Solving Intra-ASEAN South China Sea Disputes
It’s time for the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei to resolve their own territorial disputes.
By Zachary Keck
May 14, 2014
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has once again stood paralyzed in the face of Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.
As my colleague Shannon discussed on China Power, and Ankit and myself talked about on the podcast this week, the 10 ASEAN member states failed to take a united stance on the issue at the summit in Myanmar over the weekend.
The crux of the issue hasn’t changed since at least the 2012 ASEAN summit, which ended without a communique for the first time ever due to disagreements on the South China Sea. Namely, only four ASEAN member states — the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia (and possibly now Indonesia) — have ongoing territorial disputes with China (and Taiwan) over the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, China remains ASEAN’s largest trading partner and the largest trading member of many of its member states. Thus, many of the member states without a direct stake in the South China Sea maritime disputes are opposed to antagonizing China for an issue that in their view doesn’t concern them. This suits China well, as Beijing has long argued that the maritime disputes should be discussed on a bilateral basis where its influence over its much smaller neighbors is greatest.
Although efforts to forge a united ASEAN position should continue, the claimant states must acknowledge that they may not get the rest of the multilateral body on board with their position to present a unified front towards China. After all, unless Beijing enters into a prolonged economic stagnation, its influence over ASEAN is likely to grow in the years and decades ahead as its consumer market expands and initiatives like the Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road begin to bear fruit.
That doesn’t mean that the Southeast Asian claimants to the South China Sea should stand idle as China becomes more forceful in asserting its claims to the disputed waters. Indeed, one of the strongest moves they can make doesn’t require the participation of the rest of ASEAN.
Namely, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia should enter into multilateral negotiations aimed at resolving all outstanding territorial disputes amongst themselves. Although China’s (and Taiwan’s) enormous claims of sovereignty over 90 percent of the South China Sea puts it front and center in the maritime disputes, the four ASEAN states have disputes amongst themselves over certain maritime waters.
Resolving these disputes will help advance their agendas towards China by setting a number of important precedents, which would put pressure on Beijing to resolve its own disputes on terms favorable to the Southeast Asian nations.
First, by resolving their territorial disputes, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia would be better positioned to present a united front toward China. In fact, since they would have resolved all other disputes, the disputes in the South China Sea would only exist at all because of China’s intransigence. The easiest solution for reaching a long-term compromise over the South China Sea issue would be for China to simply accept the borders agreed to by the rest of the claimants. Beijing would be unlikely to do this, but at the very least these borders would be the starting point for any negotiations. In other words, they would set the terms of debate.
Secondly, by resolving the territorial disputes in a multilateral forum, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia would be setting a precedent that Beijing would be forced to oblige once it agreed to enter into serious discussions aimed at finding a comprehensive solution for the South China Sea. As noted above, China has insisted that any negotiations should take place at the bilateral level. By demonstrating that a multilateral forum had resolved all the disputes not involving China, Beijing would be forced to accept negotiations in the multilateral format that the ASEAN claimant states support.
Finally, resolving the intra-ASEAN maritime disputes would allow the member states to “internationalize” the issue. China has been adamant that resolving the disputes bilaterally precludes states like the United States or organizations from ASEAN from playing any role whatsoever. Since China would not be participating in this round of talks, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia could take the initiative by inviting the United States, Japan, Australia, India, and/or ASEAN to participate in the multilateral talks. This again would set a strong precedent that China would be pressured into following once it seriously wants to resolve the disputes.
In short, by resolving the existing intra-ASEAN maritime disputes in the South China Sea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei and Malaysia could set the terms of future negotiations with China over the territorial disputes. They would simultaneously isolate China as the only state preventing a comprehensive solution from being reached.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/
Why Did China Set Up an Oil Rig Within Vietnamese Waters?
Why now and why Vietnam?
Why now and why Vietnam?
By Ankit Panda
May 13, 2014
The who, what, where, when and how of China’s HD-981 oil rig foray into Vietnamese waters have been addressed comprehensively, both by commentators here at The Diplomat and elsewhere. The enduring question, as with many of China’s provocative actions in the Asia-Pacific, remains why? The opacity of China’s internal decision-making processes makes it rather difficult to conclusively answer that question, but a good amount of evidence suggests that the oil rig crisis with Vietnam was manufactured to test the mettle of ASEAN states and the United States. It gives Beijing an opportunity to gauge the international response to China asserting its maritime territorial claims.
