce in Chinese primacy in these waters.

James Holmes is an associate professor of strategy at the US Naval War College. The views voiced here are his alone.

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Beijing is not pursuing some unwritten Monroe Doctrine

The architects of the Monroe Doctrine coveted American primacy in the Western Hemisphere. But unlike Chinese leaders today, they never dreamt of laying claim to waters that washed against their nation's shores, or of excluding foreign navies from these expanses. A rising China will never profess a similar doctrine or strong-arm its neighbors.

The Monroe Doctrine has no place in China’s foreign policy. China was trying to defend its own territory from outsiders, rather than playing a game of major power rivalry over other people’s territory.

China's strategy in Asia, the main purpose is not to make the Asia become Chinese people’ Asia, but to establish comprehensive partnerships with Asian countries. China's economic and political moves in Asia should not be linked to the Monroe Doctrine in any case.

China follows a path of peaceful development. It has never been, nor will ever be a bully to its neighbors, even if it becomes stronger in the future. Building good relations with its neighbors is a top priority for China’s foreign policy.

China is committed to handling territorial and maritime disputes with some of its neighbors in a responsible way, through dialogue and accommodation. It was the first to suggest the principle of “shelving disputes and going for common development”. China will continue to work for peace, stability and common development in Asia, which benefits all countries.

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