國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
the development of the COC or even avoid its implementation. In fact, as Chinese
Foreign minister mentioned, China is in no hurry to conclude an agreement on a COC
(Thayer, 2013). Thus, even when the COC will be one of the most important
advancement in managing the SCS dispute, we consider that firstly it is necessary to
implement faster and less complicate measures to improve the situation in the region,
as for instance measures that provide absolute gains to all the actors involved.
To sum up, the legal approach will be useful, but just after focusing in less sensitive
issues that can prepare the path to discuss sovereignty and resources disputes.
Examples of these issues are in the field of non-traditional security in SCS, as they
affect all the actors involved making them to have a common interest in solving the
problem.
1.3.3 Energy and Non-traditional Security Approach
The academic literature also presents a more recent approach to the SCS issue focus
on energy and non-traditional security. The main idea is that non-traditional security
threats can damage energy and trade imports of littoral states, as well as those of
states with interest in the region. Ho (2006), argues that these kinds of threats have
been overstated due to the number of piracy armed robbery and maritime terrorist
25
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
attacks in the SCS region are very low compared with the proportion of ships that
cross the straits (60,000 yearly). Moreover, this author also presents different national,
bilateral, and multilateral measures that have decreased the risk of piracy attacks.
Despite of these remarks, he concludes that the trade flow and the demand for energy
in the region will increase the dependence on sea transportation, and thus proposes
that countries should move to a cooperative regime in order to strengthen the security
of the SLOCs (Ho, 2006).
In a similar approach, Gautam (2014) shows how Chinese energy policy is concerned
with its dependence on oil imports that can threat its national security. Thus, in order
to achieve energy security, it has been supporting a strategy based on increasing its oil
imports through pipelines, its number of oil tankers, as well as on the development of
a deep blue water fleet that can provide support to its vessels operating far from
Chinese shores. In spite of its efforts, at present pipelines only provide 14% of
Chinese oil import demand; therefore, they only help to diversify its energy imports,
which will still concentrate on sea lines routes.
Although China could rely on the oil global market to protect its imports, it prefers to
26
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
keep developing its military to provide protection to its oil tankers (Gautam, 2011),
which, on the other hand, will cause concerns in other states in the region, especially
those involved in sovereignty disputes with China in the SCS.
From our point of view, we also agree with many of these opinions, and thus we
believe that the approach for managing the SCS issue should be one based on the
energy concerns of the states involved, not with the aim of initiating cooperation on
joint resources development from the beginning, but, firstly, cooperation on joint
protection of sea lines of communication (SLOCs) to allow the flow of trade and
energy without impediments.
In conclusion, the strategic and international politics approach highlights the
importance of military buildups in the region and alliances to maintain disputants’
claims, and to consolidate their positions. However, it can create more tense situations
between different actors, especially if external actors get involved in the issue, which
can cause a more aggressive response from China.
The legal approach pretends to determine and clarify disputants’ claims in order to
initiate a legal process base on International law and UNCLOS legislation. Although
27
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
it will be an important advance in the issue, however China prefers to negotiate the
issue bilaterally, not through an arbitration tribunal. Moreover, even when the
development of a COC will proof useful to decrease tensions in SCS, China will not
accept it as a mean to solve the sovereignty issue, and will still prefer to negotiate
with each disputant and not with ASEAN as a whole.
Both, the legal and the strategic and international politics approach, propose joint
development of SCS resources as a way to move forward in the dispute. We agree it
will be an important advancement in the issue, but we also consider that a more
cautious approach is needed, one in which cooperation starts from less sensitive issues,
for instance SLOCs protection.
The energy and non-traditional security approach is basically concerned with
guarantee energy supplies, mainly oil and gas imports by sea, and with the
non-traditional security threats that can cut this energy imports to Asian countries.
Initiatives that tackle these problems will be easier to agree on due to they focus on
securing the SLOCs, commons that can be used by all the stakeholders in the region,
which implies all of them have a general interest in increasing their protection, this
will make states’ participation synergic, and will produce a win-win situation based on
28
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
absolute gains that will be better accepted than agreements on relative gains, which in
the case of sovereignty and resources in SCS implies dividing the benefits among the
disputants.
In sum, we consider this approach the less controversial because it does not deal
directly with sovereignty or resources in situ, but with the protection of commons,
which is something all states with interest in the region are concerned with. Therefore,
the energy and non-traditional security approach is the one we decided to apply
during this research.
29
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Chapter 2. Research Design and Methodology