Manila says China starts dredging at another reef in disputed waters

February 2015

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• Japan to mull expanding navy patrols to South China Sea

An alleged Chinese land reclamation project on what is internationally recognized as the Johnson Reef in the East Sea, the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea. Photo credit: AFP/JIJI

China has started dredging around the disputed Mischief Reef in the South China Sea, a Philippine navy commander said on Thursday, signalling Beijing may be preparing to expand its facilities in the area.

Last year, Chinese President Xi Jinping tried to set Southeast Asian minds at ease over the country’s regional ambitions, but Beijing’s reclamation work in the Spratlys underscore its drive to push claims in the South China Sea and reassert its rights.

China has already undertaken reclamation work on six other reefs it occupies in the Spratlys, expanding land mass five-fold, aerial surveillance photos show. Images seen by Reuters last year appeared to show an airstrip and sea ports.

China has claims on almost the entire South China Sea, which is believed to have rich deposits of oil and gas. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims on the sea where about $5 trillion of ship-borne trade pass every year. Vietnam calls the waters the East Sea.

Rear Admiral Alexander Lopez, commander of the Philippine military’s western command, told reporters on Thursday a Chinese dredging ship was spotted at Mischief Reef, about 135 km southeast of the island of Palawan.

“We don’t know what they plan to do in Mischief,” he said. “They have long been doing that, only that it was Fiery Cross that got a lot of attention because that was on a bigger scale.”

IHS Jane’s said in November images it had obtained showed the Chinese-built island on the Fiery Cross Reef to be at least 3,000 meters (1.9 miles) long and 200-300 meters (660-980 ft) wide.

Lopez did not say when China started the dredging work or give any details on the extent of reclamation at Mischief Reef, saying only the work had been “substantial”.

Surveillance photos that were taken of Mischief Reef last October showed no reclamation work in the area.

The photos, seen by Reuters, showed two structures, including a three-storey building sitting on an atoll, equipped with wind turbines and solar panels.

China occupied Mischief Reef in 1995, building makeshift huts, which Beijing claimed provided shelter for fishermen during the monsoon season. But, China later built a garrison in the area, deploying frigates and coast guard ships.

In 2002, Southeast Asian states agreed with China to sign an informal code of conduct in the South China Sea to stop claimant states from occupying and constructing garrisons in the disputed Spratlys.

Last year, the Philippines and Vietnam protested China’s reclamation work as a violation of the informal code.

North of Mischief Reef, China on Thursday defended the actions of a coast guard vessel in the Scarborough Shoal after the Philippines accused it of ramming three fishing boats.

China’s coast guard sent a dinghy to drive them away and slightly bumped one of the fishing vessels,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing in Beijing.

“We ask that the Philippines strengthen education and indoctrination of its fishermen to prevent such incidents from happening again.”

A Philippine military spokesman, Colonel Restituto Padilla, described China’s action as “alarming” saying the local fishermen were trying to seek shelter due to bad weather.

China protests US State Department remarks on South China Sea - World News

BEIJING - China's Foreign Ministry has called in a senior U.S. diplomat to protest remarks by the U.S. State Department raising concerns over tensions in the disputed South China Sea.

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In a statement released late on Saturday, China's Foreign Ministry said Assistant Foreign Minister Zhang Kunsheng summoned the U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Wang to make "serious representations" about the issue.
The State Department on Friday said it was monitoring the situation in the seas closely, adding that China's establishing of a military garrison for the area runs "counter to collaborative diplomatic efforts to resolve differences and risk further escalating tensions in the region."

Advertise | AdChoicesThe South China Sea has become Asia's biggest potential military flashpoint as Beijing's sovereignty claim over the huge area has set it against Vietnam and the Philippines as the three countries race to tap possibly huge oil reserves. Beijing and Washington are already at odds over numerous issues, including the value of China's currency, Tibet and Taiwan.

