Freedom of Navigation in South China Sea (SCS) is an Issue like citizens of Moscow interfering about how New Yorkers build their subway stations and how NY districts lobby for funds and investments to build new stations. It is none of Russia’s business; certainly no one will prevent any international travelers to ride a NY subway with proper conduct. SCS is a large area of ocean having numerous small uninhabited islands. Historically, these small islands were under China’s sovereignty when most parts of Indo-China were tributary states under China’s dominance. Many coastal countries respected China’s claim of sovereignty over the SCS islands until WW II when Japan’s invasion disrupted the peace in SCS. Post WW II, the SCS was supposed to be restored to pre-war condition according to Potsdam declaration and San Francisco Peace Treaty, but China was devastated by the war and was split into Mainland China and Taiwan resulting in each claiming Sovereignty over SCS islands. Then the SCS coastal countries began to encroach the nearby uninhabited islands, started to build structures on these islands.
 
China naturally was aware of these encroachments and tried to prevent them. In particular, Vietnam was the most aggressive country claiming territorial sovereignty over Paracel and Spratly Islands in the Gulf of Tonkin. During the 1950s, Paracel Islands were controlled by China and South Vietnam, but in 1958, North Vietnam accepted China's claim of the Paracels, relinquishing its own claim. In 1974, a clash between South Vietnam and China resulted in China taking complete control of the Paracels. When the North Vietnam absorbed the South Vietnam in 1975 (ending of US-Vietnam War), North Vietnam took over the South Vietnamese-controlled portions of the Spratly Islands. The united Vietnam then canceled its earlier renunciation of its claim to the Paracels and attempted to dominate the Spratly Islands, partially controlled by China. In 1978, China ceased financial aid to Vietnam as Vietnam signed a friendship treaty with the Soviet Union favoring commercial and military ties with the Soviet over China. In February, 1979, one month after the U.S. recognized China, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army launched a two week military campaign crushing into the northern Vietnam and threatened occupation of the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, as a punishment to Vietnam’s hostile attitude to China, discrimination to Chinese people living in Vietnam and hegemonic aggression into Cambodia.
 
China strategically stopped the 29 Day invasion on March 5th and engaged a peace talk with Vietnam after causing heavier casualties in Vietnam army than themselves. But the peace negotiation broke down in December, 1979, both sides began buildup of troops as many as 600,000 on Vietnam side and 400,000 on China’s side. Sporadic slirmishess occurred in the 1980’s. China threatened to launch another punitive attack to force Vietnam to move out of Cambodia. China succeeded somewhat in checking Vietnam’s ambition of encroaching into her neighbors, Laos and Cambodia, but the Vietnam-China border conflicts persisted to 1990 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The Spratly Islands in SCS became a dispute among China (Mainland and Taiwan), Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam following the following events: 1. China lost the Sino-France war ceding control of Indo-China and consequentially part of SCS to France. 2. Briefly, Japan invaded and occupied Indo-China during WW II. 3. Post WW II, the U.S. took over the French interest in Indo-China, engaged a twenty year war in Vietnam (1955-1975), 4. China won a war against the united Vietnam (1979). 5. Development of Asian countries from post Vietnam War to the collapse of the Soviet Union (1979-1990) and then rapid development from 1990 to 2000.
 
The importance of SCS islands especially the bigger ones like Spratly are threefold: 1. Large oil and gas reserve in the region; 2. Fishing rights; and 3. Strategic position to the commercial sea lane for vast amount of world trade. The dispute over Spratly would have been essentially over today if just dealing with the above issues, but the U.S. raised a new issue, “Freedom of Navigation” for her naval vessels in SCS. Ever since 1992, the ASEAN countries advocated peaceful resolution of any dispute in SCS. In 1995, the ten ASEAN countries signed an agreement with China (PRC) that any military action occurred in SCS would be informed to all other countries. In 2002, ASEAN reached another declaration on Conduct in SCS, “to resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, ..... (consultation, negotiation and not using force)" though it was short of a legal binding code of conduct. In 2002, China announced that she was launching a discussion of code of conduct in SCS, but in 2012, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution denouncing that China's actions amounted to unilaterally asserting control of disputed territories in the SCS.
 
Then the Philippines, under the Administration of President Benigno Aquino, III, initiated a protest against China to the International Tribunal for the Law of Sea for Chinese petroleum boat interfering Philippine’s oil exploration near disputed Spratly. Subsequently, Philippines instituted an arbitration proceedings in “the Permanent Court of Arbitration” (2013-2016) to which China refused to respond denying the court’s jurisdiction. Hence the ruling essentially was useless, nothing more than creating political debate among biased commentators. In 2016, when Rodrigo Duterte, a strong Administrator against crime and drugs, got elected as Philippines’ President, he chose to steer Philippine’s diplomacy away from being dominated by the U.S., pursuing a neutral position towards China as an ASEAN member. Duterte elected not to contest with China over disputes over SCS islands and welcomed China’s collaboration in resource exploration and investment for economic development.
 
