The great irony is these actions will do nothing to help maintain a free & open South China Sea. Embroiling the US further in disputes among China, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, & Brunei will only make conflict more likely & compromise harder, [THREAD] https://www.state.gov/protecting-and-preserving-a-free-and-open-south-china-sea/

which in turn makes the South China Sea a more dangerous place for shipping and military navigation, and makes it harder for nations in the region to negotiate the kind of provisional arrangements that will enable them to engage in peaceful, sustainable resource extraction. 2/9

Sanctioning China for land reclamation is a transparent gambit by Pompeo to pander to his anti-China political base. China's reclamation in 2013-15 took place on land features it had long controlled. PRC did not seize new features & it was not the only nation to reclaim land. 3/9

Vietnam & Philippines engaged in land reclamation on features they controlled for years before the PRC started & the US never sanctioned them.

Plus PRC reclamation was in large part retaliation for the PHL, with US help, pressing forward w/ a destabilizing arbitration case. 4/9

Not to mention the fact that these are complex multi-sided disputes, not only China vs. the rest. Is Pompeo going to impose sanctions on Malaysia for sinking Vietnamese fishing boats in disputed South China Sea waters last year? (To be clear: that would also be a bad idea.) 5/9

The US should not be taking a position in these disputes. We are not a party to them, & they have a long, complex, messy history, which is why we rightly mostly stayed out of them until the past decade. Our interference in the disputes since 2010 has only made matters worse. 6/9

We need a major change of course in the South China Sea.

Instead of sanctions & military moves, the US should stabilize the dispute via diplomatic engagement.

Instead of seeking to drive wedges b/w China & other claimants, we should welcome compromise & joint development. 7/9

Instead of meddling in disputes that have little to do w/ US interests, we should focus on core US interests in the South China Sea: open shipping & military navigation in SLOCs. China is not threatening those interests; diplomacy can help ensure it won't in the future. 8/9

We provide concrete ideas for how to move forward this diplomacy-first approach to the South China Sea in our new @QuincyInst report, which are summarized in this thread: https://twitter.com/resplinodell/status/1349056790105911304

Or you can read more details on pp. 50-52 of the report: https://quincyinst.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/A-New-Strategy-in-East-Asia.pdf 9/9