As Carl Thayer points out on this blog and M. Taylor Fravel said in an interview with The New York Times, the China National Offshore Oil Company’s decision to move oil rig HD-981 was a premeditated move of territorial assertion. CNOOC may be a state-owned enterprise but the decision to move this $1 billion asset into an area with questionable hydrocarbon reserves while also inciting a diplomatic crisis speaks to the planned, political nature of this move. The fact that approximately 80 PLAN and Chinese coast guard ships accompanied the rig reinforces the notion that China was making a strategic push to assert its territorial claims in the region.
The question of why China chose to escalate with Vietnam specifically is perhaps slightly easier to answer. Several analysts have already noted that China caught the world off-guard by choosing to escalate its territorial dispute with Vietnam given that relations between the two countries were improving as recently as fall 2013. Additionally, a certain degree of camaraderie exists between the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For China to suddenly risk a relatively stable bilateral relationship through an underlying rivalry seemed brazen and irresponsible.
On the contrary, if China had to push any dispute in the South China Sea to test the mettle of the United States and ASEAN, Vietnam was perhaps the most fitting candidate. As Tuong Vu told the New York Times, a political debate exists within Vietnam about whether the country should remain close to China or pursue closer relations with the west, with the former faction wielding considerably more influence. With this in mind, China gambled with a good degree of confidence that despite the oil rig provocation, Vietnam would respond with rhetoric and restraint — not force.
To this end, only Chinese coast guard vessels rammed Vietnamese ships and hit them with water cannons — the PLAN remained in a support function, ensuring that whatever kinetic coercion was used was not explicitly originating from a military vessel (although Vietnam did not entirely buy this interpretation). Furthermore, before China can begin trying its luck with U.S. allies in the region, such the Philippines, which recently signed a ten-year defense facility sharing deal with the United States, it must see if the United States is willing to defend its self-stated interests in the region.
Whereas with the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan the United States is treaty-bound to take action, in the case of other disputes in the South China Sea, particularly the Paracel Islands dispute between Vietnam and China, all the United States has to do is demonstrate that it is willing to stand up for the interests it has identified in the past, including freedom of navigation, the peaceful resolution of all conflicts, and the non-use of coercion and intimidation in disputes. With HD-981, China has challenged the United States on all three. Additionally, given ExxonMobil’s interests in the waters, HD-981 is also impeding U.S. commercial interests in the region. So far, the United States’ response — a statement calling China’s behavior “provocative” — is insufficiently costly to China to deter such behavior in the future.
Finally, China timed this coercive move as U.S. President Barack Obama left Asia and just prior to the meeting of ASEAN Heads of Government/State in Naypyidaw, Myanmar this past weekend. In doing so, China was taking a risk: the move would doubtless draw massive international attention and condemnation. However, as the ASEAN Summit statement demonstrates, China still has an assurance that regional leaders are insufficiently united to put forth a joint front against Chinese coercion in the South China Sea. While it is significant that ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a separate statement, the “internationalization” of disputes that China dreads has not yet come to pass (and likely will not anytime soon).
Similarly, as the United States grows old, weary and underfunded as the global policeman, this oil rig debacle sits in the same category of global crises as Syria and Ukraine — just without the same sort of political urgency. By avoiding a U.S. treaty ally or major partner, China seeks to paint the U.S. as unable to assert its interests in the region. A negative consequence of this is that other states engaged in territorial disputes with China will seek to unilaterally militarize to offset their reliance on U.S. security guarantees, potentially creating a headache for China later in the future.
The decision to move oil rig HD-981 into disputed waters matches China’s decision to impose an air defense identification zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea in terms of signaling China’s appetite to unilaterally pursue its maritime territorial claims. China has said that the oil rig will remain in these waters until August this year. What ultimately sets this episode apart from any other is that it is the first time China has placed an asset this expensive within the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of another state. And Vietnam isn’t a pushover of a state either — it has a more-than-modest maritime capacity that could result in an armed altercation with China. Overall, in the past six months, we’ve seen China more assertive than ever in pursuing its claims and, for the moment, it is succeeding.
http://thediplomat.com/2014/
==============================
"The Chinese want the territory and waters of surrounding countries. They will not stop until they are stopped. And it may just be the Vietnamese who stop them. "
On Wednesday, Vietnamese officials announced that one of China’s ships intentionally rammed two of their Sea Guard vessels. The incidents took place on Sunday, the 4th. Six were injured, according to Hanoi.
