Chen
Shui-bian, on his last legs as Taiwan’s president, barnstorms
the South China Sea’s disputed islands
 Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian's
weekend visit to Taiping Island in the Spratlys has once again
heightened tensions in the South China Sea, only a week after China
and Vietnam agreed to resolve their disputes over the area
diplomatically.
Chen's
Taiping visit, aboard a Taiwan Air Force C130 Hercules that landed on
a 1,150-meter runway on an island that is also claimed by the
Philippines and Vietnam, is the latest in a series of disputes that
have increased tensions in the region over the Spratlys, a flock of
islets in the South China Sea that are claimed in part or entirely by
every country surrounding the South China Sea -- China, Taiwan and
Vietnam (all), the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei (partly).
All but Brunei have troops stationed on the islands.
Chen’s
landing, which involved the inspection of troops and the opening of a
new runway, has been labeled by political analysts and the Taiwanese
media as an electioneering stunt to increase the chances of
presidential candidate Frank Hsieh of Chen's independence-leaning
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ahead of March 22nd elections.
Chen is to step down in May after eight years as president.
But
vote-getting trip or not, it has particularly served to anger China
and has resulted in protests by Vietnam and the Philippines.
The Philippines expressed "serious concern" that the trip
may affect peace in the area. Philippine Foreign Secretary
Alberto Romulo said, "The Philippines, therefore, urges all
parties to exercise prudence, self restraint and use diplomacy as the
tool to settle disputes."
Despite
the fact that the islands are nothing more than specks that are
incapable of supporting life on any scale, control over the sea
lanes that run past them is crucial, not just to the six claimants
but to Northeast Asian nations and the United States as well.
Perceived large oil and gas deposits in the area and rich fishing
grounds have made this string of otherwise small islets, reefs and
rocky outcroppings very valuable to the nations involved.
Fully a
fourth of the world's crude oil and oil products flow through what
amounts to the globe’s second busiest sea lane, as well as gas,
coal and iron ore. Control is important to Washington's
Northeast Asian allies, South Korea and Japan because it links them
to oil from the Persian Gulf and thus threatens their energy
security.
Chen’s
mischief-making aside, the pressure ratcheted up last March when
Vietnam announced a deal between PetroVietnam, British Petroleum (BP)
of the UK and ConocoPhillips of the US to jointly explore for gas
near the Spratlys. China protested the US$2 billion natural gas
field and pipeline project, claiming it infringed on Chinese
sovereignty and administrative hegemony over the islands.
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung responded with a
statement that the exploration was within the boundaries of Vietnam's
exclusive zones and continental shelf. However, in June, BP,
PetroVietnam and ConocoPhillips announced a halt in the
project.
During the same month, China arrested 41 Vietnamese
fishermen near the Spratlys for straying into contested waters.
They were released after paying fines. Vietnamese fishermen in
another incident on July 9th were not as lucky. One fisherman
was killed and several others were injured when Chinese navy vessels
opened fire on their fishing boats near the islands. Two
Vietnamese fast attack boats rushed to the scene but kept their
distance from the more powerful Chinese vessels.
The use of
force was unusual since in recent years Vietnamese vessels have
usually been only detained for straying into contested waters.
Official Chinese media were initially quiet about the clash, possibly
out of a desire to keep the clash from escalating.
Military
squabbles over sovereignty are not new, however, and have been going
on for decades. China seized the Paracel Island group to the north of
the Spratlys from what was once the South Vietnamese government in
1974 after a brief battle. Although North Vietnam at the time
issued statements supporting the move, the reunified Vietnamese
government renewed its claim to the islands and still views them as
Vietnamese territory. In another naval battle between China and
Vietnam in 1988 near Johnson Reef in the Spratlys more than 70
Vietnamese sailors were killed and two vessels were sunk.
Between 1988 and 2002 several confrontations between naval vessels,
sometimes violent, were almost a yearly occurrence and seizures of
fishing boats and cargo vessels were common.
