China is trying to dominate the South China Sea while Biden’s administration does little

Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to be betting that America’s entanglement in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East is sapping its military capacity and political resolve to credibly push back against his aggressive expansionism in Asia — including in the South China Sea, through which one-third of global shipping passes.

Yet, in dealing with China, the Biden administration still prioritizes diplomacy over deterrence. Indeed, as part of its effort to smooth over tensions with Beijing and stabilize the bilateral relationship, the White House said that Biden plans to speak with Xi over the phone in “coming weeks.” That statement followed the China visit last month of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who says Biden and Xi may also meet in person before the year end.

China, meanwhile, has stepped up aggressive actions against the Philippines, which has a longstanding mutual defense treaty with the U.S. The 1951 treaty incorporates America’s “ironclad commitment,” as Sullivan acknowledged, to defend the Philippines.

But that commitment has not deterred China from stepping up its provocations in the South China Sea, including ramming Philippine coast guard ships and using flares and water cannons against them, as well as blocking resupply missions and making unsafe intercepts within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. Newer Chinese coast guard ships have specially designed features to enable “shouldering,” or deliberate ramming.

Chinese expansionism has stoked rising tensions with several other states. China’s furtive territorial encroachments on some Indian borderlands have resulted in a tense military standoff with India for more than four years, with both sides building up forces along their long Himalayan frontier as if preparing for possible war.

In the East China Sea, China’s increasing challenge to Japanese control of the Senkaku Islands is spurring Japan toward rearmament, as it nearly doubles its defense budget. A day before Sullivan reached Beijing, a Chinese military spy plane intruded into Japanese airspace near the Danjo Islands. Tokyo called it “not only a serious violation of Japan’s sovereignty but also…utterly unacceptable.”

As for Taiwan, which has a near-monopoly on the global output of advanced semiconductors, China seems determined to annex that thriving democracy and gain a stranglehold over the international supply of cutting-edge chips. When Sullivan met with China’s most senior uniformed military official, Zhang Youxia, he was bluntly told that Taiwan is at “the heart of China’s core interests” and that promoting “reunification” is “the mission and duty” of the Chinese military.

In the South China Sea — which is 50 percent bigger than the Mediterranean Sea — China’s aggressive sea tactics pose a pressing challenge for the U.S. Chinese expansionism, after changing the geopolitical map of this corridor between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, is now seeking to cement China’s ascendancy there.

This is triggering dangerous incidents. Chinese brinkmanship risks triggering a major South China Sea crisis, especially as China seeks to enforce its will by employing increasingly perilous maneuvers to intimidate and coerce the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and other claimant states.

More fundamentally, China is working to create a sphere of influence, extending from Japan to India, detrimental to the interests of America and its allies and strategic partners. Such a sphere would not only threaten freedom of navigation in the South China Sea but also allow China to effectively supplant the U.S. as the dominant force in Asia.

Yet the Biden administration seems concerned not so much with the long-term strategic implications of Beijing’s drive for domination, but rather with the possibility that U.S.-China relations could move in a more adversarial direction due to maritime incidents. This may explain why it remains wary of going beyond mere statements in support of the Philippines.

Indeed, Sullivan has called for “de-escalation,” saying the administration will continue to discuss ways to ease tensions with Chinese and Filipino officials and adding, “we will do our best to try to contribute to managing this issue in a responsible way so that de-escalation is the order of the day.”

But de-escalation in the South China Sea (or, for that matter, in the Taiwan Strait) is the last thing Xi has on his mind.

Policy choices to counter China’s drive to dominate the South China Sea have become increasingly challenging, largely because three successive American administrations have failed to mount a sustained pushback. Instead, the U.S. has essentially relied on rhetoric and symbolic actions.

Xi began incrementally changing the facts in the South China Sea right after becoming the Communist Party boss in 2012. On former President Barack Obama’s watch, the U.S. did little as China seized control of the Scarborough Shoal — a traditional Philippine fishing ground — and then launched a major land reclamation program in the South China Sea, building seven artificial islands that it later turned into forward operating bases.

After a 2016 international tribunal ruling invalidated China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, Chinese expansionism only accelerated, underscoring its open contempt for international law.

More recently, China has intensified its bullying of smaller neighbors. But, after the November 2023 Biden-Xi summit in California, China’s aggressive interference with U.S. and allied air and maritime transits has eased.

Biden keeps saying that the U.S. wants “competition with China but not conflict.” Yet Xi’s expansionist strategy is intrinsically conflictual. Although Taiwan remains the most likely cause of a major conventional war, the risk that a crisis in the South China Sea could escalate to an armed conflict involving the U.S. can hardly be discounted.

The South China Sea challenge is not just about disputes over small islets, rocks and reefs but about one power’s drive to gain hegemony in a critical corridor and impose a Sino-centric system upon the Indo-Pacific, a region that will shape the next global order.

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of nine books, including the award-winning “Water: Asia’s New Battleground.”