Andrew S. Erickson

Andrew S. Erickson, “China’s South China Sea Approach: Maritime Gray Zone Operations,” presentation for “Threat Assessment of the PRC South China Sea Policy,” East-West Center webinar with Indonesian Journalists via Zoom, 8 June 2021.

Honored to participate in this great event organized by Vice President and Washington Office Director Dr. Satu Limaye and his East-West Center Colleagues; together with Dr. Evan Laksmana, CSIS, professional translator Barastro Waseso, and over three dozen Indonesian journalists. My presentation focused on China’s maritime gray zone operations in the South China Sea and the forces it uses for such operations: the Coast Guard and Maritime Militia. Since the Maritime Militia remains the least known of its major sea forces, but for many operations is in fact Beijing’s force of choice, I primarily addressed the Maritime Militia (Milisi Maritim).

Indonesian journalists who participated in the webinar—and asked excellent questions—produced a total of 36 articles in Indonesian publications whose readership totals 16,064,125. (Tabulated below.)

Here’s a 37^th article, in English:

Dian Septiari, “ASEAN, China to Resume South China Sea COC Talk in July,” The Jakarta Post, 12 June 2021.

The negotiation between ASEAN and China on the Code of Conduct (COC) for the South China Sea is set to resume next month in Jakarta, though officials from both parties doubt the talks will finish by the expected timeframe of the end of this year.  The year-long pause has made the three-year target proposed by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2018 increasingly impossible to achieve, as negotiators must pick up where they left off. The last meeting on the COC was held in 2019. But China’s ambassador to ASEAN, Deng Xijun, said recently that senior officials from both sides had agreed to catch up on talks. Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) researcher Evan A. Laksmana argued that both parties should prioritize producing a high-quality COC over disputes in the South China Sea. “Conducting the negotiations better and eventually coming out with a high-quality guideline is more important than rushing through some artificial timeline proposed by China,” Evan said in a recent webinar. Evan said Indonesia had to be more forceful in shaping a high-quality COC document. He suggested that Indonesia develop and expand its relationship with neighboring countries, such as Vietnam and Malaysia, to find a common position and security relationship that will help in the negotiation process. For the Code of Conduct to be more effective, it should prohibit any kind of coercive maritime militia, which China has employed across the South China Sea, United States Naval War College’s Andrew Erickson suggested.