“Chinese ships, with air support, sought to intimidate Vietnamese vessels,” said Tran Duy Hai of the Foreign Ministry at a news conference. Other officials said six other Vietnamese craft were hit.
The incidents occurred after China National Offshore Oil Corp., better known as CNOOC , had on May 2 towed a deep-water rig, the size of several football fields, to an area that Hanoi claims is within its exclusive economic zone, near the Paracel Islands. Beijing, with its infamous nine-dashed line on its maps, claims about 90% of the international waters of the South China Sea as an internal Chinese lake. The expansive—and largely indefensible—claim overlaps the coastal waters of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia as well as Vietnam.
Beijing brought a fleet of about 80 vessels to keep the Vietnamese from stopping the oil rig, designated HD-981. CNOOC called HD-981 a “strategic weapon” at its launch in 2012.
And it is clear that the company was using the rig at Beijing’s behest. “This reflected the will of the central government and is also related to the U.S. strategy on Asia,” said a Chinese oil official, speaking anonymously to Reuters, about drilling in Vietnam’s waters. “It is not commercially driven. It is also not like CNOOC has set a big exploration blueprint for the region.”
It did not take long for Chinese leaders to test President Obama’s general commitment to maintain regional security after his eight-day, four-nation “reassurance” visit there at the end of last month. With this expedition against Vietnam, Beijing crossed two important lines. This is the first time China has drilled in Vietnamese waters. Moreover, this is the first time Beijing openly used its “gray hulls”—navy ships—in close support of “white hulls”—civilian maritime craft—while enforcing a territorial claim, according to the Nelson Report, the Washington insider newsletter. There are seven Chinese naval ships in the vicinity of the rig.
Beijing could be trying to take advantage of a distracted Washington’s involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, showing its disrespect for Obama, or just lashing out against another small nation. Yet whatever China is doing, it is extraordinarily dangerous.
The Vietnamese do not have a history of backing down, even in the face of provocative behavior from big neighbor China. The two countries have tangled with each other over the course of decades. Sometimes the Chinese win and sometimes the Vietnamese prevail, but it’s clear Hanoi is not afraid of its neighbor. It is unlikely proud Vietnam will let Beijing drill in waters close to its shore unimpeded this time.
The Chinese want the territory and waters of surrounding countries. They will not stop until they are stopped. And it may just be the Vietnamese who stop them.
After all, in their last major encounter—in 1979—Hanoi humiliated the Chinese army.
China's Vessels Ram Vietnamese Craft In South China Sea
"The Chinese want the territory and waters of surrounding countries. They will not stop until they are stopped. And it may just be the Vietnamese who stop them. "
On Wednesday, Vietnamese officials announced that one of China’s ships intentionally rammed two of their Sea Guard vessels. The incidents took place on Sunday, the 4th. Six were injured, according to Hanoi.
“Chinese ships, with air support, sought to intimidate Vietnamese vessels,” said Tran Duy Hai of the Foreign Ministry at a news conference. Other officials said six other Vietnamese craft were hit.
The incidents occurred after China National Offshore Oil Corp., better known as CNOOC , had on May 2 towed a deep-water rig, the size of several football fields, to an area that Hanoi claims is within its exclusive economic zone, near the Paracel Islands. Beijing, with its infamous nine-dashed line on its maps, claims about 90% of the international waters of the South China Sea as an internal Chinese lake. The expansive—and largely indefensible—claim overlaps the coastal waters of Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia as well as Vietnam.
Beijing brought a fleet of about 80 vessels to keep the Vietnamese from stopping the oil rig, designated HD-981. CNOOC called HD-981 a “strategic weapon” at its launch in 2012.
And it is clear that the company was using the rig at Beijing’s behest. “This reflected the will of the central government and is also related to the U.S. strategy on Asia,” said a Chinese oil official, speaking anonymously to Reuters, about drilling in Vietnam’s waters. “It is not commercially driven. It is also not like CNOOC has set a big exploration blueprint for the region.”
It did not take long for Chinese leaders to test President Obama’s general commitment to maintain regional security after his eight-day, four-nation “reassurance” visit there at the end of last month. With this expedition against Vietnam, Beijing crossed two important lines. This is the first time China has drilled in Vietnamese waters. Moreover, this is the first time Beijing openly used its “gray hulls”—navy ships—in close support of “white hulls”—civilian maritime craft—while enforcing a territorial claim, according to the Nelson Report, the Washington insider newsletter. There are seven Chinese naval ships in the vicinity of the rig.
