A young man carries the flag of newly independent South Sudan in the capital city of Juba, July 9, 2011 (Steve Evans)

China is still reluctant to intervene in the border dispute in Sudan. An $8 billion loan that was committed by Beijing has yet to be made to South Sudan while Chinese officials rejected a proposal to finance the construction of a pipeline in the South.

Newly independent South Sudan’s central bank governor, Kornelio Koriom Mayik, told the Financial Times that only a fraction of the money promised by China has arrived yet.

The South Sudanese had hoped that China would help them build a pipeline through east Africa so they won’t have to use export infrastructure in the north anymore. Khartoum confiscated South Sudanese oil sales in January of this year to make up for what it said where unpaid transit fees.

According to Mayik, “The Chinese didn’t agree to build a new pipeline. They said ‘we built one [in the north already], you use it’.”

China has made billions worth of investments on both sides of the border but in the escalating conflict between the two Sudans, it may be forced to pick sides.

South Sudan’s minister in charge of reconciliation urged China in May to play “a more active role” to help resolve disputes over borders and oil exports. “By trying to move away from Khartoum so as to get closer to South Sudan and trying not to get too close to South Sudan so as not to cause displeasure to Khartoum—neither Khartoum nor Juba will be happy with China,” said Pagan Amum Okech.

South Sudan declared independence last year after decades of war with the north. Despite a 2005 peace deal, possession of oil reserves which are situated near the border remains a source of contention. As recently as last month, hostilities broke out again with north Sudanese air forces reportedly bombing oil fields and the South attacking a border town.

Land locked South Sudan has two thirds of the former unified Sudan’s oil output but needs access to northern pipelines and port facilities to sell overseas. South Sudan pumps around 350,000 barrels per day, according to government data. The north needs the entirety of its oil production, some 115,000 barrels per day, to meet domestic demand. The Chinese have to maintain stable relations with both governments if they are to continue buying Sudanese oil.

President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea (Reuters/Petar Kujundzic)

On Monday, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak visited Myanmar and promised to extend loans and grants to the poverty stricken country.

The surprise visit came as Japan and South Korea have stepped up their diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia over the last month, which, in turn, comes on the heels of closer engagement by the United States since 2009.

This stems not only from a desire to gain access to the region’s natural resources but more importantly, to bolster their soft power in the Mekong region, an area that is becoming increasingly important as concerns persist about Chinese foreign policy amid the rapid modernization of the People’s Liberation Army. However, while the Mekong countries are interested in the economic and political benefits from closer relations with the United States, they are mindful of the risk of antagonizing China.

The Mekong countries include Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, even though the Mekong River begins on the Tibetan Plateau in China’s Yunnan Province where it is known as the Lancang River. The Mekong is revered by the locals and is considered the lifeblood of Southeast Asia with an estimated sixty million people dependant on it for food, water and transportation.

Lee’s visit to Myanmar, the first by a South Korean president in twenty-nine years, came after a regional summit in Thailand last week where South Korea promised to double its development aid to the Mekong region by 2015. During a summit in April, Japan pledged ¥600 billion ($7.4 billion) in aid, which was a renewal of a prior commitment of ¥500 billion that expired this year. Japan also wrote off half of the ¥500 billion ($6 billion) in debt that Myanmar owed it.

The United States jump started their engagement back in 2009 with the Lower Mekong Initiative, targeting Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam with increased development aid. Washington also began lifting sanctions on Myanmar when it adopted political reforms and held what was considered by observers a mostly free and fair election in April.

Myanmar was cut off from Western investment and international aid for the last thirty years while it was under military rule which gave China virtually free rein over the country’s resources.

The Americans have also taken more overt measures to demonstrate their presence in the region. Last month, the United States held noncombat maritime exercises with the Vietnamese navy and military maneuvers with the Philippines.

There is still tension between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal and between China and Vietnam, which have a dispute over the Paracel Islands, in addition to the other disputes with nations fronting the South China Sea.

