The End of U.S. Primacy in Asia

Richard Javad Heydarian

Security, Asia

Washington is being outmaneuvered in the Pacific.

The world is steadily confronting the prospect of full-fledged Chinese domination in the world’s most important waterway, the South China Sea. America’s decades-long naval hegemony in Asia, as we know it, may soon vanish into thin air as a resurgent China reclaims primacy in the region. Though economically vulnerable, Beijing has lacked nothing in terms of geopolitical assertiveness. In a span of two months, China has dramatically redrawn the operational landscape in adjacent waters.

China kicked off the year with a bang, conducting several test flights to its newly built airstrips in the Spratly chain of islands. This was followed by China’s decision to (once again) deploy a giant oil rig, Haiyang Shiyou 981, into Vietnamese-claimed waters in the South China Sea, just as Hanoi deliberated on a high-stakes leadership transition. When President Barack Obama, during his “short-sleeve” summit with Southeast Asian leaders in Sunnylands, sought to mobilize regional diplomatic pressure on China, Beijing upped the ante by redeploying an HQ-9 surface-to-air missile (SAM) system to the disputed Paracel chain of islands.

Days later, China also dispatched fighter jets to its military facilities in the area. More worryingly, China has placed high-frequency radar facilities across four artificial islands, which could allow Beijing to, as reported by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, eventually “establish effective control over the sea and airspace throughout the South China Sea.” Chinese officials, however, have adamantly downplayed the strategic relevance of these developments.