Beijing could be trying to take advantage of a distracted Washington’s involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, showing its disrespect for Obama, or just lashing out against another small nation. Yet whatever China is doing, it is extraordinarily dangerous.
The Vietnamese do not have a history of backing down, even in the face of provocative behavior from big neighbor China. The two countries have tangled with each other over the course of decades. Sometimes the Chinese win and sometimes the Vietnamese prevail, but it’s clear Hanoi is not afraid of its neighbor. It is unlikely proud Vietnam will let Beijing drill in waters close to its shore unimpeded this time.
The Chinese want the territory and waters of surrounding countries. They will not stop until they are stopped. And it may just be the Vietnamese who stop them.
After all, in their last major encounter—in 1979—Hanoi humiliated the Chinese army.
==============================
Chinese general tours U.S. carrier as maritime tensions fester
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Chinese general toured an American aircraft carrier on Tuesday at the start of a U.S. visit expected to expose tensions over territorial disputes between Beijing and U.S. allies in the South and East China Seas.
General Fang Fenghui, chief of the general staff of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, visited the nuclear-powered Ronald Reagan in San Diego, California, escorted by the head of the U.S. military's Pacific Command, Admiral Samuel Locklear.
Fang was expected to visit the National Defense University in Washington On Wednesday, and meet the top U.S. military officer, General Martin Dempsey, at the Pentagon on Thursday.
Chinese military brass are no strangers to U.S. warships, including aircraft carriers, and PLA navy chief Admiral Wu Shengli visited the carrier Carl Vinson last year.
But Fang's visit is the latest example of efforts by both countries to improve military ties as China ramps up defense spending, investing in sophisticated hardware, including "carrier killer" missiles, which Pentagon officials suspect are aimed at countering U.S. military capabilities.
It is also an opportunity for the two sides to discuss tensions in the South China Sea, which again flared last week when China positioned a giant oil rig in an area also claimed by Vietnam. China also rejects rival claims from U.S. ally the Philippines as well as from Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei in the resource-rich waters.
"They are going to talk about areas where we agree as well as areas where we have differences," said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"We disagree with some of their approaches to problem solving in the South China Sea."
In the East China Sea, Beijing is locked in an increasingly bitter dispute with U.S. ally Japan over the ownership of a group of uninhabited islets.
North Korea was also expected to be on the agenda, following renewed threats by Pyongyang to carry out another nuclear test.
Analysts say efforts by the United States and China to increase military contacts could be helpful in preventing an incident at sea from escalating into conflict.
Those efforts includes Fang's visit, as well as one by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel a month ago to China, where he toured China's sole aircraft carrier, the Liaoning.
"We are in the best cycle in decades in terms of military-to-military relations with the PLA, and we should sustain the momentum to make ourselves smarter about China's progress," said Douglas Paal of at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank in Washington.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart, David Brunnstrom and David Alexander; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)
=================
Manila says China reclaiming land in disputed sea
May 13, 2014 MANILA, Philippines (AP) — The Philippines has protested China's efforts to reclaim land in a disputed reef in the South China Sea that can be used to build any facility, including an airstrip or an offshore military base in the increasingly volatile region, the country's top diplomat and other officials said Wednesday.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told The Associated Press that the Philippines lodged the protest against China last month after surveillance aircraft confirmed, and took pictures of the reclamation and dredging being done by Chinese vessels at the Johnson Reef in the Spratly Islands, which Manila says violates a regional non-aggression pact.
China has replied to the Philippine protest by saying that the reef belonged to it, he said.
Del Rosario said it's not clear what China would build on the reef, which Manila claims as part of its western province of Palawan, but one possibility is an airstrip. Another official says China can also build an off-shore military base.
"We're not exactly sure what are their intentions there," Del Rosario said.
Another senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue, said China's reclamation was first detected by air force planes six months ago. When the Philippine government deployed aircraft to help search for a missing Malaysian jetliner in March, the planes also spotted the continuing reclamation on the submerged Johnson Reef by at least one Chinese ship backed by smaller vessels.
It's the latest territorial spat between the Asian neighbors that have ratcheted tensions in the potentially oil- and gas-rich region, which also straddles one of the world's busiest sea lanes.
(NTB St)