The governments in the Mekong region are faced with a delicate balancing act. While they are open to greater engagement with the United States and their allies due to concerns over China’s rise, they are careful not to embrace them too tight and alienate the Chinese.

China’s long term security plans in the region are often vague and cloaked in secrecy. On top of the lack of transparency, China has refused to submit to a multilateral forum for negotiations with its neighbors over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Instead, it remains firm in demanding bilateral talks, fueling suspicion that it prefers this as a way to exercise leverage over smaller countries for a more favorable outcome for itself.

Complicating matters for a negotiated outcome to these disputes is that governments have often resorted to using the issue to stoke nationalism in their countries to rally support for the government, making it harder for them to compromise now.

Given the strategic uncertainty and the fear of being bullied, Mekong countries share an interest with the United States in balancing China’s presence in the region. The Obama Administration’s much heralded Asian “pivot” is clear evidence of the importance which the Americans attach to Asia, a part of the world it has identified as strategically vital to the United States in the twenty-first century.

The administration’s dual approach is to reassure nervous allies about American staying power in Asia and to balance China’s rising power.

The distrust, lack of transparency and outstanding territorial disagreements between China and its neighbors means that relations in Southeast Asia will remain unsettled and vulnerable to flareups. Going forward, given their size and location, the Mekong countries will remain in the difficult position of trying to accommodate both sides, while staying out of what is shaping up to be a wary relationship between China and the United States.

President Richard Nixon and Chinese premier Zhou Enlai toast at a banquet during Nixon's visit to China, February 25, 1972

When President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger opened up relations with China in the 1970s, it was done in the context of needing a new lever in the Cold War, especially when the United States was still mired in Vietnam. The goal was for the United States to be closer to both China and the Soviet Union than either was to each other and to be able to swing back and forth between the two powers as needed depending on what the exigencies of the balance of power dictated.

At that time, China was clearly the lesser power and required bolstering. The time for the United States to consider an inversion of that policy may soon become ripe.

The strategic environment today is vastly different than when Nixon met Mao. The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more and China is rapidly ascending to the position of a global superpower. Under these conditions, the United States are struggling to manage a multiplicity of strategic interests in every major region of the world. Paramount among those are relations with China.

While no one disputes outgoing World Bank President Robert Zoellick’s statement that it would be advantageous for China to become a “responsible stakeholder” in global affairs, the prospect of this not happening means that the United States need additional levers to balance against China in the soon to be economically dominant Asia.

The Obama Administration’s vaunted “pivot” shows Washington’s recognition of this need. To fully embrace this strategy, though, the United States must secure its Western flank from instability. This means securing Europe.

Inconveniently for the United States as it seeks to shift its focus to Asia, the ongoing European fiscal crisis opens the door to all kinds of medium to long term challenges. It also opens the door for Russian mischief under the nationalistic president Vladimir Putin.

Left unattended and unresolved, the Russian question could become a significant enough distraction that the United States find themselves unable to be decisive in Asia.

To the extent that the Obama Administration realized building better relations with the Russians would be essential for European stability, it should be commended. Yet, its much vaunted “reset” looks set to run aground as Putin reassumes his undisputed position on the top of the Kremlin’s power pyramid.

This can be confirmed from recent news of Russian threats of preemption against NATO missile defense sites in Europe. If the United States are not to be squeezed by a perennially dissatisfied Russia in Central Asia and Eastern Europe while trying to deal with China, they are going to have to move beyond the “reset” and seek a more comprehensive engagement.

This entails opening the door to a legitimate and wide ranging understanding with Russia that can finally deal with the lingering aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and President Putin’s taste for revanchism.

Discarding the mere symbolism of the “reset,” the United States should consider a broader and deeper outreach to Russia in order to pull it into a far less bellicose attitude vis-à-vis the West. In essence, much as Nixon and Kissinger sought the “dragon” to balance against the stronger “bear,” the United States must consider the reverse.

Doing so could minimize Russian aggression toward Europe. Even more important, having Russia ensconced in the West will offer the United States an additional lever it can employ to force China to divert its military focus from Asia.

