America has been caught napping by Beijing’s military build-up, maritime militia and island-building campaign, experts say

Island outposts have already given China the ‘foundation of control’ and the PLA fleet could dwarf America’s by 2030

“In short, China is now capable of controlling the South China Sea in all scenarios, short of war with the United States,” Davidson said during a Senate confirmation hearing ahead of his appointment as the top US military official in the region in May 2018.

For many analysts, the dire assessment was a long-overdue acknowledgement of their concerns. Today, there is a growing sense it did not go far enough.

Washington’s strategic advantage in the waterway, which holds massive untapped oil and gas reserves and through which about a third of global shipping passes, has diminished so much, according to some experts, that it is powerless to prevent Beijing from restricting access during peacetime and could struggle to gain the upper hand even in the event of an outright conflict with Chinese forces.

China, which claims almost the entire waterway, has tipped the balance of power not just through a massive build-up of its navy, they say, but also through the presence of a de facto militia made up of ostensibly non-military vessels and an island-building campaign, the profound strategic value of which has been lost on US policymakers.

Against this backdrop, the threat of tensions boiling over looms large. In its Global Conflict Tracker, the Council on Foreign Relations spotlights the risk of the US being drawn into a China-Philippines conflict due to its defence treaty with Manila, as well as the failure of Beijing and Southeast Asian leaders to solve their disputes through diplomacy, spurring a destabilising arms build-up.

Against this backdrop, the threat of tensions boiling over looms large. In its Global Conflict Tracker, the Council on Foreign Relations spotlights the risk of the US being drawn into a China-Philippines conflict due to its defence treaty with Manila, as well as the failure of Beijing and Southeast Asian leaders to solve their disputes through diplomacy, spurring a destabilising arms build-up.

“The US has lost advantage throughout the spectrum of operations, from low-level interaction against China’s maritime militia to higher-end conflict scenarios,” said James Kraska, a former US Navy commander who lectures at the Naval War College.

“In other words, China has escalation dominance, because it has the power to deter any US turn towards escalation. The US is outmatched in all of the scenarios.”

Since 2012, Beijing has constructed more than two dozen island outposts around disputed reefs and islets in the strategic waterway, where the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan all have competing territorial claims, allowing it to deploy missile batteries, radar systems and aircraft hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland.

China currently maintains 20 outposts on the Paracel Islands and seven on the Spratlys, according to the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, while also exerting control over the Scarborough Shoal through a continuous coastguard presence.

A Chinese naval display in the South China Sea.

Even on US estimates, by 2030 the Chinese fleet may be twice the size of America’s.