Zhang said the U.S. statement "disregarded the facts, confused right with wrong, sent a seriously wrong signal and did not help with efforts by relevant parties to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea or the Asia Pacific.
"China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition, urges the U.S. side to immediately to mend the error of its ways, earnestly respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and do more to genuinely benefit stability and prosperity in the Asia Pacific," he added.
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A separate statement by ministry spokesman Qin Gang repeated that China had absolute sovereignty over the sea and its myriad islands and had every right to formally set up a city to administer the region, which it did last month.
"Why does the U.S. turn a blind eye to the facts that certain countries opened a number of oil and gas blocks, and issued domestic laws illegally appropriating Chinese islands and waters?" Qin said.
"Why does the U.S. avoid talking about the threats of military vessels to Chinese fishermen by certain countries and their unjustified claims of sovereignty rights over Chinese islands?" he added.
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In all, six parties have rival claims to the waters, which were a central issue at an acrimonious ASEAN regional summit last month that ended with its members failing to agree on a concluding statement for the first time in 45 years.
The stakes have risen in the area as the U.S. military shifts its attention and resources back to Asia, emboldening its long-time ally the Philippines and former foe Vietnam to take a bolder stance against Beijing.
The United States has stressed it is neutral in the long-running maritime dispute, despite offering to help boost the Philippines' decrepit military forces. It says freedom of navigation is its main concern about a waterway that carries $5 trillion in trade -- half the world's shipping tonnage.

Hanoi and Manila angry at Chinese bullying

Challenging Beijing in the South China Sea

Posted Tuesday, July 31st, 2012 at 7:49 pm

Hanoi and Manila Take Different Approaches
Vietnam and the Philippines are both angry at what they see as Chinese bullying in the South China Sea, but Hanoi and Manila are taking different approaches to the standoff over rival maritime claims.
Vietnam is strengthening military ties with the United States, India, Singapore, Japan, Australia, and Russia, building what Joshua Kurlantzick of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations calls a “web of ad hoc bilateral relationships to shore up their security.”
With Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov in talks to return Russia’s navy to Cam Ranh Bay, Kurlantzick says Hanoi is sending a clear signal to Beijing that it is not alone in the South China Sea.

Philippines President Benigno Aquino III tells his parliament July 25 that Manila will stand firm against Chinese territorial claims on the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Photo: AP

“It speaks to Vietnam’s utilization of many different partners in order to back itself up,” says Kurlantzick, a Southeast Asia specialist. “Vietnam is in a stronger position that the Philippines simply because for years the Armed Forces of Philippines basically did nothing to upgrade its navy.”
Filipino President Benigno Aquino III is trying to catch up, placing an order for more attack helicopters after China opened a new base in the Paracel Islands to patrol waters claimed by both Vietnam and the Philippines.
Now, more powerful countries such as Vietnam are looking to other solutions after China managed to stymie an attempt to address the maritime claims through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). But weaker nations such as the Philippines are trying to broaden the mediation effort by taking the dispute to the United Nations.

ASEAN or the United Nations
That move has little support in Washington, says Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow on China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She says the Obama administration is pushing instead for direct code-of-conduct talks between China and ASEAN.
“The United States doesn’t view this as a U.S./China issue,” Glaser says. “Taking it to the U.N. would make it seem like a U.S./China issue because none of the other permanent Security Council members really have any stake in this issue at all.”
“The Philippines is throwing everything at the wall because they are in the weakest position and they want to see what sticks,” Kurlantzick says. “You have senior Philippine national security officials coming repeatedly to the U.S. and asking for certain types of upgrades. You have them sort of trying to maneuver the U.S. into confirming that because of our relationship with them in the past, the South China Sea would come under that” Mutual Defense Treaty.
Though weaker militarily, Kurlantzick says the Philippines has a more open and democratic political system than Vietnam and is less susceptible to public anger over Chinese aggression.
“Certainly President Aquino has taken some strong steps, and he is not going to back down on certain issues. But at the same time, it’s a much more mature political system,” Kurlantzick says. “So I think public pressure works a number of different ways, and the government is less straightjacketed by nationalistic tendencies because its legitimacy can rest on a number of different foundations.”