In recent few years, the SCS Issue was not bothering the SCS regional countries as much as the U.S. Her naval forces demanded ‘Freedom of Navigation’ by sending battle ships (even organizing naval exercises in Pacific Ocean) into SCS sometimes into the 12 nautical miles territorial water of the claimed islands. China sensed the military threat from the U.S. and her allies’ naval forces; she accelerated her construction and fortification of her controlled SCS islands. China’s progress was amazingly rapid, now she has completed modern seaport and airport on several controlled and enlarged islands providing not only defense capability but also operational support for maritime rescue and sea-lane safety.
 
On June 7th, American TV network, CNN, broadcasted a video of a Russian warship almost colliding into an American warship, each side blaming the other. This incident occurred a few days after a similar brush between their planes in the Mediterranean. The above naval incidence happened during President Xi’s visit in Russia, thus some commentators speculated that it was a message sent by President Putin: Russia being on the China side. However, judging on the intricate development in the past decade in SCS, I would say that the Asian countries and China had taken a peaceful approach to deal with their problems. They all had focused on the possibilities of collaborative economic development. China had always taken a welcome posture to collaboration whereas the American corporations were more worried about the investment risks in SCS. Flexing muscle by the U.S. Navy in SCS does not really reduce the security risk (hence investment risk) in SCS for American corporations. Therefore, it is easy to conclude that China and ASEAN should continue to develop an agreement on the code of conduct in SCS. The outside forces, whether, the U.S., Australia, India, Japan or Russia, should restrain from interfering with their peaceful discussion.



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Many countries do release an annual or biannual or non-periodic defense white paper (DWP). The term, White Paper, was first used by the British government referencing to the Churchill White Paper (released on June 3, 1922), the British Policy in Palestine, representing the five documents named, “Palestine Correspondence with the Palestine Arab Delegation and the Zionist Organization”. The White Paper emphasized that “While maintaining Britain's commitment to the Balfour Declaration and her promise of a Jewish national home in Palestine, the establishment of a national home would not impose a Jewish nationality on the Arab inhabitants of Palestine. To reduce tensions between the Arabs and Jews in Palestine the paper called for a limitation of Jewish immigration to the economic capacity of the country to absorb new arrivals. The Churchill White Paper may have had some influence on the Palestine situation but that is not the subject of this article. Our focus is on China’s DWP and the U.S. DWP and their intended messages. 

The U.S. issued her 2018 DWP and stated her 11-Point objectives from defending her homeland from attack to establishing an unmatched twenty-first century National Security Innovation Base that would effectively support (defense) department operations and sustain security and solvency. It is the strategic approach stated in the 2018 U.S. DWP that had raised some eyebrows: 

1. Build a More Lethal Force (p.5-7) 
2. Strengthen Alliances and Attract New Partners (p.8-9)
3. Reform the Department for Greater Performance and Affordability (p.10)

The above strategic approach cannot help but give the impression that the U.S. is preparing the plan to build new military alliances (in addition to her worldwide ranging existing alliances) and the ability to attack with more lethal weapon (targeting China and Russia, explicitly in the DWP, as competitors, and North Korea and Iran, as destabilizing regions). The recently resigned Defense Secretary, James Mattis (current Secretary is Mark Esper), signed the DWP with the conclusion: “I am confident this defense strategy is appropriate and worthy of the support of the American people.” Here, we raise the question: Should the American people support this strategy?

China issued her DWP on July 22nd, 2019, understandably (in response to the U.S. DWP) it mentions the U.S. specifically in the report which reiterates her peaceful rise pledge and pure defensive nature of defense strategy based on her traditional non-offensive and non-alliance (military) positions. It also states, however, that the new era needs new defense strategy, citing the complex world environment having fast development, unstable international security, global restructuring with rise and decay, but emphasizing seeking peace, balance, but recognizing existing power play forcing international competition. The Chinese DWP has claimed that the U.S. unilateralism and increasing military build-up are causing big nations to compete (militarily), to have frequent military exercises and more regional conflicts, a situation intertwined impacting everyone in the world. 

China’s DWP contains five additional points: 

1. New policy stresses on peace and diplomacy following (Chinese) traditional cultural expectation with a goal of never wanting to be a superpower or an expansionist nor to seek sphere of influence (via military) and a directive of defense being always defensive (not offensive) in nature and repeating her pledging, never be the first to attack.

