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 I recently attended a fascinating ASPI forum on developments in the South China Sea.

The forum came against the backdrop of the second round of arbitral tribunal hearings at The Hague on the Philippines’ historic case against China over the South China Sea. Any ruling by the tribunal on whether China’s nine-dash line is legitimate will have implications beyond the Philippines, especially on how other claimant countries deal with Beijing.

We heard a lot from four expert speakers about how the situation has recently deteriorated—caused by China’s extensive building of artificial islands and its more assertive posture—which has produced growing levels of distrust and rivalry between US and China.

We also heard several suggestions on how to deter China’s assertiveness, with discussion focused on the US Freedom of Navigation program—which law of the sea experts point out was poorly executed at the Subi Reef recently.

But apart from a reference to fisheries, we didn’t hear too much on how we might use greater cooperation in the South China Sea in areas like marine scientific research, search and rescue, and marine environmental protection to help defuse tensions.

A few years ago ASPI convened a conference on maritime confidence building measures in the South China Sea. I was a participant at the Sydney meeting. Australian and regional delegates concluded that little progress had been made on cooperation in the South China Sea. That’s despite that fact that, as several conference participants pointed out, cooperation is critical because of the volumes of shipping traffic, pressures on marine resources and environmental damage.

The Sydney meeting generally concluded that lack of trust between major powers and neighbouring countries was a key factor in explaining the lack of progress, along with concerns that cooperation might compromise sovereignty claims. The situation since the ASPI conference has only become worse.

At the same time the geography hasn’t changed; the South China Sea remains a semi-enclosed sea. To quote from the ASPI conference report (PDF), cooperation is a ‘specific and joint responsibility of countries adjacent to an enclosed or semi‑enclosed sea under the regime in UNCLOS Part IX’.

Three positive initiatives have, however, recently emerged that could serve to advance maritime cooperation in the South China Sea.

First, in 2014, China and the US signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Rules of Behaviour for Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters, which may over time cover coast guards.

Second, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting this year supported the establishment of an ASEAN Coast Guard Forum to address civil maritime cooperation.

And third, the US has established a Southeast Asia Maritime Law Enforcement Initiative to provide US$100 million of assistance to the coast guards and marine police of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam to support greater regional cooperation and coordination.

Key regional forums that deal with maritime security include the expanded ASEAN maritime forum (EAMF), the ASEAN Regional Forum inter-sessional meeting on maritime security, and the maritime security expert working group under the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus. However, none of those groups to date have really tackled maritime cooperation in the South China Sea.

But the EAMF, which includes all members of the East Asia Summit (EAS), and looks at the full spectrum of maritime issues, has now been given prominence in promoting maritime cooperation.

That’s clear when we examine the statement that came out of the EAS Summit in Kuala Lumpur on 22 November, ‘EAS Statement on Enhancing Regional Maritime Cooperation’ (PDF) that Australia co-sponsored with Indonesia, New Zealand and importantly with both China and the US.

The statement specifically endorses the EAMF as an effective platform to ‘constructively engage in open and substantive dialogue’. It encourages ASEAN to consider elevating the EAMF to include a dedicated Track 1 forum in addition to the 1.5 Track EAMF ‘on the basis of consultation and consensus among EAMF participating countries’.

This important EAS document emphasises blue economy issues: it’s focused on maritime cooperation generally, not harder maritime security cooperation. When it discusses ‘incidents at sea’, for example, it looks at search and rescue incidents.

As the EAS statement on maritime cooperation reminds us, in all the talk about increasing military presence in the region and the need for ‘trip wires’ in the South China Sea, we shouldn’t forget the need to focus on small ‘s’ maritime security, as opposed to harder military and political issues, as a means to reduce regional distrust.