Such a move could also expand the economic base of the West by capturing the huge hydrocarbon wealth of both Russia and Central Asia while having more ability to squeeze China’s energy supply if it is ever seen as necessary due to geopolitical tensions with the Middle Kingdom.

Such a policy has many possible pitfalls.

First, distrust pervades Western and, particularly, NATO relations with Russia. Moscow continues to believe that NATO expansion in Central and Eastern Europe violates promises made in the George H.W. Bush Administration and during the immediate aftermath of the Soviet implosion. It is essential to address this substantively, through mechanisms such as American support for NATO opening missile defense cooperation to Russia rather than insisting on two separate systems.

In addition, the United States should reduce funding to nongovernmental organizations in critical countries such as Ukraine and Georgia and quietly move from supporting the mercurial Mikheil Saakashvili.

The United States should also encourage President Putin’s push for a “Eurasian Union.” This would entail the United States no longer hectoring Russia over the slow pace of political reform. By contrast, it should simply argue for an “eventual transition to genuine multiparty democracy founded on generally liberal principles.”

Other policy options over the longer term could include an expansion of a free trade zone to encompass not only the traditional “transatlantic” partnership with the European Union but also an eventual “Eurasian Union.”

Finally, a real invitation for Russia to join NATO should eventually be considered but not made contingent upon the domestic political evolution of the Russian state.

Fundamentally, this is about changing Lord Ismay’s comments on NATO and changing its raison d’être from “keeping the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down” to “keeping both the Americans and Russians in and the rest of Europe quiet” while Asia rises.

In light of current headlines, these policy proposals seem fanciful. Yet, it is important to recollect the arc of Russian history.

Russia has long been torn between its desire enter a more Western orbit, something Russian modernizers since Peter the Great have desired, and its Byzantine based Orthodox Christian heritage, as well as a tendency towards “Oriental Despotism” as inherited from its time under the Mongol Yoke.

With its current demographic challenges and the return to great power status of multiple Asian states, Russia faces several choices: attempt to compete with China and maintain an independent pole of power based on Central Asia, embrace China and become a junior partner, or join the West. Each of those options appeals to one of Russia’s historical self images while also raising fears in certain segments of Russian society.

The jury is out as to which direction Russia will ultimately choose. It is up to the United States to incentivize Russia to make the final decision of tilting toward the West, which will also enable it to more fully realize its Central Asian goals.

A new global reality demands creativity and flexibility as opposed to rigidity. Moving to bring Russia into the West could be the most dramatic diplomatic move in a generation. Such a policy clearly runs against many American traditions. Yet, so did the Nixon policy when he traveled to Beijing in 1972. That move is now considered a powerful triumph.

Premier Wen Jiabao of China attends the National People's Congress in Beijing, March 5 (Xinhua)

March’s ouster of Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai from the center of Chinese power is proving to be an opportunity for reformist premier Wen Jiabao and his allies to sideline their hardliner rivals.

Before Bo, a local Communist Party boss who was on track to join the Politburo’s Standing Committee, composed of the nine most powerful party leaders, was purged two months ago for alleged abuses of power, five of his allies were expected to be elevated to the Central Military Commission, the body that controls the army. That number is presumed to have dropped to three or four.

In Beijing, there is a rough divide between liberals who favor a more open economy and China’s “peaceful rise” as a superpower and hardliners who adhere more closely to Communist Party orthodoxy and suspect that the United States are conniving with other East Asian countries to contain China.

President Hu Jintao is believed to be in the former camp as is his likely successor, Xi Jinping, currently the Central Military Commission’s vice president. Their views are less pronounced that Wen Jiabao’s however.

Given the consensus building nature of China’s leadership, Hu and Xi cannot afford to take too firm a position lest they alienate hardliners who are influential in Communist Party schools and the military.

Wen, who is set to resign this year, has been outspoken about the need to open up the party if it is to meet the aspirations of the nation’s burgeoning middle class. “The most important mission of a ruling party,” he said in September of last year, “is to abide by and act in strict accordance with the constitution and the laws.”

