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China determined to defend maritime rights
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ON May 3, dozens of Vietnamese vessels harried China’s offshore oil drilling platform, the Haiyang Shiyou 981, in waters off the Zhongjian Islet of the Xisha Islands. This provocative act sparked pursuits and confrontations between Chinese maritime police and Vietnamese vessels.
On May 6, the Philippine Coast Guard took by force a Chinese fishing boat suspected of “poaching sea turtles” near the Half Moon Shoal, part of the Nansha Islands. Eleven crew members were taken into custody.
Then the Philippine government, regardless of the Chinese government’s protests and demands for immediate release of the fishermen, was determined to investigate whether the seized boat was “trespassing into sovereign waters.”
It was not because of some lofty ideal of “protecting sea turtles” or the desperate need to exploit resources in the South China Sea that the Philippine government acted so forcefully on this particular maritime row in the South China Sea. The arrest was motivated more by an attempt to deflect public attention from domestic issues.
Unlike his predecessor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, incumbent President Benigno S. Aquino III hasn’t done well on the domestic front. The impact of Typhoon Haiyan that hit the Philippines in late 2013 is still being felt. In 2013, the number of registered unemployed Filipinos shot up 43 percent. The national economy grew at a less-than-expected rate in the first quarter of this year.
Play hardball with China
Besides, since Aquino took office, the wealth gap between the rich and poor has widened, with domestic conflicts of interests escalating. Rebel violence is rampant, with the wave of kidnappings spilling over into its neighborhood and battering the tourism business in the Malaysian resort of Sabah.
Under these circumstances, beleaguered Aquino had no choice but to play hardball with China — at his own peril — to divert domestic attention.
In 2012, the Philippines made a fuss by standing up to China over its claims to Huangyan Islands, but it failed to gain any mileage out of the dispute.
Regarding the Philippines’ seizure of the Chinese fishing vessel, the situation has gotten more complicated with the United States’ involvement. During its provocation of China, the Philippines never missed a chance to play the bluffing card by underscoring its “special alliance” with the US.
In late April, US President Barack Obama visited the Philippines and signed the US-Philippines military agreement. On May 5, one day before the seizure of the Chinese boat, the two countries staged a joint military exercise north of the Philippines, involving 2,500 US troops. On May 9, the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Chicago made a port call at Subic Bay in the Philippines.
These developments are merely symbolic political moves in the eyes of military observers. The US has shifted the focus of its naval deployment to the Australian port city of Darwin. However, the aforementioned steps look real to the Philippines, and have been exploited as a counterweight to China.
As for the Sino-Vietnamese altercation off the Xisha Islands, the immediate cause is China’s deployment of the drilling rig and exploration in the disputed waters, to which Vietnam also lays claim. The collisions involving dozens of Vietnamese and Chinese vessels were aimed at harassing and stopping Chinese operations.
Such sagas have played out in the Gulf of Tonkin and South China Sea over the past few years. The difference is that back then Vietnam was exploring.
On a geological prospecting mission in November, 2012, a Vietnamese vessel’s electric cables were cut by a Chinese fishing boat. In May 2011, Chinese police vessels expelled the Vietnamese oil prospecting ships from disputed waters and seized electric cables from the Vietnamese.
Safeguarding sovereignty
From halting illegal prospecting to being harassed in the course of legitimate operations, China’s development of the South China Sea’s resources has entered a phase of actual implementation, thanks to the advent of new deep-ocean prospecting equipment.
The Xisha Islands and surrounding waters fell entirely under Chinese control as early as the 1970s.
The Sino-Vietnamese spat over the drilling platform and the Sino-Philippine controversy surrounding “illegal” fishing have both highlighted the two most significant bones of contention underlying the three countries’ conflicting interests in the South China Sea: the right to develop the maritime resources and the issue of legal jurisdiction. The latest episodes are only further proof of the Chinese government’s resolve and capacity to safeguard its sovereignty.
The author is an independant commentator on diplomacy and millitary affairs. The article is edited and translated by Shanghai Daily reporter Ni Tao. For the original version, please click here.
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