South China Sea needs US-China ‘security talks mechanism' to prevent conflict: think tank
China and the US should consider setting up a 'security dialogue mechanism' on the
South China Sea to help prevent conflict in the contested waterway, a noted independent Chinese think tank has suggested.
According to analysts at the Beijing-based Grandview Institution, US-China aerial and maritime interactions in the South China Sea have been marked by confrontational, complex and unpredictable dynamics. However, competition in the strategic waterway was still 'manageable', though it was likely to be prolonged 'structurally', they said in a report published on Thursday.
The report, titled 'Competition and Risk Reduction on the South China Sea – Views from China and the United States', was prepared in collaboration with the Pacific Forum, a Hawaii-based foreign policy research institute.
Both
China and the United States recognised the risk of inadvertent escalation and had developed several crisis management tools, according to the executive summary of the report. 'However, implementation remains inconsistent,' it said.
Liu Xiaobo and Sophie Wushuang Yi, both researchers with Grandview, called on both sides to consider 'institutionalised' dialogue mechanisms focused on the regional security architecture, maritime legal order and law enforcement norms, and crisis response protocols.
Liu and Yi co-wrote one of the three papers making up the report. Jeffrey Ordaniel, a non-resident adjunct senior fellow and director of maritime programmes at the Pacific Forum, authored another, while the third was by Thomas Shattuck, another Pacific Forum non-resident fellow.
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