As much as possible, the Obama administration is trying to convene a regional coalition of the willing to rein in Chinese maritime assertiveness. Nonetheless, it is only the United States that has the capacity for deploying a swift and decisive response. The ASEAN is still divided on the issue of joint patrols, which have been vehemently opposed by China, while top Japanese defense officials admit they are still “fully occupied with patrolling Japanese territory [Senkaku/Diaoyu islands].” Therefore, any Japan operation in the South China Sea “presents difficult challenges in terms of equipment and staffing.”

This means the United States will have to move ahead with necessary counter-provocation operations just as it did during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, when it deployed two aircraft carrier battle groups to keep Chinese territorial ambitions in check. Given China’s rapid military modernization since the mid-1990s, this will by no means be easy. At the very least, however, the United States will have to preemptively identify any ADIZ in the South China as a “redline,” augment the naval and coast guard capabilities of its allies, and negotiate necessary Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) to ensure the further crowding of the contested features will not lead to an outright conflict. The South China Sea crisis could very well define Obama’s foreign policy legacy.  

Richard Javad Heydarian is an Assistant Professor in international affairs and political science at De La Salle University, and has served as a foreign policy advisor at the Philippine House of Representatives (2009-2015). As a specialist on Asian geopolitics and economic affairs, he has written for or interviewed by Al Jazeera, Asia Times, BBC, Bloomberg, Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The Diplomat, The National Interest, and USA TODAY, among other leading international publications. He is the author of How Capitalism Failed the Arab World: The Economic Roots and Precarious Future of the Middle East Uprisings, and the forthcoming book Asia’s New Battlefield: US, China, and the Struggle for the Western Pacific. You can follow him on Twitter:@Richeydarian.

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