2. Mission of the defense is to uphold the communist party leadership in China, maintain a socialistic China (with Chinese characteristics) and defend her sovereignty in land and seas with readiness to protect China’s interest in homeland and overseas as well as to defend against any force that will divide China’s sovereignty (specifically mentioning Taiwan pro-independence force).

3. A comprehensive reform plan is to reorganize the four forces, Navy, Airforce, Army and Missile with proper balance (reducing military personnel and modernizing equipment and communication) and to restructure the command system with strengthened laws, management and modern training and facility.

4. A transparent description of defense budget emphasizes its appropriate spending being 1043.2 billion RMB (2017), about 1.25% of GDP (versus 3.5% U.S. and 4.4% Russia), and 5.26% of national budget (versus 9.8% U.S. and 12.4% Russia). China’s defense spending per capita is 750 RMB which is only 5% of the U.S. and 25% of Russia’s per capita spending.
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5. Calls for a common destiny for the global community to build peace partnership with equality and trust (rather than military alliances) honoring the United Nations charter, principles and peace missions. China will work with her neighbors, EU, Africa, Latin America, Caribbean and South China Sea regions to develop regional security cooperation.

Comparing the above two DWP, it is obvious that the U.S. and China do not believe nor trust each other on national defense issue. China assesses that overall Asia Pacific (AP) is stable; the concept of shared common fate and destiny is rising as exhibited in more international conferences such as the Shanghai Cooperation Conference, ASEAN Summit, and Shangri-La Dialogue, etc. barring the interference from the U.S.; whereas, the U.S. is painting a dare situation that the rising China is posing a threat to the AP, the U.S. and the world, thus, there is a need to build an alliance to check China’s Rise. Put the rhetoric aside, China has been consistently pledging her peaceful rise, non-alliance position and no first attack principle, but the U.S. had never believed China’s statements. As clearly expressed in her 2019 DWP again, China is trying to be more transparent and candid in describing her defense policy, mission and spending. In the global community, China seems to be gaining more believers on China’s intent as evidenced by the increasing support China has received for her Belt and Road initiative (BRI) to promote global economic development and international cultural exchange; whereas, the U.S. is still insisting on pursuing a ‘Cold War’ like strategy to target China and Russia. 

We Americans are peace loving people but tend to be led by ‘the think tank elites’ blindly on foreign policy and international matters or ill informed by the mass media. In U.S.-China Relations, clearly the legacy ‘Cold War’ Strategy advocated by our government funded ‘elites’ is now begging for questioning, as we can see our strongest allies, UK, Germany, Japan,  Australia, Singapore, Philippines, etc., all are hesitating to go along with our ‘enhanced’ targeting China policy. As the 2020 election is around the corner and political debates are taking place, we voters must raise the questions: Putting the rhetoric aside and taking only concrete evidence, why don’t we believe in China’s peaceful rise? Why do we have to meddle in the neighborly disputes that the principals do not call for our interference?  Why do we blame our economic problems, especially our competitiveness, on China and every other country? Why do we employ devious means to suppress Huawei’s 5G technology when we know it is our military’s monopoly of frequency bands that prevented our civilian corporations’ advancement in wireless communication?  Why does the rest of the world believe in ‘collaboration producing win-win results’ but not the U.S.? Why do we blame the use of other currencies when we keep increasing our debt ceiling discrediting the US dollar? Do we really want to be an isolationist or one who must club everyone else to get our way? By the way, our way does not do so well lately, does it!?




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The U.S. is touted as the promoter of democracy. The U.S. had granted voting rights to women on August 18th, 1920 （Congress ratified the 19th Constitution Amendment), thus making her a truly democratic nation for ninety eight years. (all citizens, male, white, black and female, having voting right)  The U.S. had parted from Great Britain as a colony since 1776; she is a 243 year old independent nation. The New York State was one of the earliest States joining the independence movement and she joined the federation on July 26, 1778 (ratified). Another big State, California was admitted to the federation on September 9, 1850, 168 years ago and the last two states, Alaska and Hawaii were admitted on Jan 3rd and August 21, 1959 respectively, merely fifty nine years ago. So, historically speaking, the U.S. is a young nation and her practice of democracy (one person one vote) as a decision tool to elect the officials of the tri-branch government, executive, legislative and judicial branches, is less than a century old.

