I’ve been kicking around a new article on the Chinese buildup in the South China Sea since November but have never gotten around to completing it. Hopefully that will come later today as I have been able to clear the deck, so to speak, on a bunch of other projects. This post, however, will not be that. Although most definitely related, the opening remarks by the incoming Secretary of State and recent article in The Dispatch, deserve their own post. I do not think it can be stated clearly enough that incoming administration is facing some some serious headwinds in the competition with China. During yesterday’s confirmation hearings for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio clearly threw down the gauntlet in regards to China.
“Instead they have repressed and lied and cheated and hacked and stolen their way to global superpower status, and they have done so at our expense.” @marcorubio on
pic.twitter.com/DylJiFp8cm
— Luke de Pulford (@lukedepulford) January 15, 2025
You really should listen to Rubio’s entire opening statement. It is quite a remarkable rebuke of the foreign policy positions of the previous two decades. Here is another clip.
Marco Rubio says it was a “dangerous delusion” to believe “that all mankind was destined to abandon national sovereignty and national identity” to “instead become…citizens of the world.”
“The postwar global order is not just obsolete—it is now a weapon being used against us.” pic.twitter.com/McsoonQdT2
— Nate Hochman (@njhochman) January 15, 2025
Rubio’s comments during the confirmation hearing by themselves would not have generated a dedicated post. But as I was doom scrolling X, formerly know as Twitter, I stumbled across this:
The South China Sea Comes to a Boil—
“Manila now faces what amounts to a large-scale maritime occupation of its internationally recognized exclusive economic zone by a hostile imperial power [China].”
Must read @GordianKnotRay in @thedispatch (link below) pic.twitter.com/OHnbg4yUVi
— Ian Ellis (@ianellisjones) January 15, 2025
If you are on X and are not following Ian Ellis you really should reconsider your life choices. Every time I see a post from him, I stop to read it. The story Ellis is referring to, if you do not have or do not want to follow the thread is the latest from The Dispatch: The South China Sea Comes to a Boil. I highly recommend reading it in its entirety but here are some highlights.
China has repeatedly swarmed, blocked, and rammed Philippine ships while also deploying nonlethal but dangerous weapons such as lasers, water cannons, and long-range acoustic devices in a brazen attempt to stamp out Manila’s spirited resistance.
We have written plenty about China, its global ambitions, and the South China Sea before, for a starter’s kit you can go here, but I don’t want to get too bogged down in that and instead focus on the piece by Raymond Powell that Ellis highlighted instead. First some history. Again, from Powell:
Beijing’s claim to nearly all of the South China Sea extends back to the 1930s, when its official cartographers drew ambitious maps purporting to represent the Middle Kingdom’s broad conception of its “territory.” Because China had few seagoing vessels at the time, these maps relied on old British nautical charts and a national mythology that postulated a once-great maritime superpower.
Powell continues with his focus shifting to China’s Grey Zone activities:
While China gradually expanded its naval capabilities, however, it found innovative ways to press its expansionist agenda by exploiting the “gray zone”—that murky space short of war where an aggressor seizes the advantage over its adversaries while avoiding the costs of its aggression.
Opacity and deniability are the coin of the gray-zone realm, as they paralyze the adherents to the U.S.-championed “international rules-based order” by sowing uncertainty and discord among its risk-averse, consensus-seeking rules followers.
The recent Philippine response is what has really changed the situation and thrust the South China Sea into headlines across the globe. Again Powell:
This remarkable tactic of assertive transparency, led by the small but plucky Philippine Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, adopted a seek-and-photograph approach that broadcast Beijing’s mendacity in vivid color for all to see. The Philippine media, kept in the dark for six years under Duterte’s policy, leapt at the chance to come along and embed on their patrols.
I don’t want to quote the entire piece because you really should read the whole thing. It truly is your must read of the day. I do want to leave you with one last part:
The incoming Trump administration will need to recognize that the perception of weakness is catnip to an expansionist power, and China has proved itself no exception to this rule. The president-elect will need to decide how to support America’s treaty ally against what has become a full-scale maritime occupation by a hostile imperial power.
For Powell’s recommendations…you have to read the whole thing! But that leads us back to the top. Given Rubio’s comments above, if the South China Sea is already boiling, the comments and the hard stance by Rubio will push it to a frenzy.