I\u2019d recently lamented in these pages that the Trump administration\u00a0needed to articulate a clear policy on the South China Sea disputes, or at least reiterate that nothing had changed on that front between administrations. This was especially necessary given Press Secretary Sean Spicer\u2019s muddying of the waters with an unclear answer on the subject when he was asked about it on January 24.
Now, Trump\u2019s defense secretary, Jim Mattis, has offered the first high-level official articulation of what appears to be a cogent set of priorities from the new U. S. administration on the South China Sea. Mattis addressed the subject when asked about it by a reporter at a joint press conference with his Japanese counterpart Tomomi Inada while in Tokyo on his first visit abroad, which also included a stop in Seoul.
The good news for regional states \u2014 but perhaps less so for China \u2014 is that U. S. policy toward the South China Sea appears to be unchanged for now.
Mattis noted that countries have \u201cwatched in the South China Sea, as China has shredded the trust of nations in the region, apparently trying to have a veto authority over the diplomatic and security and economic conditions of neighboring states.\u201d Mattis added that the \u201cpoint behind a rules-based international order\u201d was that countries don\u2019t settle disputes by \u201cmilitary means and occupying land that is subject to question.\u201d
While he didn\u2019t directly clarify that the United States would continue to hold to its old policy of not taking a position on the sovereignty of individual features, Mattis hinted that this policy would remain in place, noting that disputed features shouldn\u2019t be occupied, \u201cto say the least about who actually owns it, or is it international waters.\u201d
Critically, in what can be seen as a high-level repudiation of a proposal put forward by Trump\u2019s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, during his confirmation hearing, Mattis concluded that the United States did \u201cnot see any need for dramatic military moves at all.\u201d\u00a0Mattis added that the South China Sea was an\u00a0issue \u201cbest solved by the diplomats.\u201d
As I\u2019d discussed in January , Tillerson had suggested that the new administration would drastically depart with previous U. S. policy: \u201cWe\u2019re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed.\u201d
Limiting access to Chinese facilities in the South China Sea \u2014 specifically the seven artificial islands in the Spratly group \u2014 would require something akin to a \u201cdramatic military [move],\u201d which Mattis has ruled out for now.
Finally, Mattis drew attention to freedom of navigation in his remarks \u2014 the primary guiding principle behind the Obama administration\u2019s policy in the South China Sea (and of preceding administrations).
\u201cFreedom of navigation is absolute, and whether it be commercial shipping or our U. S. Navy, we will practice in international waters and transit international waters as appropriate,\u201d Mattis added.
While most of what Mattis had to say on the South China Sea will sound familiar to observers of U. S. policy in the region, it\u2019s unclear if Mattis\u2019 implication that the military would take a backseat to diplomatic efforts signals a temporary freeze in the U. S. Navy\u2019s freedom of navigation program in the South China Sea.
The Obama administration conducted four freedom of navigation operations near disputed features claimed by China in the South China Sea since Beijing began its artificial island construction. The first of these operations took place in October 2015 and the most recent took place in November 2016.
Time will tell if Mattis\u2019 comment on leaving the South China Sea to the diplomats will bear on the U. S. Navy\u2019s freedom of navigation operations in the area, but if so, the Trump administration would be sending a conciliatory signal to Beijing, which had strongly criticized the operations as evidence of U. S. \u201cmilitarization\u201d in the South China Sea.
But here again, Mattis\u2019 wording may have been more careful and directed toward clarifying the uncertainty that Tillerson\u2019s confirmation hearing comments had wrought. After all, there was nothing about U. S. freedom of navigation operations, which targeted claims invalid under international law by all South China Sea claimant states, that would necessarily complicate U. S. diplomatic efforts.
The subtext here, thus, doesn\u2019t seem to be that freedom of navigation operations are off, but that the concerns sparked by Tillerson\u2019s confirmation hearing remark on denying China access to its islands can rest easy. Per Mattis, then, little has really changed about U. S. policy in the South China Sea policy for now.
The fact that Mattis did not unveil anything new on U. S. South China Sea policy explicitly while in Tokyo would go back to a point I raised in my discussion of Spicer\u2019s remarks on the matter, which is that the Trump administration simply hasn\u2019t gotten around to forming a coherent set of policies on Asia-Pacific security \u2014 a process where Mattis (and even Tillerson) may end up playing an entirely ancillary role , sidelined in favor of Trump\u2019s coterie of China hawks.
This is supported by the dearth of any significant policy moves with regard to U. S. policy toward China more broadly in the first two weeks of the Trump administration. So, while U. S. allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific may sigh a temporary breath of relief from Mattis\u2019 reassurances of continuity across administrations in South China Sea policy, a radical change in approach may still loom around the corner.<\/p>\n