The party should not replace the government in governance and problems of absolute power and overconcentration of power should be redressed.

The rather old fashioned purge of Bo Xilai, certainly a victory for Wen, would seem to contradict his lofty rhetoric but when he spoke of “overconcentration of power,” the likes of Bo should have listened more attentively.

Bo ran Chongqing as his personal fiefdom. In his crusade against corruption, it were often companies hostile to Bo that bore the brunt of his crime fighting efforts. Opponents were silenced without mercy. Bo and his family enriched themselves at the expense of Chinese taxpayers. He put up a great neo-Maoist show, dressing up schoolgirls in plain workers’ uniforms and having them sing revolutionary songs in the streets of Chongqing. The metropolis was sprawling under his leadership but his huge public investments racked up an enormous debt.

The Chongqing model is not one which Wen’s crowd seeks to imitate on the national level. Although the method of Bo’s removal from power—including suppression of online media that were sympathetic to him—harkened back to the days of the Cultural Revolution, there is no appetite for a return to Maoism in today’s China.

Wen said so quite plainly when he referenced the “tragedy” of the Cultural Revolution in his annual press conference in March, one that without reforms, “may happen again,” he said. It was as clear a condemnation of China’s new left and Bo’s revival of “red culture” as a Chinese politician could possibly deliver.

Pingdingshan coal railway station in Henan Province, China, January 8, 2003 (Gordon Edgar)

When he was still a candidate for the presidency, Barack Obama famously predicted in 2008 that under his administration, “if someone wants to build a coal power plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

As president, Obama failed to enact the sort of cap and trade legislation that would have taxed emissions but constructing new coal plans has become virtually impossible as a result of new environmental standards.

The regulatory obstructionism of the current government is only in part to blame for coal’s struggles however. Gas’ huge success is killing the competition.

Improvements in drilling techniques are unlocking vast shale gas and oil reserves across the American northeast in states that used to be dominated by coal and steel production.

In this part of the country, also known as the Rust Belt, the coal workforce has shrunk by 90 percent in the last forty years. Now, energy companies are planning billions worth of investments to revitalize the natural gas industry.

Coal is forced to turn elsewhere and there is a huge market to be found in China. Coal fuels almost 80 percent of China’s electricity. Although it has the second largest proven coal reserves in the world after the United States, in 2009, China became a coal importer for the first time in its modern history. But a fraction of its imports are American.

China doesn’t represent a big market for the United States either. Last year, less than 7 percent of American coal exports left the country via Pacific Ocean ports. The vast majority of exports is still headed for Europe. Yet there are huge coal reserves situated nearby in the states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Plans are underway to build six major new port facilities in Oregon and Washington to ship more coal to China but again, the industry is facing pushback from environmentalists.

In the absence of a federal framework to curb emissions, the leftist state governments in the Pacific northwest will likely be tempted to impose restrictions of their own as soon as coal export terminals start appearing on their coastlines.

In Portland, Oregon on Monday, environmental activist Robert Kennedy Jr. predicted that increased oil exports would leave the state “with a legacy of pollution, poison and corruption.”

Coal doesn’t share its wealth. It keeps it for itself and it makes a few people billionaires by impoverishing everyone else. Coal is crime. Do not let it come through this community.

Members of President Obama’s Democratic Party are in the majority in the state legislatures of Oregon and Washington. The governors of both states are Democrats. It’s likelier that they will listen to the likes of Kennedy than advocates of coal, whatever the cost to the industry.

The amphibious ship USS Essex leads a formation of East Asian and United States Navy ships in the Gulf of Thailand, February 8, 2010

Up until last April, all seemed quiet in the South China Sea. Then, a familiar island dispute surfaced again, prompting a days long standoff between Chinese and Philippine navy ships which culminated in an embarrassing retreat for the Philippines—prompting Manila to almost immediately announce deeper defense cooperation with the United States.