Indeed it was the
military that heightened tensions again in November when large
military exercises by China in the South China Sea close to the
Paracels sparked protest from Vietnam. Beijing claimed that the
exercises were normal because they were within its territorial
waters. The Vietnamese, however, felt the issue was important
enough to be raised by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on
the sidelines of the November 2007 Asean Summit in Singapore with
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Dung
called for the two countries to continue exchanging opinions in order
to find suitable areas and means of cooperation over their disputed
and overlapping territories in accordance with international law to
find solutions that are amenable to both parties. Wen said he
hoped the issue could be resolved by putting maritime boundary claims
aside and using a joint approach to exploit the resources of the
area.
Despite these conciliatory statements, tensions
increased yet again on December 4 when Vietnamese state media
criticized China for ratifying in the People's Congress a plan to
create the Sansha administrative zone to manage the Paracels,
Spratlys and the Macclesfield Banks. The zone has been given
the status of a "county-level city" within Hainan Province
with its administrative headquarters on Woody Island in the
Paracels.
Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said,
"This act violates Vietnam's sovereignty and is detrimental to
the process of negotiations to find durable solutions to solve the
maritime issues between the two countries." In reply,
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang claimed China has
"indisputable sovereignty" over the islands.
Anger
over China's decision had an unusual outlet in a rare public
demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi on December 9th by
several hundred Vietnamese. Another demonstration was held
outside the Chinese consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Government
spokesman Le Dung announced that the demonstrations were spontaneous
and not government orchestrated, but some observers were skeptical.
They noted
that protestors had placards with slogans and T-shirts emblazoned
with maps of the Spratlys already made up. In addition the
demonstrations were allowed to form and continue for over an hour
before being quietly dispersed. Cyberspace filled up with
Chinese and Vietnamese bloggers airing nationalistic views and
slamming each other over conspiracies to steal energy.
The air
seemed to clear during the second China-Vietnam Steering Committee on
Cooperation meeting on January 22-26 in Beijing. Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said on January 24 that both
countries "agreed to solve disputes through negotiations and
safeguard peace and stability in the South China Sea," although
this does seem at odds with Jiang’s statement of China's
"indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands and
the adjoining waters."
This seems
to put China back on track with its previous attempts to downplay its
claims to the islands in preference to building up ties between
itself and Asean nations, often stressing the need to jointly exploit
the resources in the area.
The perceived large undersea oil
and gas deposits are a major issue for Vietnam and China, both of
which need the energy to support rapidly growing economies with
resultant rapidly escalating domestic energy needs. The size of
the deposits has not been verified but the US Department of Energy
estimates that 183,000 barrels per day of oil and gas are available
from the fields around the Spratlys. China claims there are 225
billion barrels of hydrocarbons in the area, of which 70 percent is
natural gas.
The complaint over the
PetroVietnam-BP-ConocoPhillips project was not the only one China
made in 2007. On November 22nd, Beijing made a diplomatic
protest to India over state-controlled ONGC Videsh Ltd.'s exploration
operations near the Spratlys. ONGC Videsh signed
product-sharing contracts with Vietnam for 80 percent of its
concession area in 2006 and has invested US$100 million in the
project to date. China claims Vietnam's award of the concession
is invalid. China has also put pressure on oil companies
operating in China to stop surveying and drilling operations under
concessions from the Vietnamese government.
China also views
control over the Spratlys as a way of projecting its power and
influence into the area. In the US Defense Department's report
to Congress, Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2007,
it noted that the Spratlys and Paracels are envisioned as part of
China's defense plan to keep hostile naval forces away from the
coast. A runway on Woody Island in the Paracels was extended in
the 1990s to 2,600 meters. In addition gun emplacements, a
signals intelligence station and Silkworm anti-ship cruise missile
installations have all been reported in the Paracels. The
possibility of this sort of militarization by China in the Spratlys
is of real concern to regional military security planners and in
Washington due to the ability of China to then command the sea
lanes.