Publications often view the South China Sea as a source of constant security tension whereas analysis of scientific cooperation in the region, on the other hand, is rare, thinly spread and short. However, scientific cooperation in maritime matters does exist; ‘collective research and knowledge’ is even considered by neighboring nations as a means of gathering together—a functional bridge—indispensable in de-politicalising reoccurring tensions. Disputes between parties continue to poison bilateral relations and negotiations on a Code of Conduct are tested by significant political questions while scientific programs link an extensive network of scientists and bureaucrats covering complex maritime questions, resource management and sharing a common interest for fragile ecological balances.

Scientific programs obviously serve the interests of both China and the Southeast Asian countries: areas of cooperation are numerous and the easiest ground to establish regional cooperation regimes. In this sense, collective scientific work or the adoption of functional standards could contribute towards defusing threatening attitudes.

The numerous projects initiated demand time (they run over several years) and a substantial financial investment. They can only start once all parties (including those currently in conflict) strike an agreement, to avoid risk to their smooth running. Chinese proposals are non-stop, at every level and in every domain. They cover a very wide scope of research from tectonics, currentology, sedimentology, marine geology to prospecting and exploration programs or fight against pollution and environmental warming.

Yet, as my ASPI Strategic Insight paper demonstrates, scientific cooperation endorses the reality of the relationship, which is that of ‘unequal interdependence’ or asymmetry. No effort equals in size nor in quality the one sustained by the Chinese. China is the main initiator, orchestrator and financial sponsor of regional scientific cooperation programs. As a country where the Science & Technology development model forms part of a more global strategy to validate its status as a powerful nation, China has actively supported research through the funding of institutes, universities’ programs, infrastructure and specialists education. President Xi Jinping is involved in the elaboration and supervision of different programs such as the state program for ocean development—2006 to 2020—or the five-year improvement plan for oceanic development. Scientific research is clearly viewed as an instrument of power more than a vector of cooperation (nevertheless a useful ‘façade’); in the domain of scientific cooperation, as in others, China plays on the weaknesses of its partners.

China-led scientific cooperation programs serve three aims: first, to control the data for the area to enhance all the options; second, to use research as a demonstration of power—the submarine Jialong is one such example; or third, to reaffirm Chinese sovereignty through the bias of holding on to selected scientific data. Scientific cooperation becomes a strategic asset and a tool that fits into the overall strategy for non-military coercion.

The evidence shows that China uses its rapidly developing scientific and military prowess in a synchronous timing to dissuade rivals, give credibility to its arguments and secure its regional space and supply routes. After 20 years of research programs in the South China Sea, the space is effectively starting to become well controlled. But this control isn’t really the product of scientific cooperation. It’s rather the result of China leading research programs and banging the drum. It’s therefore reasonable to question the link between the understanding of the maritime space that this research has enabled and its use for gaining power. Besides, scientific cooperation hasn’t reduced mistrust and facilitated the agreement on a Code of Conduct.

But China’s strategy of ambiguity is best illustrated by its reclamation activities. Not only has the construction of artificial islands been made possible under the guise of scientific cooperation (the Chinese started discretely with Fiery Cross, from 1988, when China participated in the construction of a marine observation station for UNESCO) but the dramatic bio-physical and geo-physical impact of such transformation, which extends well beyond the area, may be the most convincing argument that Beijing isn’t working for the ‘common good’ but looking only after its own ambitions.

In a recent oped (PDF) in The Australian I drew attention to China’s distant water fishing fleet; it’s now the world’s largest and is heavily subsidised. China’s rise as a fishing power is linked to its geopolitical aspirations (PDF).

The Chinese Bureau of Fisheries in the Ministry of Agriculture has a distant water fishing subdivision (PDF). China has extended its number of fisheries access agreements with coastal states.

More than half the catch is transported back to China, with high-value species sold abroad. China also plans to develop non-traditional fisheries such as Antarctic krill.

A third of China’s distant water fleet is composed of a large state-owned enterprise, the Chinese National Fisheries Corporation, and its subsidiaries. The rest of the industry is composed of regional middle-sized companies and small coastal companies.

China’s distant water fishing operations are rapidly expanding, and its fleets are rather poorly regulated. China uses its fishing fleets to create a strategic presence in both the East and South China Seas; this also helps China’s navy by developing knowledge of local conditions.