April’s crisis was caused when Chinese fishermen were caught in waters claimed by the Philippines. The Philippine navy tried to arrest the men but Chinese coast guard intervened, ominously encircling the Philippine warship that had been dispatched to the location. The Chinese fishing vessels subsequently left without the Philippine ship making a move.

The island nation isn’t the only one embroiled in maritime border disputes with China. Across the South China Sea, Southeast Asian states claim waters that Beijing insists are its. The United States, seeking to counter China’s rise in the Pacific, are formally neutral in these disputes but regularly participate in joint naval exercises to make clear that they will not tolerate China menacing its neighbors.

Before the Chinese-Philippine standoff, 2011 had gone by without a noticeable incident in the South China Sea region, causing M. Taylor Fravel, who is an associate professor of political science and member of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to write in Foreign Affairs that China was trying to restore its “tarnished image in East Asia” and reduce the rationale for a more active American presence there.

China appeared to realize that its usual brashness, far from compelling neighbors to make concessions, created a shared interest among nations in Southeast Asia “and an incentive for them to seek support from Washington.”

None of that has changed. As the International Crisis Group pointed out in a report (PDF) last month, “Beijing’s shift toward a more moderate approach in the South China Sea in mid-2011 was rooted in the desire to repair some of the damage done to regional relationships that had led to an expanded US role in the region.”

So how to account for the return of what appears to be a confrontational policy?

The think tank observes that there is a divide within the Chinese foreign policy establishment between a civilian government that is timid and military hardliners who insist that China should protect its strategic interests in the region.

A third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeast China pass through the South China Sea.

Conventional wisdom in the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, writes the International Crisis Group, is, “you don’t have to do it but you’ll be blamed if you do it and it doesn’t end up well.” Therefore, the bureaucrats would rather “set the disputes aside” and “leave it to the future, smarter generation.”

Some in the military don’t share that patience. Although few believe that China has a short term interest in stirring a conflict in the area, national security hawks “argue for greater assertiveness by making provocative comments in the media.” They may not be representative of the military’s thinking, coming mostly from retired officers and institutions that are affiliated with the military establishment, but “the hardliners have received more attention and inflamed nationalist public sentiment, placing more moderate policy makers in a difficult position.”

Furthermore, there is little legal clarity on what exactly is to be protected or defended and nationalism continues to restrict Beijing’s policy options.

China’s claims to sovereignty in the South China Sea, though patently revisionist, are ill defined. This adds an element of uncertainty to an already volatile situation. Strategic mistrust between China and the United States makes it all the more difficult for cooler headers to prevail.

So far, China has chosen to deploy its coast guard instead of naval assets to force its neighbors into compromises or submission in South China Sea disputes. What it seeks to avoid is the Southeast Asian states banding together and drawing in the United States further to back up their own claims.

Yet this is exactly what is happening. The tactics that China considers cautious are interpreted as bullying abroad, necessitating an American engagement to provide balance.

The difficulty for the Chinese is that to deescalate the situation, they would either have to negotiate on maritime borders which requires compromise or wind down their military presence which could be seen both by its own people and neighboring governments as surrender and risk “losing” more ground.

Flag of North Korea (Dion Gillard)

North Korea has finished preparations for their third nuclear test at the Punggye-ri test site and is awaiting the political decision to commence detonation.

Setting off a third nuclear device is a widely expected move for the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea but it’s not one that will do them any favors.

Having already faced condemnation from the West in going ahead with their rocket test in April and rumored to have taken a massive lashing from China during high level meetings in Beijing last week, there seems to be little that North Korea can gain by proceeding with the test.

Losing foreign aide from non-Chinese powers is problematic but probably survivable. However, the DPRK’s recent rocket launch went ahead without properly warning Beijing and China is equally vexed by Pyongyang’s plans for their nuclear device. There have already been insinuations of China ceasing repatriation of North Korean defectors (this won’t actually happen, China doesn’t want to give a green light to a sudden humanitarian crisis on its soil) but a nuclear test may force China to act more concretely on their threats toward the DPRK.

