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Let’s Change the Name of the South China Sea

Submitted for your consideration (pretend this is a Rod Serlingsounding voice).  Imagine that the United States diplomatic corps starting doing the sort of thing all of these less-than-cooperative states like China, Russia, Iran, and Daesh  (the Islamic State) have been doing.  Imagine calling things by a name that suits our purposes, even if it is different than what is on a map.   I propose we quit calling the body of water that is surrounded on most of its many sides by Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Borneo, and Malaysia by another name other the South China Sea.   This was the name was given to it by Europeans, the Chinese simply calling it the “south sea” for most of their own history.   I propose instead we call it the Indochina Sea.  Period.

Why?  Simple—it seems the People’s Republic of China has decided to appeal to a sort of lowest common denominator approach in their neo-maritime imperialist venture.  They have claimed much of the Indochina Sea according to a policy known as the “nine-dash line”—basically using the rationale that it has “our” name on it so it is ours.  What is more fascinating is how effective the Chinese have been in selling their rationale to different audiences, many of them poorly informed about the history and geography of this vital region. In short,  the first purpose in such a re-naming is to try to educate a bit, but educate to suit the purposes of the United States government as it continues in its job of trying to maintain the current international maritime order, which has worked quite well since the UN was created almost 70 years ago—the Cold War notwithstanding.

There is plenty of precedent for the United States (and frankly its many allies) to do this.  In fact, we did it back in 1990.   That was the year that Saddam Hussein invaded and conquered the independent sovereign nation of Kuwait.  Some of you know it as Gulf War I, although historians like the humble author consider it Gulf War II, since the Iran-Iraq War  was really the first of the modern Gulf Wars.   It involved the United States in its closing phases when we conducted operations Earnest Will and Praying Mantisin order to protect Gulf shipping.  But which Gulf?  You mean the Persian Gulf?  Well…that was a bit of a problem.  Our Arab allies in 1990 such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria (yes folks, Syria), found Americans’ use of the term “Persian Gulf” offensive because none of them liked Iran (a.k.a. Persia) and—presto chango—it became the Arabian Gulf in all formal diplomatic and military channels ever since.  Seriously, check it out on the internet if you dare.   Of course changing South China Sea to Indochina Sea would probably irritate the Chinese as much as it might make our Southeast Asian partners happy, but I am sure the Iranians were none too pleased either when we renamed “their” body of water.  The point is, there is precedence and two can play this game. ...

Read entire article at Center for International Maritime Security