Is Assertiveness Paying the Bill? China’s Domestic Audience Costs in the South China Sea Disputes
| Date | 01 April 2019 |
| Author | Eryan Ramadhani |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797018823342 |
| Published date | 01 April 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Is Assertiveness Paying
the Bill? China’s
Domestic Audience
Costs in the South
China Sea Disputes
Eryan Ramadhani1
Abstract
China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea has drawn international attention,
especially in the past decade. Yet China has not always resorted to assertive
foreign policy. Efforts to de-escalate tension are evident despite the domestic
preference for tougher action. This study centres on a question: what makes for
China’s assertiveness. I argue that China’s assertive foreign policy originates in
leaders’ domestic consideration. Utilizing audience costs theory I focus on two
assumptions that need to be relaxed: unitary domestic audiences and consist-
ency in leaders’ crisis behaviour. China’s non-unitary domestic audiences, namely
the elites and public, have different interests, although they share support for
assertiveness in the South China Sea. Domestic audiences can tolerate inconsist-
ency insofar as leaders are able to justify their decision, that is, to de-escalate
the South China Sea disputes without dropping assertiveness. Foreign policy
decision-making in China remains somewhat opaque, but domestic audiences
can influence the process albeit not directly. In this regard, China’s assertiveness
serves to generate audience costs so as to underpin regime legitimacy.
Keywords
China, South China Sea, assertiveness, audience costs, domestic audiences
1 School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
Corresponding author:
Eryan Ramadhani, School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University, 220
Handan Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai 200433, China.
E-mail: erhong16@fudan.edu.cn
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
6(1) 30–54, 2019
The Author(s) 2019
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DOI:10.1177/2347797018823342
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Ramadhani 31
Introduction
The South China Sea disputes have been regarded as one of the major flashpoints
in East Asia. Lying astride one of the world’s most important trade routes, the
South China Sea holds invaluable, yet largely untapped natural resources, with
hydrocarbons (i.e., oil and gas) as the high-profile component. The insatiable
demand for marine resources adds to the salience of this body of water. Gaining
access to such prize, therefore, has become a struggle among regional states. Five
states hold overlapping claims on numerous features scattered around the South
China Sea: Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam.1 It should be noted
that the South China Sea disputes are not only of territory, or the features, but also
of maritime entitlements as ruled by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the
Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
When China normalized its relations with Southeast Asian states in early
1990s, the South China Sea disputes loomed in the background. On 25 February
1992, China promulgated the Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone
that consequently put the disputed claims in the South China Sea under its purview.
The enactment forthwith drew criticism from Southeast Asian states. In 1994, the
leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) established the
ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as the region’s first multilateral forum in security
issues. China was invited with an assurance that the South China Sea disputes
would not be discussed in the forum. In 1995, much to everyone’s surprise, China
occupied Mischief Reef in the Spratlys. Inevitably, the issue was put on the
agenda. China was taken aback by this decision. China opposed the internationali-
zation of the South China Sea disputes and insisted that the questions should be
addressed bilaterally between claimant states. Surprisingly, China modified its
approach by being more cooperative. The result was the signing of the Declaration
of Conduct (DOC) on the South China Sea—a non-legally binding political docu-
ment—by ASEAN and China in 2002. This agreement reflected both parties’
commitment to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea.
The DOC, to a certain degree, calmed the disputes for quite some time. At the
annual 17th ARF held in July 2010 in Hanoi, the then United States Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton suddenly brought up the South China Sea disputes, marking
the state’s first official statement pertaining to its national interests in the South
China Sea. Yang Jiechi, the then Foreign Minister of China, rebuffed such
statement and accused the United States of interfering with the disputes. Some
scholars argue that China’s assertiveness in the South China set off after the 2008
global financial crisis—a juncture where a shift of power from Washington to
Beijing was assumed to take place (e.g., Friedberg, 2015; Liao, 2016; Yahuda,
2013; Zhou, 2016).2 This shift of power is only one factor driving China’s
assertiveness. Scholars lay out a number of reasons accounting for such conduct:
leaders’ perception of China’s great power status (He & Feng, 2012; R. Li, 2016;
Liao, 2016), reaction to provocation from other claimant states and third parties
(Scobell & Harold, 2013; Turcsányi, 2018; Pham, 2011), and domestic pressure
(Friedberg, 2015; Kuik, 2016, 2017; Zhang, 2014).
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