China’s arrangement with North Korea rests on keeping the country afloat as long as it pays China a modicum of respect. This respect involves proper warning of North Korea’s missile and nuclear test whims, economic zone and trade privileges and covertly bowing to China when Beijing disagrees on certain issues.

In Kim Jong-un’s first few months as ruler of North Korea, he’s sought to give the North Korean military every bell and whistle to keep them in his pocket but he’s utterly failed to pay Beijing the proper reverence it has become accustomed to.

The DPRK would come to a complete halt without Chinese assistance. China still supplies much of what makes North Korea tick, Pyongyangites are becoming more and more infatuated with Chinese goods and trade with China is finally seeing some small export success. The testing of a nuclear device against China’s wishes would seriously damage North Korea’s forward momentum in these areas.

During Kim Jong-il’s lifetime, his main contribution toward North Korea was to weaken the Korean Workers’ Party’s control and its ability to overthrow his rule by putting the military above all state and party organizations. He was smart and savvy enough to keep them under his thumb.

Unfortunately, Kim Jong-un finds himself the heir to a Songun (“military first”) state that believes foreign relations are best achieved with missiles, artillery and nuclear weapons, without the ability to properly keep his military in check.

Kim Jong-un’s grandfather proved himself as a leader though a nationalistic war (and Soviet support). Kim Jong-un may feel the need to continue feeding his military to prove legitimacy of his own. But fueling his domestic military at the cost of international relations is isolating his regime at a time when it is most in need of foreign assistance.

The young Kim may be walking a fine line between proving his merit as a leader via military strength and avoiding actual war but by giving into the DPRK military’s every whim, he may be slowly sinking his regime.

If the nuclear test occurs, Kim Jong-un will be squarely in the pocket of the North Korean military and not vice versa.

This article originally appeared at Asia Security Watch, May 2, 2012.

Presidents Barack Obama of the United States and Hu Jintao of China talk at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, September 25, 2009

A South Sudanese government official criticized China on Tuesday for refusing to take a stand in his country’s oil and territorial dispute with the north.

Both China and Russia have signaled their opposition to the United Nations Security Council urging restraint on the part of both Sudans. Beijing is perhaps Khartoum’s strongest ally but doesn’t want to alienate the South and jeopardize access to critical oil imports.

South Sudan gained independence last year after decades of civil war but hostilities with the overwhelmingly Arab and Muslim north flared anew in January when Sudan’s government confiscated Southern oil exports in compensation for unpaid transit fees.

Land locked South Sudan has two thirds of the former unified Sudan’s oil output but needs access to pipelines and port facilities in the north to sell overseas.

South Sudan pumps around 350,000 barrels per day, according to government data. Last year, 260,000 barrels were sold to China daily. The north needs the entirety of its oil production, some 115,000 barrels per day, to meet domestic demand.

The Chinese have to maintain stable relations with both governments if they are to continue buying Sudanese oil. The recent conflict, which saw border towns bombarded by north Sudanese air force, puts China’s energy security at risk and could increase its dependence on another country that Western oil majors rather avoid—Iran.

The South’s minister in charge of reconciliation, Pagan Amum Okech, told a think tank in London that China’s balancing act was not paying off. “By trying to move away from Khartoum so as to get closer to South Sudan and trying not to get too close to South Sudan so as not to cause displeasure to Khartoum—neither Khartoum nor Juba will be happy with China,” he said.

We would want to see China playing a more active role. Their role has not been very active. Maybe China also (needs) to catch up its foreign policy with its international position, having huge investments abroad.

China is reluctant to do so, fearing a backlash against what is sometimes already perceived as economic exploitation or neocolonialism in the African states where Chinese companies do business.

Moreover, Beijing insists on a foreign policy of noninterference which corresponds with their professed respect for the sovereignty of states. It says to oppose intervention in wartorn Syria for the same reason. It remains to be seen whether any sudden disruptions in Sudan’s oil sales will convince it to change that position.

