Need to coerce

Resolve is the keyword in understanding China's relentless coercion in the West Philippine Sea or WPS.

In fact, China's oversized need to uphold her reputation for resolve constitutes the core of our sea dispute with the Asian behemoth.

Just last week, demonstrating resolve was again apparent in the sharp browbeating by Chinese officials of our spirited assertions of WPS sovereignty.

Take, for instance, China Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Nang's statement: "China will take resolute measures against any violation of our sovereignty and provocation, and firmly safeguard our territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests."

Undoubtedly, Ms. Mao Ning's statement provides another official instance where China situates our sea dispute with her.

Yet, at the same time, she again highlights evident Chinese unease over our frequent challenges that have, in fact, jeopardized China's reputation for resolve to turn the South China Sea into a Chinese lake.   

Given that China considers that our publicized challenges put her reputation for resolve at stake, we can readily see why we are the frequent target of Chinese past, present, and future coercive tactics.

This much is evident in American scholar Keitan Shang's book, "China's Gambit: The Calculus of Coercion," a recently published study detailing Chinese coercion in the South China Sea and elsewhere.

In her study, Shang observes that China needs to coerce us because if she "does not respond to the challenges, it will show weakness to the outside world and indicate that China has given up its claim" to the WPS and the South China Sea.

Moreover, as Chinese government policy analysts tell Shang, China is nervous that other Southeast Asian states might imitate the Philippines' efforts to sensationalize and "internationalize" the dispute should China fail to coerce us into changing our behavior.

"They fear that the publicity the Philippines generates might reduce China's reputation for resolve in the eyes of other claimants. China thus coerces the Philippines the most to warn other states, killing the chicken to scare the monkey," Shang says.

"Killing the chicken to scare the monkey" is an old Chinese idiom referring to making an example of someone to threaten others.

Simply put, bully China wringing our neck is to make sure other claimant countries think thrice about asserting their own sovereign rights in the South China Sea.

Nonetheless, it is also crucial to note that China is a cautious actor striving to balance its coercion's benefits and costs.

As to how China balances the benefits and costs of its coercion, she does this through the many available tools.  

But, in so far as it concerns us, one Chinese formula stands out: "China is more likely to utilize coercion when the need to establish resolve is high and the economic cost is low."

Evidently, our threat to China's reputation for resolve is high. But the threat is also hobbled by the fact that our dispute with China comes at a low economic cost to her. We need China more than she needs us.

Yet, despite such a clear advantage, China still needs to tread carefully, preferring non-military coercive tactics rather than outright military means. Why?

Shang says the primary reason for Chinese non-military tactics is that China considers the costs of the consequent geopolitical backlash as too high if she escalates matters by military means. 

In this case, geopolitical backlash could possibly come in the form of coerced states balancing against China by forming or strengthening military alliances with a great power like the United States.

With the way things presently stand, the US already stands in China's way and, by far, has limited China's choices of coercive tools.

This is the context for Chinese national defense spokesperson Wu Qian last week expressly calling out the United States for "conniving at and emboldening the Philippines' infringement and provocations" and its attempt to "threaten and coerce" Beijing with the Philippine-US Mutual Defense Treaty.