Demonstrators march through Hanoi July 22 protesting China’s claims on South China Sea territory also claimed by Vietnam. Photo: Reuters

With regular, carefully-guided Sunday protests against China in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the Vietnamese government is trying to stay ahead of public opinion at a time when Glaser says nationalist sentiments are running high in Vietnam, the Philippines, and China.
“This has certainly become imbued with a sense of, ‘These are our rights.’ It has become a very sensitive issue,” Glaser says. “On the blogosphere all over China, Chinese citizens, netizens, are calling for their government to defend their interests. And I do believe that the Chinese leadership is very wary of being seen as too soft and not protecting Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
This is especially so as Washington makes its “Asia Pivot” in military strategy, repositioning Marines and aircraft carrier task forces in the Pacific.

China is pressing huge territorial claims, outlined in red, in the South China Sea region. The Philippines, Vietnam and others are also making claims.

Washington’s ‘Asia Pivot’
“Countries are worried about U.S. staying power, about whether or not there will be a counter-weight to China,” Glaser says. “We are trying to say, ‘Yes. We will be there to ensure peace and security in the region.’ It’s problematic because we don’t want to embolden other countries to engage in a confrontation with China.”
To the extent that they do, Glaser says that would be an unintended consequence of the Asia Pivot.
“Perhaps some of the actions taken by the Philippines might not have been taken if this series of events had taken place at a time when the United States was not seeking to refocus on Asia.
“When we are asked by President Aquino to say something more forcefully about how we will defend the Philippines if it is attacked, this puts the U.S. in a very difficult position,” the CSIS regional expert says. “We don’t want to leave the Philippines in a weak position. But at the same time we don’t want to tell the Philippines, ‘We’ve got your back.’”

China urges Vietnam to respect agreements regarding sea disputes - Xinhua | English.news.cn

China urges Vietnam to respect agreements regarding sea disputes

English.news.cn   2012-06-26 21:05:40

BEIJING, June 26 (Xinhua) -- China on Tuesday repeated its call for Vietnam to respect bilateral agreements regarding maritime disputes and halt its gas exploitation program.
"China and Vietnam have reached many agreements regarding the settlement of maritime disputes. We hope Vietnam will respect these agreements and avoid taking any action that may complicate the matter," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular press briefing.
His comments came in response to a question regarding a decision by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to make nine offshore areas in the South China Sea available for exploration through cooperation with foreign companies.
The nine areas collectively total more than 160,000 square km in size, according to a statement on CNOOC's website.
When asked whether the company's move in the South China Sea will create tensions with Vietnam, Hong said CNOOC's tender project is a "normal business activity" that is in compliance with relevant Chinese laws and international practices.
"China's position on disputes regarding the South China Sea remains unchanged. We are committed to properly settling disputes through negotiations and joint exploitation," the spokesman said.
Vietnam's National Assembly last Thursday passed the "Vietnamese Law of the Sea," which describes China's Xisha Islands and Nansha Islands in the South China Sea as being within Vietnam's sovereignty and jurisdiction.
Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun subsequently summoned Vietnamese Ambassador to China Nguyen Van Tho to lodge a complaint over the matter.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Vietnamese National Assembly to voice its opposition to the law. 

China urges Vietnam to respect agreements regarding sea disputes - Xinhua | English.news.cn

PetroVietnam Protests Chinese Plans as South China Sea Spat Deepens - WSJ.com

A spat between China and Vietnam over energy rights in the South China Sea intensified on Wednesday as Vietnam's biggest company called on China to scrap its plans to develop areas near the Vietnamese shore.

The disagreement, the latest in a string of arguments over the potentially energy-rich sea, erupted earlier in the week when China National Offshore Oil Corp. said it was offering a new batch of oil-exploration blocks inside the 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone granted to Vietnam under the United Nations' Law of the Sea.
Vietnam's government quickly objected, saying the Chinese state oil firm was moving into its territorial waters. On Wednesday, state-run Vietnam Oil & Gas, or PetroVietnam, weighed in, showing how territorial claims in the sea are increasingly being backed up by powerful companies in addition to rival governments, and potentially adding new sources of tension to the conflict.
PetroVietnam Chairman Do Van Hauon Wednesday described the Chinese firm's strategy as illegal and urged it to cancel the bidding, adding that two of the blocks offered by China National Offshore Oil, known as Cnooc, overlap with those offered by PetroVietnam.
"We strongly protest Cnooc's offering to international companies and we request foreign firms not to get involved," Mr. Hau told reporters.
Cnooc's spokesman in charge of legal affairs wasn't available to comment. At an earlier news briefing, China's Foreign Ministry said Cnooc's tender represented "normal business activities" in line with Chinese law and international practice.

