US to Press China on Island Expansions

Obama administration hopes to isolate China on the issue

By Gordon Lubold and Jeremy Page

WASHINGTON—When Chinese President Xi Jinping meets Friday with President Barack Obama, one of the biggest security challenges faced by the White House will be persuading Beijing to stop its rapid expansion of islands in the South China Sea.

In Washington’s latest attempt to pressure Mr. Xi on the issue, Secretary of State John Kerry has persuaded other governments with claims in the region to agree to stop their own island development—as long as Beijing does.

Mr. Kerry’s diplomatic maneuvering is part of an Obama administration “name and shame” strategy, publicly calling out Beijing for claims that the U.S. says threaten a major trade route and create instability. The U.S. has opted for the diplomatic course over the one suggested by U.S. military commanders: more aggressively countering China by sending American aircraft or warships throughout the islands as a signal that Washington doesn’t recognize Beijing’s claims.

Instead, the Obama administration has turned to what the State Department calls “creative diplomacy” in turning up the heat on China by isolating them on the issue. Mr. Xi’s visit this week will determine if it will work.

Mr. Kerry has achieved assurances from the governments of Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, all so-called claimants to the natural and man-made islands known as the Spratlys, that they will stop reclamation work around features they control if Beijing agrees to stop expanding the islands and constructing facilities on them, according to U.S. officials. Brunei, another claimant, is also on board, but it doesn’t currently control any Spratlys land features.

“Each of the claimants have made clear that if China would make an undertaking to forgo further reclamation, forgo major construction and forgo the deployment of further offensive military to these outposts, for sure they would do likewise,” one official said. “The Chinese know that the diplomatic cost is getting higher and higher.”

There is no indication as yet that Beijing will be receptive to Washington’s diplomatic maneuver. The Chinese foreign minister last month said the U.S. effort was “not feasible,” but State Department officials said the issue remains in play. They hold out hope that Washington can get assurances from Mr. Xi personally to stop Beijing’s work in the South China Sea.

The five other claimants actually do little work in the South China Sea and aren’t considered a threat to the region’s security. China, however, now lays claim to more than 3,000 acres of landmass across the region and is seen by several of its neighbors as the biggest threat to stability.

The Chinese have built military barracks and have completed at least one 10,000-foot long airfield. The Pentagon said in August that China’s expansion of the islands was alarming: In May, Beijing had only about 2,000 acres; three months later, it had reclaimed about 2,900.

Beijing said in August that it had halted land reclamation within the South China Sea, but as of last week, U.S. military officials said there was no clear sign that the Chinese have halted construction on the islands and may still be expanding land features there.

Beijing says it has “undisputable sovereignty” over all the islands in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters and delineates its claims with a so-called nine-dash line stretching almost to the coast of Malaysian Borneo. China even has gone so far as to say that the English name of the South China Sea mean the islands belong to the Chinese, although its Chinese name is the SouthSea.

Adm. Harry Harris, the commander of U.S. Pacific Command, disagrees.

“The South China Sea is no more China’s than the Gulf of Mexico is Mexico’s,” Adm. Harris said during recent testimony in Washington.

China has remained obstinate in its position that it isn’t doing anything wrong. “China’s determination to safeguard its own sovereignty and territorial integrity is rock-hard and unquestionable,” a Chinese embassy spokesman said earlier this year.

And so far, there is little sign that President Xi, during his visit to Washington this week, will agree to stop expanding the islands. Mr. Kerry and other State and defense officials are expected to meet with Mr. Xi on Friday.

“Based on all of Beijing’s public statements, it’s highly unlikely that they are going to back away from their claims to the islands,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “But that doesn’t mean that they can’t agree to act with much more forbearance than we’ve seen in the last 18 months.”

Last year, the U.S. began to take a keen interest in Beijing’s construction in the Spratlys, where Beijing and other claimants use dredged material from the ocean floor to build artificial islands atop submerged reefs and rocks. Those land masses have been expanded enough to build a number of buildings and other facilities.

Beijing acknowledges that some of the islands have a military purpose, but for the most part the Chinese government contends the islands are for civilian purposes, including for disaster-response purposes, marine science and meteorological observation.

Washington views these claims warily. In May, The Wall Street Journal reported that two artillery pieces were placed on one island, Johnson Reef, underscoring suspicions that Beijing’s island-building campaign will threaten trade along one of the region’s busiest shipping corridors and endanger stability.

U.S. military commanders, including Adm. Harris, are inclined to advocate a more aggressive American posture in the Pacific by challenging Beijing’s claims through so-called freedom of navigation operations. Adm. Harris and other military officials have said they would like to fly U.S. military aircraft or navigate warships to within the 12-nautical-mile perimeter of the islands claimed by the Chinese.

So far, the White House has been reluctant to authorize such a plan. The U.S. hasn’t flown aircraft or navigated warships to within that 12-nautical-mile zone since 2012, a Pentagon official said earlier this month.

It is unclear why the U.S. stopped those operations at the time. But U.S. officials maintain that they remain one of their “policy options.” Some experts believe that if Mr. Kerry’s diplomatic push doesn’t work with Mr. Xi this week, the U.S. may more strongly consider that approach.

Adm. Harris was pressed on the matter when giving testimony on Sept. 17 by Sen. John McCain, (R., Ariz.) who has expressed dismay that the U.S. won’t conduct such operations in the South China Sea.

But Adm. Harris was quick to defer to his civilian overseers.

“I think that we must exercise our freedom of navigation throughout the region,” Adm. Harris said. “And part of my responsibilities…is to give options to the president and to the secretary, and those options are being considered, and we’ll execute—as directed by the president and the secretary.”

Last week, a group of Democratic and Republican House members sent a letter to Mr. Obama and Defense Secretary Ash Carter, demanding to know why the freedom of navigation operations hadn’t been pursued.

“China has repeatedly ignored the international community’s objections to its provocative behavior,” the letter said. “It is our belief that the Defense Department should act immediately to reaffirm the United States’ commitment to freedom of navigation and the rule of law.”