As Beijing flexes its muscles in the South China Sea, its frightened neighbors have been seeking our reassurance. Many have relied on America's protection for decades -- but now we're pointing at an international treaty that isn't even our law of the land.
Answering military aggression with legal mumbo-jumbo is weaker than bringing a knife to a gunfight.
China's rapid military buildup, in sharp contrast to fast-shrinking Pentagon budgets, worries a neighborhood that's used to our aircraft carriers patrolling their waters.
Reuters yesterday reported that Beijing is building two aircraft carriers of its own -- and quoted a spokesman for China's Defense Ministry as explaining that protecting the national waters is "the sacred responsibility of China's armed forces."
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Last show of US force? A fishing boat sails near the USS Chung Hoon, anchored in Vietnam last month. The warship was sent in reply to China's naval aggression, but now we're telling the region to rely on UN treaties.
But what Beijing deems its national waters includes a lot of space that others have long claimed. Who's to protect the maritime interests of Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan and others? China has aggressively taken over their fish-rich islands. And how about six countries that want to dig for oil, minerals and other deep sea commodities in South China Sea territories they claim as theirs? Beijing says it owns it all.
Meeting with her counterparts from all those nations in Indonesia last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on "all parties to clarify their claims in the South China Sea in terms consistent with customary international law."
That's a policy?
To be fair, there's no easy response to China's bullying. Do we go with détente, as President Obama's dovish advisers urge, or conduct some military maneuvers of our own to remind Beijing of our vast naval superiority, as the Pentagon's done in recent days?
But indecision, and reliance on "law" -- which Clinton's aides made plain means the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea -- is no answer.
The treaty's US opponents derisively dub it LOST and argue that it harms American interests and can't settle the kinds of maritime disputes it claims to address. Right or wrong, they're winning: The Senate has declined to ratify the treaty, so it has no force in American law.
Yet the Obama administration still tells our friends and foes that the UN convention is the basis of our regional policy. As The Washington Post delicately noted, this is an "irony that others pointed out in private to American officials."
Worse yet, all the players can't help but see that it's a thin cover for our lack of real policy. China will read it as a green light for more bullying -- and its neighbors are already answering with their own tough talk.
Yesterday, military commanders from the region met in Hanoi, with some calling on the attending navies to unite against Chinese aggression. The risks of naval confrontation -- planned or not -- are rising.
Where's America when a bit of reassurance is needed to keep all heads cool? On the sidelines, waving meaningless UN treaties.
Worse yet, blind faith in the magic powers of international law and institutions has become an administration hallmark.
Having no real policy on Sudan or Libya, our diplomats enthusiastically endorse the referral of their leaders to the Hague-based International Criminal Court -- when we're not an ICC member.
Sorry: Global cooperation can be a fine tool in executing a national policy -- but it can't re place policy. Devising coherent principles so that friend and foe alike know where we stand may be difficult, but it's necessary. Waving around a treaty that our own lawmakers won't accept doesn't do it.
Too many jilted American allies worry that if our bilateral-defense agreements with them are tested, we'd renege on our responsibilities.
If the Obama administration aspires to turn us into an aloof global player striving for neutrality and spewing hot air when real world leadership is needed, well, that role is already taken by the sclerotic institution in Turtle Bay. beavni@gmail.com
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