more info--->>>  PetroVietnam Protests Chinese Plans as South China Sea Spat Deepens - WSJ.com

S. China Sea–the next big power playground | The Jakarta Post

S. China Sea–the next big power playground

Kor Kian Beng, Asia News Network (The Straits Times), Beijing | Wed, 04/25/2012 12:39 PM

A | A | A |

Despite strenuous efforts by China to keep other global powers out of the South China Sea, recent movements suggest that Beijing has failed.
The United States, whom China is most keen to block, has boosted its presence there in the last week. It is holding military exercises with the Philippines and having a naval exchange with Vietnam.
As if that is not irritating enough for Beijing, even Russia has muscled in. Its state gas giant Gazprom signed a deal this month with Vietnam to explore reserves in the resource-rich sea.
It mirrored a similar exploration pact that India signed with Hanoi last year, and comes on the back of Japan's long-held influence in the region through years of infrastructure investments in ASEAN.
The waters China regards as its backyard are fast becoming the world's “next big power playground”, say observers.
And much like the Balkan states in the last century, when big countries fought proxy wars in the region, many fear that the sea could become a conflict zone.
Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies senior fellow Ian Storey calls it a potential “focal point” of great power competition.
The big boys hunger for control over the sea lanes where one-third of the world's shipping trade passes through, he said.
“As tensions continue to simmer in the South China Sea, and the waters become increasingly crowded with new warships, I think it's just a question of time before we see a clash at sea leading to fatalities,” he added.
None of the global giants wants to give China free rein over such a precious piece of watery real estate. They have the support of smaller ASEAN countries that are contesting China's claims and seeking to bolster their claims by internationalizing the situation, say observers.
Foreign policy expert Yang Cheng from the East China Normal University said some claimants see merits in playing one major power against another.
Doing so could help the smaller players glean some benefits from the major powers clamoring for their support, he added.
“It seems like the tragedy of great power politics is now the smaller countries' comedy,” said Yang.
He said claimants could also become bolder in challenging China, believing that its army, the world's largest, would be restrained in its response so as to avoid conflicts with major powers.
This could be why Manila took a more hardline approach in the two-week stand-off with China over the Scarborough Shoal, which lies north of the Spratly Islands claimed by China, the Philippines and Vietnam, among others.
“But such mindsets could be dangerous. There is a limit to China's tolerance, especially as the solution to the territorial issues directly relates to the legitimacy of the authorities and many Chinese want the government to be more hardline now that the country is stronger,” said Yang.
Also, conflicts may occur if major powers misread conflicting signals and inconsistent policies emanating from China – a possible result of a struggle for money and power between agencies and local governments, said the International Crisis Group in a report this week.
The International Crisis Group’s Northeast Asia project director Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt said: “Some agencies are acting assertively to compete for a slice of the budget pie, while others such as local governments are focused on economic growth, leading them to expand their activities into disputed waters.”
“Their motivations are domestic in nature, but the impact of their actions is increasingly international.”
To assert its primacy, Beijing has been on a public relations drive to win more ASEAN friends.
Thai Premier Yingluck Shinawatra met top-ranked Chinese leaders in Beijing last week, while China's fourth-ranked leader Jia Qinglin visited Brunei.
Analyst Li Mingjiang of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies believes the visits are examples of China reassuring its neighbors of its “benign and cooperative intention”.
“These efforts will partly be helpful in stabilizing the South China Sea contention,” he added.

Tsunami in Vietnam is the real risk | Look At Vietnam

Tsunami in Vietnam is the real risk

April 19, 2012

LookAtVietnam – Scientists’ research works have found proof showing that
tsunamis once attacked Vietnam and brought about serious impacts. They have
warned that tsunami is a real risk for Vietnam, and that this needs further
through research.