But China’s fishing fleet expansion offers opportunities for other states to cooperate with China on fishery matters. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, which produce 60% of the world tuna stocks. The latest fisheries stock assessment shows that the sustainability of some of the tuna stocks in the Pacific region are at risk.

China has aggressively increased vessel numbers in the region and those vessels remain largely based on the high seas. But it doesn’t have a great record of providing data that properly identifies species and attributes catch to the correct country of origin. (Japan, by contrast, continues to set a positive example to other distant water fishing nations licensed to operate in Pacific waters when it comes to regional compliance standards).

Australia can help China develop good data collection systems, especially electronic reporting systems.

Fisheries are one of the most significant renewable resources that Indian Ocean countries possess to secure food supplies, maintain livelihoods and assist economic growth. Indian Ocean fisheries produce around a third of the world‘s tuna and include the valuable southern bluefin tuna (SBT) fishery.

In the Indian Ocean, China has been rapidly expanding its tuna fishing, with poor reporting of catches. But regional fishing bodies in the Indian Ocean have only policy recommendation functions, meaning it’s up to the individual states to implement measures to manage fisheries effectively.

As an Indian Ocean littoral state we’ve got a direct interest in the sustainability of the region’s fisheries. The Indian Ocean contains the spawning area for southern bluefin tuna; our most valuable tuna fisheries have current exports of $150 million per annum.

China remains outside the SBT Commission and this presents a problem: China has a large number of boats fishing in areas where southern Bluefin tuna is caught. Studies of China’s markets have identified southern bluefin tuna present in this market. Australia should encourage China to accede to the SBT Convention and join the relevant fisheries management organisation—the Secretariat is in Canberra—as a full member.

More generally, we should encourage exchanges between Chinese fisheries’ scientists and our fisheries’ scientists and managers. We should include fisheries’ issues on the agenda of our annual high-level bilateral strategic dialogue, and use this to strengthen links with China in the Indo-Pacific.

The failings of the counter-strategies, raised in William Choong’s provocative piece on China’s successful South China Sea strategy, have been evident for quite some time but have been glossed over. The conventional approach to addressing this long-running maritime dispute is generally seen as a careful mix of balancing and negotiation, with balancing sometimes seen as a prerequisite for negotiations. William’s post highlights that while this approach may appear sensible, it isn’t working. In this, several aspects related to both strategy and China’s stance should be discussed.

First, a feature of strategy often overlooked is that it involves interaction between a range of intelligent and adaptive players. As Edward Luttwak discusses, strategy is paradoxical in that the same response from players doesn’t usually work a second time because the others have learnt from their experiences. Strategy involves interdependent relationships where each party continuously modifies their position, intent and actions, based on the perceptions and actions of the other participants. Game theorist Thomas Schelling (PDF) wrote that these interactions ‘are essentially bargaining situations…in which the ability of one participant to gain his ends is dependent…on the choices or decisions the other participant will make.’ The idea of strategy as an interactive social activity has been arguably neglected in the South China Sea imbroglio. Many policymakers have learnt their trade when attending overseas universities including in the US, UK and Australia. It’s not surprising that they crafted a strategy that carefully countered the conventional, traditional responses taught and espoused elsewhere.

Second, to be effective, a strategy must influence others in some meaningful way. In the current conventional approach there is a tendency to equate strategy with simply balancing ends and means. There is a strong implicit assumption that ‘balancing’ in the sense of changing the relative military power between nations will mysteriously lead to a change in China’s behaviour. But strategy is all about how the means will be used to achieve the desired ends. Strategy gives, as the academics say, a causal path. Viewing strategy in this way highlights two factors: that influencing another’s behaviour means finding something that they are sufficiently concerned about and that the proposed actions impacting this area of concern must be plausible. Threatening military action for example may not be credible if the matter is only a secondary, marginal issue. In the South China Sea case, no one has yet determined a course of action that China is either sufficiently bothered by or finds credible.