Each state has a similar tri-branch government system with key officials elected by a democratic voting method. Thus governor, mayor or leader of local government in the executive branch, the legislators in the legislative branch and in some cases, various court judges in the judicial branch are elected by the citizens, and in other cases, judges are nominated by the head of executive branch and approved by the legislative branch. What the U.S. promotes is not so much as the tri-branch government system (since they have existed in history with varying degree of independence between branches) but the democracy – a method of selecting the officials by citizens’ votes. Presumably the direct voting method, one person one vote, will create a more independent tri-branch system and that is what the U.S. is promoting in the world. However, the citizens’ voting rights whether exercised directly or by delegation are influenced by political parties which unfortunately are increasingly controlled or dictated by money power through the political party machinery, the political elites and the media. If multiple political parties truly existed advocating different ideology without influence from money power, then we would expect that the citizens could exercise their choice to elect a set of government officials according to their preferences to serve in an effective tri-branch government system. Well, life is not so simple, is it?

I have lived in New York State for fifty-one years since I completed my graduate studies, which means over 20% of its 247 years history in the independent U.S. (Some of my cotemporary friends living in California and Alaska or Hawaii for fifty-one years can claim 30% and 84% respectively, a very significant portion) Politically, I was not active initially, growing up from little political interest to be an independent, then leaning towards conservative Republican in terms of political ideal. New York State has been governed by a divided government since mid seventies up to 2019, 45 years. A divided government means that the governor and the two legislative branches, the Senate and the Assembly, are not controlled by the same political party and unfortunately they don’t work very well together. Prior to 70’s since WW II, New York State was governed by a ‘trifectas’ government, three government branches all controlled by the same party. There was no rigorous research studying the effectiveness or economic outcome of New York State throughout the years mentioned above. However, from a citizen’s point of view, many New Yorkers including me feel that the State has been going downhill during the past four and half decades under a divided government. Industries and manufacturing are disappearing and people are migrating to other states.

Like the U.S. federal government, New York State has two legislative houses. The Assembly members are elected from 150 districts of population average about 128,652 per district. Since mid 70’s, the NY Assembly has always been controlled by the party of Democrats (D) with a large margin mainly supported by the population in New York City. The NY State Senate has 63 districts of geographic regions. The Republican Party (R) barely has control by having 32 seats or by coalition of caucuses to gain effective control. The devastating performance of New York government with high taxes, deteriorating infrastructure, high cost of living and inadequate services can only be attributed to the dysfunction of a divided government. The Assembly has always been locked by Democrats elected by the large liberal NY City population.

Taking a look at another big state, Texas, it had a trifectas government (either D or R) from 1874 to 1994 except when Bill Clements, a Republican, served as governor intermittently from 1979-1982 and 1987-1990 all with a Democrat legislature. From 1995 to 2000, George W. Bush (R), served as Governor and turned the Texas Senate Republican during his tenure. Then Rick Perry (2001-2014) and Greg Abbott, both Republicans served with a Republican legislature, followed a trifectas government. Without rigorous research data, one can only say that Texas State has not done badly under a trifectas government either with Democrats or Republicans.

Taking another look at the State of California, it also had mostly a trifectas government since 1849 to 1942 with only a few times of divided government. From 1943 to 1982, California continued trifectas government with both Republican and Democrat governors. When George Deukmejian and Peter Wilson, both Republicans took over from Governor Jerry Brown (D), they both had a Democrat Legislature thus a divided government. Greg Davis (D) served a full term with Democrat legislature but Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) had a Democrat legislature. Currently, Jerry Brown (2011-2018 D) is back with a Democrat trifectas government. It would be extremely interesting for political science students to do research comparing the government effectiveness of a Republican, a Democrat trifectas government versus a divided government for California so that California voters can appreciate the benefit of a trifectas government and which party did it better.

Even though I am living in a town with more conservative people with a majority voters registered as Republicans, I felt like living in a dictator State controlled by an ineffective divided government. My vote is powerless to change Albany into an effective trifectas state government. The large population in New York City locks the State Assembly. Essentially, the single city is controlling the fate of the entire New York State which is decaying day by day. Yes, New Yorkers have the freedom to move to Texas or Carolinas or California but the same phenomenon is appearing at the national level. That is, our federal government is working poorly as a divided government. My hunch is, with increasing frequency of divided state government happening in more states, the fate of the U.S. is very much like that of New York State. Thus, no matter where you go you feel like living in a dictator country except the dictator is a party courting and controlling votes of the populated cities and states. It is damn hard to change that trend.

If one person one vote is the true democratic method we use to construct our government, then fair to say, it is trending to a divided government as population grows and clusters. When a divided government is locked in for decades by one party, we can say that we have a dictator government except it is an ineffective one. Sad to admit it, I feel like living in a dictator state! Do you feel the same?