17 May 2009
Recent remarks on the South China Sea dispute coming out of China’s foreign ministry have been rather perplexing. While the FM spokesperson said that China was open to negotiations on sea boundaries, it also submitted a note and a map to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf strongly rejecting rival claims and asking the Commission not to consider them. This happened after Vietnam and Malaysia made their submissions to the Commission for extended continental margins in accordance with the 1982 U.N. Law of the Sea.
(China's claim covers approximately 80 percent of the South China Sea, and has no basis in UNCLOS).
This week, an editorial published in the People's Daily Online further illustrates China's knack for speaking with a "forked tongue". In this article, the author Li Hongmei wrote, "China will make no compromise in its sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and their near seas, even though China will continue to strive for the peaceful coexistence with all its neighbors." Apprarently, in China's perfect world, China negotiates only on the condition that everyone agrees that its territorial claims are indisputable. At the same time, it hopes for peaceful coexistence with zero compromise.
China claims not only the islands in the South China Sea, but also a vast body of water surrounding the islands, a claim that has nothing to do with the islands themselves. In fact, China’s maritime claim is made over and against the rightful sovereignty of the Southeast Asian countries who are entitled to their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in accordance with the stipulations of UNCLOS. However, China seems to be of the view that the countries in Southeast Asia cannot be entitled to their exclusive economic zones because they overlap with China’s jurisdiction over parts of the sea. If China gets its way, all of the Southeast Asian countries surrounding the South China Sea are left with only about 20 percent of the sea to share among themselves while China alone controls a whopping 80 percent.
Looking at China’s claim, one will see that the U-shaped line drawn by China in the South China Sea has no integral relationship to the claim of sovereignty over the islands. It neither delimitates the 12 nautical mile territorial sea nor the 200 nautical mile EEZ around the islands. It is merely an arbitrary line that China decided to draw in the South China Sea since 1947, long before UNCLOS was ever established.
China is quite clever in claiming both the islands and jurisdiction over this area of water. If China manages to get the islands, it will be guaranteed at least the territorial sea. It will, of course, fight to get at least a EEZ around the islands (although claiming EEZ around these mostly tiny, uninhabited features that cannot support an economy in their own is preposterous). On the other hand, if the islands or the EEZ fails to be achieved, China still has the water marked by the U-shaped line as insurance. The grounds for this claim is even more preposterous than the claim of EEZ around features that China stole from its neighbors. But for a country driven by the need for natural resources and an unstoppable desire to recapture the former glorious past, no reasoning is too absurd.
To further enforce its claims, China has been sending vessels to patrol the islands and the adjacent waters. The latest sent to do the job is the China Yuzheng 44183, which was scheduled to set sail on May 16th. The first one sent for this mission was the country’s largest fishery patrol ship, the China Yuzheng 311 in mid-March. The purpose, according to the Chinese government, is to patrol China’s exclusive economic zones in order to strike against illegal fishing and protect China’s fishery in its claimed waters. These actions are made on the heal of a whole host of other actions carried out by China such as threatening oil companies that cooperate with its competitors and harrassing vessels from other countries operating in international waters.
Understanding China’s reasoning and actions is no easy task. International journalists seem to have a difficult time reporting on China’s claims in the South China Sea. Most confuse the claim pictured by the U-shaped line with that of the Paracel and Spratly Islands while in fact, those are two separate issues all together. Few realize that China is trying to get control of the South China Sea through multiple sets of claims, essentially, aiming to achieve near total control one way or the other.
The latest episodes show that China is like a shrewd salesman – jacking up the product price enormously before advertising a “sale”. However, by saying it is willing to negotiate while claiming undisputable jurisdiction over the Paracel and Spratly Islands, along with 80% of the South China Sea, China is not just marking up the price a little, it is simply cheating the customers.
http://vietwill.org
