Coverage has been filling China watcher blogs since the international community observed a disturbing advance in China’s terriclaims in the disputed South China Sea (SCS). Terriclaims, short for territorial-reclamation, describes a nation’s reclamation activity that seeks to preserve or expand its land and/or maritime territory. It appears that Beijing’s efforts are a coordinated attempt to wrest control of the SCS by a novel policy of “island-building” that is analogous to the systematic encroachment policy pejoratively known by China watchers as “salami-slicing.” A lot of attention has focused primarily on China’s progress but there has been little analysis on which element or elements of the Chinese government may be responsible. As the terriclaims increase the Chinese footprint over the South China Sea, it would behoove China watchers to know a little more about China’s reclamation history and lead organizations that would enable China to terraform multiple features, hundreds of miles away from dry land.

Brief History of Chinese Reclamation

China has a substantial and historic experience of shaping its environment, regardless of the challenge or expense. The 2,500 year old Venice-like city of Suzhou was constructed on reclaimed land and portions of the expansive Grand China Canal date back as far as the 5th century B.C. This theme of reclamation has not changed in China’s modern history. Judith Shapiro adds in her book, Mao’s War against Nature: Politics and Environment in Revolutionary China, that Chairman Mao Zedong was fond of invoking the Chinese proverb, “man must conquer nature” (réndìngshèngtiān 人定胜天) when commencing major construction and improvement projects. The revised and adopted Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party wove Mao’s and the Chinese adaptation legacy into the constitution as it brings “harmony between man and nature.”

Recently, China has taken notable steps that display its control over the natural environment. Here are four notable examples. First, it constructed the massive and controversial Three Gorges Dam. Second, it reclaimed 78,500 hectares (303 square miles) of land for the expansion of Shanghai, including the eastern side of the city, Pudong. Third, it has scheduled a multi-billion dollar, 650 hectares (2.51 square mile) reclamation project for the Hong Kong International Airport to be completed by 2030. Finally, and weighing in most heavily, China is constructing the multi-decade South-North Water Transfer Project to channel water from its damp south to the arid north. China researcher, Maren Lau from the University of Hamburg, found in a 2005 study that there is an “unbroken trend” to develop coastal areas with land reclamation. Overall, the Chinese focus most of their reclamation efforts on land for urbanization in the major cities like Macao or for agriculture.

Reclamation and Maritime Governance

Lau’s research on the methodology of how China and its governance structure assess reclamation identified four prominent organizations that handle reclamation issues. These four organizations are the Ministry of Land Resources, the Ministry of Water Resources, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, and the State Oceanic Administration (SOA). Even though each of these four organizations carries out some reclamation activities on their own, Lau discovered that the Ministry of Water Resources primarily bears the responsibility for land reclamation. These four organizations also are granted leeway to harmonize their efforts and support one another and have some bureaucratic wiggle room to step out of their formally controlled hierarchy for larger and more important adaptation plans, such as flood protection. In the coastal and maritime environs like the SCS, the innocuous sounding State Oceanic Administration (guójiāhǎiyángjú 国家海洋局), under Minister Liu Cigui, appears to run the reclamation show.

The SOA’s prominence rests in its unique authority over ocean policy, the protection and management of islands, and protecting UNCLOS-related coastal zones. Lau confirms that the SOA is the responsible agency for coastal zone management and that it is predominantly positioned within the political hierarchy for its decisive capacity and performance. Despite its placement under the Ministry of Land Resources and other administrative reforms that have lowered its position in the hierarchy, the SOA’s power has grown. Since 1989, its taskings from higher authorities have increased and its occurrence within the government has grown substantially. The SOA’s latent power appears to be trending upwards along with Beijing’s views of its maritime environs.

A recent example of the SOA’s influence is its leadership role in the reorganization of most of China’s maritime civilian and paramilitary organizations in 2013. The creation in 2012 of a new, high-level advisory group for maritime security issues by the Politburo Standing Committee likely portends the SOA’s growing prominence further. This secretive group’s first leader was Xi Jinping, currently China’s president. That same year China’s outgoing President Hu Jintao pledged to “resolutely safeguard China’s maritime rights and interests, and build China into a maritime power.” The evidence would suggest that the SOA is highly involved in this group and ensuring Chinese maritime interests. Further, the SOA is the likely culprit in carrying out Beijing’s terriclaim efforts in the SCS.