Sailors aboard the Chinese navy destroyer Qingdao prepare to depart Pearl Harbor, September 10, 2006 (US Navy/David Rush)

The Chinese fishermen who were engaged in a standoff at sea with Philippine navy ships simply sailed away on Saturday and so did the main Philippine warship. Crisis averted? Not quite.

Tensions flared anew after China deployed a second surveillance ship, along with an aircraft that briefly flew over a Philippine coast guard vessel at the disputed shoal where the Chinese say their fishermen sought refuge from a storm.

Manila accused the Chinese of illegally entering its waters and collecting endangered coral, clams and live sharks near the Scarborough Shoal on Tuesday, northwest of the Philippine islands. Two Chinese navy ships arrived at the scene within a matter of days to prevent the arrest of the fishermen.

According to the Philippines, “The stalemate remains,” even if neither the fishing crew nor the surface combatant BRP Gregorio del Pilar are evidently present at the scene anymore.

Although China may appear to have won the day, its neighbors, certainly the Philippines, will have only more reason to pull the United States into the South China Sea area to balance against what they perceive to be China’s bullying tactics.

China couldn’t give in without undermining its borders claims—allowing its citizens to be arrested by the Philippines for fishing in “their” waters—but it could have negotiated their release rather than giving the Philippines no alternative to either losing face or risking a skirmish.

Since the Philippines have lost face, there is an impetus for them to seek a more powerful American engagement in the region.

Some six hundred Special Forces are currently stationed in the Philippines in assistance of local counterinsurgency efforts. United States Navy ships regularly call at Philippine ports but the Americans haven’t had a permanent base in the island nation since they were kicked out of Subic Bay in 1992. Don’t be surprised if that soon changes.

The Philippine navy's multimission surface combatant ship BRP Gregorio del Pilar arrives at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, July 27, 2011

It’s not all quiet in the South China Sea anymore! The Philippines’ largest warship was engaged in a tense standoff with Chinese surveillance vessels in the area on Wednesday after the ship attempted to arrest Chinese fishermen.

The crew of the BRP Gregorio del Pilar boarded Chinese fishing vessels for an inspection on Tuesday which were found in vicinity of the disputed Scarborough Shoal, situated more than two hundred kilometers west of the Philippines. The sailors discovered large amounts of illegally collected coral, clams and live sharks aboard one of the Chinese ships.

Two Chinese maritime surveillance ships then approached and positioned themselves between the Gregorio del Pilar and the fishermen. “There’s a standoff,” said a spokesman for the Philippine ministry of foreign affairs. According to the Chinese, the “marine surveillance ships are in this area fulfilling the duties of safeguarding Chinese maritime rights and interests.”

For good measure, Beijing added that the shoal “is an integral part of the Chinese territory and the waters around it, the traditional fishing area for Chinese fishermen.” Manila similarly insists that the shoal, which is really group of islands and reefs, “is an integral part of Philippine territory.” A Filipino navy official told the Associated Press that more ships are underway.

The Philippines recently explored the possibility of deepening defense ties with the United States. Standoffs as are occurring this week are the very reason. China’s neighbors regard its military rise warily. They seek an active American engagement to balance against what they perceive to be Chinese bullying.

Some six hundred Special Forces are currently stationed in the Philippines in assistance of local counterinsurgency efforts. United States Navy ships regularly call at Philippine ports but the Americans haven’t had a permanent base in the island nation since they were kicked out of Subic Bay in 1992.

In the South China Sea, China regularly clashes with other East Asian states. Beijing asserts varying degrees of sovereignty over virtually the entire area through which passes a third of all commercial maritime traffic worldwide and half of the hydrocarbons destined for Japan, the Korean Peninsula and northeast China.

American attempts at mediation have so far failed to significantly change Chinese behavior and may be unlikely to. The country is facing major demographic challenges as well as resource and water scarcities well into the twenty-first century, compelling it to ensure a favorable balance of power in its backyard and maritime access to natural riches in Africa and the Middle East.