The tsunami warning has been issued in 27 countries around the Indian Ocean
–after two earthquakes measuring 8.6 and 8.3 on the Richter scale occurred just
several hours apart from each other in the waters of Indonesia’s Aceh province.
In Vietnam, the Institute of Geophysics is the only agency responsible for
releasing tsunami warnings, for monitoring, analyzing and giving warnings when
it can see a tsunami risk.
According to Associate Professor Dr Nguyen Hong Phuong from the Center for
Earthquake and Tsunami Warning of the Institute of Geophysics, there has been no
official document about the damages caused by tsunamis in Vietnam. As there was
no tsunami monitoring system, no information about tsunami has been reported.
In many cases, tsunamis could be mistaken for the phenomenon of water rise
caused by storms or short wavelength waves.
According to the Bureau of Meteorology and Hydrology and Climate Change, in
Vietnam, the studies on the seismic regime in the South China Sea and the
conditions of tsunami formation only began 10 years ago. The investigations
about the tsunamis in coastal areas of Vietnam have been made based on the
historical records or the stories of coastal residents.
Some documents showed that a tsunami once occurred on the coastal area of Thua
Thien-Hue province in September 11, 1904, which damaged 22,207 houses, sank 519
boats and killed 724 people. Tsunamis also once attacked the seaside of Nam Dinh
in 1930 and Da Nang in 1964. However, no evidence has been found to confirm or
reject the information.
However, reliable proofs have been found to show that three tsunamis attacked
Vietnam in the past. The first one occurred on the Tra Co beach, and had no
relation with any earthquake. The second one attacked Dien Chau seaside in a
year in late 19th or early 20th century. The third once occurred in Nha Trang in
1923.
Especially, the assumption of scientists that a tsunami occurred in 1923 in Nha
Trang has been fortified by the notes taken by Dr Armand Krempt, the assistant
to Dr Alexandre Yersin. The documents showed that tsunami once damaged the
stable of the doctor in Nha Trang City which was just 5-6 meters far away from
the seaside.
The phenomenon was believed to relate to the volcanic eruption that caused the
6.1 magnitude earthquake on the island of Hon Tro, Phu Quy Island. Maybe the
volcanic eruption at Hon Tro Island generated the tsunami.
Vietnam had not paid big attention to the studies on tsunamis until the tsunami
disaster in South East Asia occurred on December 26, 2004 which then killed
273,000 people. However, to date, according to the Institute for Geophysics,
tsunami survey has been carried out in 33 places. The surveys have made
Vietnamese scientists believe that Vietnam was once attacked by the tsunamis
with the 2-3 meter-high waves.
Vietnamese scientists believe that the risk of a tsunami is not high in Vietnam,
but it really exists. In case tsunamis occur, the biggest suffering areas would
be the central region, especially the area from Da Nang City to Quang Ngai
province.
Source: An ninh thu do

Google Maps falsely depicts Vietnamese territory

Google Maps again falsely depicts Vietnamese territory as China's: scholar 

October 21, 2011  about Social

A Google map wrongly following China's bogus claims to much of the East Sea, including Vietnamese territory and waters.