China has shown a willingness to use its naval
forces to pursue national security interests according to military
analysts, especially when it involves sovereignty and territorial
issues. The Chinese navy has increasing focused on a goal of
attaining the means to project power across its sea lines of
communication and to protect its oceanic commerce. In a talk
given at the US-based Asia Society on January 28th, Admiral Timothy
Keating, head of US armed forces in the Asia-Pacific said the US has
"intelligence that reinforces my opinion that China is
developing, fielding and has in place weapons that could be
characterized as having, amongst perhaps other purposes, an ability
to restrict movement in and around certain areas on the sea, in the
air or under the sea."
China's move to occupy
Mischief Reef in 1998 and 1999 while the Asean nations were
preoccupied with the 1997 financial crisis gave some credence to this
fear. The reef is well within the eastern part of the
Spratlys, which was seen as the Philippines zone of control.
While China claims there are only shelters for fishermen on the
island, the reality are permanent concrete structures with
antiaircraft guns and landing platforms for helicopters.
For
the Asean nations, some fear of China's intentions were assuaged in
November 2002 when Asean and China signed the Declaration of the
Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to resolve disputes in the
region peacefully through diplomatic means. The Declaration,
while displaying good intent, is non-binding and this fragile.
As the events of 2007 between Vietnam and China show, there is still
much maneuvering for advantage going on in the area.
The
agreement relies largely on the signatories allowing regional
concerns to take precedence over their own national interests,
something which to date they have largely shown a disinclination to
do. The ten points in the agreement remain inadequately defined
and rely largely on bilateral discussions to settle disputes.
One
outcome of the declaration has been the establishment of a joint
seismic exploration program through the national oil companies of
China, Vietnam and the Philippines - China National Offshore Oil
Corporation, PetroVietnam and the Philippine National Oil Company -
in one area of the eastern Spratlys.
Other plans, such
as the proposed Pan-Tonkin Gulf Regional Economic Cooperation scheme,
are in the works. An offshoot of the Asean-China Free Trade
Agreement signed in 2004, the idea was floated in 2006 and has
reportedly received the support of high level Chinese leadership.
Pushed by the Guangxi Autonomous region in Southeastern China, the
scheme would like to see greater integration between the economies
China and the ASEAN nations bordering the South China Sea, and the
Gulf of Tonkin in particular. The stumbling block is the
territorial disputes over the Spratlys which would have to be solved
before the plan could effectively go ahead.
Taiwan, however,
is not a signatory to the 2002 Asean-China declaration. The
February 2 visit by Chen, the first by a Taiwanese leader, can only
be seen as a move to underscore Taiwan's claim to the Spratlys.
The recently-completed airstrip had already been the subject of
protests by Vietnam and the Philippines. The Taiwanese Ministry
of Defense claims the runway is only for maritime search and rescue.
Observers say the airstrip is a way for Taiwan to show it is a member
of the international community as well as a way to stamp a further
claim on the islands.
Vietnam
first protested the construction of the runway which was begun in
mid-2006. After a test flight to the newly completed airstrip
in January and plans leaked about the possible presidential visit,
representatives from Vietnam and the Philippines in Taipei expressed
concerns to the Taiwanese government on January 30th.
Vietnam's
Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung had much stronger words: "Taiwan
has to take full responsibility for any consequence by this action.
Vietnam considers the action a serious escalation that violated
Vietnam's territorial sovereignty in regard to the Truong Sa
[Spratly] archipelago and increased tension as well as complication
in the region. Vietnam demands Taiwan put an immediate end to
such violations in the region."
In a presidential
statement Chen called for a "Spratlys Initiative" to find a
peaceful solution to disputed claims and promote marine
conservation. Chen was quoted in the statement as saying,
"Facing complicated and sensitive territorial and sovereignty
disputes in the South China Sea, Taiwan urges the countries involved
to peacefully resolve the issues." His visit, however, has
only caused the opposite and served to further heighten tensions in
the region.
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Coal surge is unabated, raising environmental concerns
Vietnam takes command of the issue
Apparently 'Malays' (Malaysians, Indonesians, Filipinos, and Bruneians) are not as assertive as their neighbors. China and Taiwan are stronger. Viet Nam isn't. If Viet Nam can claim all the Spratlys, surely at least one of the Malay countries (the Philippines has the greatest grounds - look at a map of the Spratlys and their location) can do the same!