Third, a major reason that current responses have proved ineffective is that they’re unable to make meaningful linkages between different policy areas whereas China’s strategy is particularly successful at this aspect. The various responses by nations to Chinese demands are deliberately designed to avoid mixing island snatching concerns with other aspects of their dealings with China. For most nations, the South China Sea concerns are strictly quarantined from other parts of their relationships with China. The Chinese strategy is the mirror image. Linkages are played openly and brazenly. If you want to be part of the Chinse economic dream then you need to be careful what you say and do about the South China Sea issue. It is easy to see what happens if you don’t. The Philippines took their worries to the international court against Chinese advice and, as such, have paid an economic price.

What is the upshot of this clash of strategies? In short, if nothing changes, nothing changes. China is well on track to own the claimed nine-dashed line territory. It’s been careful to say that when this happens, it’ll allow freedom of navigation in China’s new territorial zone. Despite this, there have been some recent conditions appearing that indicate that the rules may not be as such for naval vessels. Closing the South China Sea would potentially geographically split ASEAN asunder. Vietnam would be the worst affected; becoming an almost land-locked nation with limited access to the sea. With ASEAN’s potential to develop into a global manufacturing hub, this could concern more than just the regional grouping.

We should also recognise that many in China feel strongly that taking the nine-dashed line territory is their right. In the early 1990s, shaken by the Tiananmen Square experience, the Chinese Communist Party promoted a nationalist view of history and shaped the national education system accordingly. Today many have internalised this history that sees China having suffered a century of humiliation inflicted by outsiders and view the South China Sea dispute through this lens. How claiming territory from the Philippines or Vietnam addresses this appears somewhat inexplicable, but great powers are often accused of cognitive dissonance—and some argue the US is also suffering from this.

To return to where we started, William’s post nicely outlined the success of China’s strategy. Can other nations’ respond in a meaningful way with their own strategies? Given recent troubles in devising a successful strategy for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the prognosis may not be good.

We woke up to media news this morning that US B-1 strategic bombers would be ‘coming to Australia to deter Beijing’s South China Sea ambitions’. This referred to a statement made by US Defence Department Assistant Secretary for Asian and Pacific Security, David Shear, during a testimony before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. As part of his answer as to what the government was doing in response to China’s assertive behaviour in the South China Sea, Shear also stated that the US ‘will be placing additional Air Force assets in Australia as well’, including B-1 bombers and surveillance aircraft. However, a statement by a spokesperson for Defence Minister Kevin Andrews said that the ‘US Government has contacted us to advise that the official misspoke.’ Thus, the US Embassy in Canberra is likely to correct Shear’s statement.

There is indeed no reason to doubt that Shear simply confused the B-1 bomber with the B-52 bombers which have already rotated (as opposed to being ‘based’ there) through our air bases in the North, as part of the US ‘strategic rebalance’ and the US-Australia force posture initiatives agreed upon in 2011 to make US forward military presence in Asia more flexible and sustainable. His full answer to the question merely lists US force posture activities in the broader region that the US has already announced or implemented. This includes for instance the rotational deployment of up to four Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs) by 2018 through Singapore. It also would have been counterproductive for the US government to make a unilateral announcement without first having cleared the deployment with the Australian side. Finally, it’s difficult to see what the rotational deployment of a strategic bomber would do to deter China’s current maritime activities in the South China Sea, particular its land reclamation projects in disputed areas.

For all these reasons, the big news is ‘much ado about nothing’, triggered by Shear’s confusion between the two types of strategic bombers in the US arsenal. The real news is that the issue over China’s behaviour in the South China Sea is heating up. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter is reportedly considering sending US warships and aircraft to operate within 12 miles or less of the new islands China is building in the South China Sea. Early this week, the PLA frigate Yancheng also closely trailed the USS Forth Worth (LCS) operating in the Spratly Islands. China’s uncompromising behaviour to change the territorial status quo in the South China Sea increasingly puts pressure on its neighbours and other regional countries, including Australia, to formulate a response that practically demonstrates shared interests in unfettered access to the high seas.