Google’s web mapping service has again falsely depicted Vietnamese territory as belonging to China.
In August 2010, Google Maps fixed errors that depicted parts of Vietnamese land territory as belonging to China, following a request from Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
But experts say some of those errors were not corrected and in the latest error, Google Maps has followed China’s un-founded claims to much of the East Sea, also known as South China Sea, on its Chinese-language web mapping page.
China’s false claims to over 80 percent of the East Sea are often illustrated by Chinese propaganda in the form of the now infamous "U-shaped line," which China has placed on maps to encompass what it wrongly claims are it’s territorial waters.
“Google’s web mapping service committed an act that deserves to be condemned when its East Sea map shows the [U-shaped] line, which is a totally unreasonable claim by China,” said Le Van Ut, a Vietnamese scholar at the Oulu University in Finland.
“In a debate with me, a Chinese associate professor showed the Google Map as indisputable evidence of his country’s sovereignty over the East Sea,” he wrote to Thanh Nien.
Ut said the U-shaped line on Google map has ten dots drawn from Taiwan to near the coast of Malaysia and Vietnam, encompassing Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos.
He said the line appeared only on Google’s Chinese-language map.
“Google Maps has either unintentionally or deliberately supported China’s bogus claim," according to Ut. "This has seriously violated Vietnam’s sovereignty over the water and islands,” he said, requesting that the U-shaped line be immediately removed from Google’s web mapping service.
Ut accused China of initiating a propaganda campaign in which the U-shaped line is placed on as many maps as possible to support its unreasonable claim over of a majority of the resource-rich East Sea.
Last month, a group of overseas Vietnamese scholars  strongly protested an article published by an American science journal that features maps falsely portraying most of the East Sea as belonging to China.
The July 29, 2011 issue of Science – an international weekly science journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) – carried an article by Xizhe Peng titled "China’s Demographic History and Future Challenges."
The article included a number of depictions of the so-called “U-shaped line” that incorrectly described most of the East Sea as belonging to China.
On September 30, the journal issued a statement saying it was “reviewing our map acceptance procedures to ensure that in the future Science does not appear to endorse or take a position on territorial/jurisdictional disputes."
In the previous error on Google Maps, Vietnamese authorities asked Google to correct mistakes concerning the borderline between Vietnam and China in March 2010 .
In the map published by Google, many areas that belong to Vietnam totaling thousands of square kilometers were presented as belonging to China. The mapping mistakes can be seen from Apachai Town in Dien Bien Province to Quang Ninh Province’s Mong Cai Town.
In August 2010, the Vietnamese Ministry of Affairs announced that Google Maps had re-drawn the two nations’ borderline in the northern province of Lao Cai in an effort to fix its errors.
However, many remain unhappy with the corrections as the new borderline does not run along exactly as it should. Errors found in other parts of the Vietnam-China borderline outside Lao Cai have also not been fixed, critics have said.

By Thanh Nien News

Why sweat about China?

Why not to sweat about China

July 2, 2011  about News, Politics

LookAtVietnam - Its current row with two Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea (East Sea) has alarmed many observers. But a similar spat with Japan shows that conflict isn’t inevitable.

The past year has been a difficult one for the coastal states of the East Sea and there are number of indications that China’s decade long restraint is at an end. In 2010, rumours abounded that Beijing considered the East Sea  a ‘core interest,’ and China symbolically planted a flag on the seafloor. Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi’s hysterical response to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s restatement of US policy towards the dispute, meanwhile, seemed to be overkill.

The first half of 2011 has been similar. Chinese vessels, both civilian and government, have interfered with Philippine and Vietnamese survey activities in disputed waters, and Chinese vessels continue to fire at rival fishermen. This behaviour seems to confirm long-held suspicions about China’s posture towards the East Sea; that as soon as China developed the military capability to dominate the East Sea, it would. Now, following the latest developments, conflict in the East Sea seems imminent.

However, we’ve seen this Chinese behavior before, in the East China Sea, where China and Japan dispute the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and the sea waters that surround them. Importantly, the escalation of tension in that dispute resulted in cooperation, not conflict. The dispute over energy resources began in earnest in 2004 after Japan discovered a Chinese drilling platform at the Chunxiao gas field, within 200 nautical miles of Japan’s coast, but just outside the median line that marked the limit of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone claim in its domestic law.

When it became apparent that commercially viable resources existed at Chunxiao, Tokyo insisted Beijing cease operations and jointly develop the field with Japan. To ascertain the extent of the undersea resources, Tokyo commissioned the Norwegian flagged Ram-form Victory to conduct a thorough survey of the median line area near the Chunxiao field. During this survey, the Ram-form Victory was stalked on several occasions by Chinese naval vessels and confronted on one occasion by a military vessel disguised as a research ship.

Furthermore, in September 2005 a highly advanced Sovereignty destroyer targeted a P3-C Orion patrol plane that passed over the Chunxiao field. As a consequence of these events, Japan galvanized its efforts to access resources in the East China Sea. Aerial patrols of the area increased and Tokyo backed away from its median line claim in favour of a full 200 nautical miles, awarded concession blocks adjacent to the median line to Teikoku Oil, and set about passing the laws required to protect Japanese oil companies working in the East China Sea.

Predictably, this resulted in histrionics from Beijing. Somewhat surprising however, was that as Japan set about preparing to drill for gas in the disputed area, negotiations between the two began to bear fruit. After the Diet passed the Law on Establishing Safety Areas for Maritime Structures in April 2007 – which permitted Japan to outline safety zones around drilling installations and tasked the coast guard with expelling vessels that violated these zones – negotiations occurred more frequently and yielded tangible results. Finally, in June 2008 the two sides announced a joint development arrangement that spelled out the sharing of resources at Chunxiao and outlined a joint development zone to the north that straddled the median line.

Of course, the agreement isn’t perfect. It hasn’t yet been implemented due to domestic political opposition in China, and Japan’s reluctance to surrender claims to ownership of the Chunxiao field. Maritime tensions also persist. Japan’s coast guard research vessel, the Shoyo was confronted twice by Chinese vessels in 2010, the latter incident coinciding with the collision of a Chinese fishing boat with a Japanese coast guard vessel. However, this shouldn’t detract from the lesson learned. States bargain over disputed maritime space as they would any other issue in international politics. States will posture, threaten and engage in low level demonstrations of military force to reinforce their claim and improve their lot. While dangerous, this behavior doesn’t mean that conflict is inevitable, nor does it prevent bilateral talks at the bureaucratic and official levels.

While some argue that resources drive maritime disputes, there’s little evidence to support the view that there is sufficient oil and gas in the East Sea to warrant a resource war. More likely, claimant states recognize that unilateral resource development by a rival state is damaging to their claim to the disputed area, not because it ‘steals’ resources, but because by ignoring such activity states could be accused of surrendering their claim to the area.

In fact, one could argue that it was the discovery of commercially viable resources in the East China Sea that led to the June 2008 consensus between China and Japan in the first place. So, too it will be in the East Sea, once the bargaining and posturing has finished. If China’s resource needs are as dire as some suggest, Beijing may in fact be pushing for cooperative development of offshore resources, rather than trying to stop production entirely.

The comparison does, however, raise some interesting questions about China’s relations with its neighbours. Why have Chinese vessels (allegedly) cut the sonar cables of Philippine and Vietnamese vessels while Japanese survey vessels have been left unharmed? Is it because recent Japanese surveys, have been conducted by government vessels, rather than civilian ones? Is it because Japan is a US military ally of the first order? In either case, this difference may support calls in Vietnam and the Philippines for the development of stronger survey capabilities, stronger naval capabilities and above all to seek closer defence ties with the United States. However, these too are bargaining tools. When Japan strengthened its position, China moved to cooperate, albeit in a limited form. The same may soon occur in the East Sea.

James Manicom (The Diplomat)

(The author is a visiting researcher at the Ocean Policy Research Foundation in Tokyo and a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow in the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Canada.)

Vietnam Signals It Wants Exxon Deal Despite China Warning

Vietnam on Thursday signaled it wants to continue with a joint oil exploration project with Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) in disputed waters, despite a warning from China to the U.S. energy giant to drop the deal.
Vietnam - without mentioning the specific contract, a preliminary cooperation pact with state-run PetroVietnam - reasserted its claim over parts of the South China Sea that are the subject of a dispute with China.
"We have confirmed that all Vietnamese cooperation with foreign partners in the field of petroleum is conducted in Vietnamese territorial waters and in the exclusive economic zone," said foreign ministry spokesman Le Dung.
"These are totally under the sovereignty and right of Vietnam and in line with the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea as well as other bilateral and multilateral agreements between Vietnam and foreign partners."
Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post newspaper, citing unnamed sources close to Exxon, reported this week China had warned it to drop the deal and said the project could threaten future mainland contracts.
Beijing, which is in dispute with a number of nations as it claims vast swathes of the South China Sea, says Vietnam's central and southern offshore coastal waters - site of the exploration - are part of its historic territory.
"China's position on the South China Sea is clear and consistent," said foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao.
"China opposes any actions that infringe upon China's sovereignty, sovereignty rights and jurisdiction over the South China Sea."
Le Dung said "Vietnam will ensure all the legitimate interests of foreign investors when they operate in Vietnam.
"We welcome and shall facilitate all cooperation with foreign partners, including Chinese investors operating in Vietnam, on the basis of full respect for our sovereignty."
Last year, China criticized a deal between Vietnam and British energy giant BP (BP) near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, saying the area has been an "indisputable part of Chinese territory since ancient times."
China and Vietnam - who in 1979 fought a short border war after Vietnam expelled the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge from Cambodia - also fought a brief naval battle in 1988 near the Spratly Islands