Weak at the knees

Last week, I described a far reaching major strategic move by China in my blogpost “ China stations an oil rig in a disputed part of South China Sea.” I had also mentioned there, that a meeting of the ASEAN countries was due on the week-end in Myanmar. That meeting was held on schedule, but instead of any rock like support to a fellow ASEAN country, most of the member countries just paid lip sympathy and tried to generalize things by asking for a wider binding treaty for South China Sea nations. China is not expected to pay any heed to ASEAN for the simple reason that compared to its military might, ASEAN countries do not stand any chance.

Ever since last week's incident, Vietnam has been shouting itself hoarse, about China's move, on every international platform. Last week, at a round table meeting of Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV) held at Mebourne, ambassador Dang Dinh Quy, who also is the president of DAV said:

"We are deeply concerned by Chinese assertiveness in the South China sea. The Chinese navy is acting without provocation. These decisions seem to be taken by the Chinese leadership at the highest level," Then he added: “There was not much clarity in the Obama administration. That is why we want India should rise quickly. We have great expectations from India,"

In an immediate response, China says that India should not get involved in the dispute. Times of India reports that a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying having said:

"I wish to tell the Indian people that they may not worry too much about the current situation in South China Sea," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Monday. "The facts prove that Vietnam is trying to rope in other parties and put pressure on China, (but) will not achieve its aims,"

India has a stake in this area because India's ONGC has entered into a contract

for joint exploration in the South China Sea region and China had earlier objected to Indian efforts to explore oil and gas in an island claimed by both China and Vietnam. The Chinese government does not want the ONGC to revive its contract with a state-run Vietnamese oil company

India, however can do precisely little at this point of time. General elections have been just finished in India, with results due by week end. The new Government would need time to settle in. Until such time, India is unlikely to react.

India is playing safe now and has called for freedom of navigation in the sea without naming China or Vietnam. India's external affairs ministry says: “We are concerned about the recent developments in the South China Sea and We would like to see resolution of the issue through peaceful means in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law."

In Vietnam, demonstrations were held at the Chinese embassy in Hanoi and protests elsewhere in Vietnam. Bloomberg reports that About 1,000 people marched in Ho Chi Minh City streets on Sunday while hundreds gathered in a public square in front of the Chinese embassy in the capital city of Hanoi as police officers watched without interrupting.

Coming back to the ASEAN summit, Vietnam's prime minister accused China of brazenly triggering a tense maritime standoff in contested South China Sea waters. He asked fellow Southeast Asian leaders to join his objections to China's attempt to place an oil rig in waters claimed by both Beijing and Hanoi and described the move as a dangerous violation of international law and a serious threat to security in one of the world's most important sea lanes. He also warned the ASEAN nations about Beijing's growing assertiveness in its territorial claims.

Vietnam however could not get support it hoped from ASEAN even though Chinese have been claiming huge areas of the coasts of Borneo, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. ASEAN foreign ministers on Saturday jointly only expressed "serious concerns" over the latest confrontation and were not agreeable to directly criticize Beijing, and reiterated calls for restraint and greater urgency in multilateral talks on a code of conduct in the South China Sea. It is obvious that they do not want to do anything except for some face saving measures.

Only country that strongly supported Vietnam was the Philippines because it is facing similar situation. Other ASEAN members are obviously reluctant to take a stronger stance against China. Countries such as Singapore and Thailand, which have no claims in the South China Sea, managed taking no sides in the dispute and just urged restraint from all parties involved.

It is obvious that considering Chinese size, trade potential and also its military strength, Vietnam may not find many supporters and would have to their own thing, if they want to retain their territorial claims. As a result of similar standoff against China the Philippines have now approached for international arbitration.

Whether the Chinese ships would go back or stay put, depends upon what level the decision has been taken. If it has been taken by some lower level officials, just to test international and US response, the ships might back off. However if the decision has been taken at the top, Chinese ships would stay put. In that case, Vietnam has a real problem on hand. It can no longer depend on ASEAN countries, who have shown that they are weak at the knees as far as China is concerned and would have to do its own thing.

13^th May 2014

China stations an oil rig in a disputed part of South China Sea

Perhaps emboldened by the actions of its western neighbour in Crimea, China made a major move last week in South China Sea, after years of tough talk and bullying around with smaller peripheral ASEAN nations. On first of May, Vietnamese vessels on patrol, discovered a Chinese oil rig stationed 130 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam. It was about 119 nautical miles off Ly Son Island in Quang Ngai Province. According to Vietnam, it was a clear violation of Viet Nam's sovereignty. On 4^th May 2014, when Vietnamese patrol boats tried to intercept the Chinese oil rig, Chinese escort ships with air support, intentionally collided and rammed two Vietnamese Sea Guard vessels and fired water cannons at Vietnamese vessels, causing damage. At least six Vietnamese sailors have been injured in the past few days.

As Vietnamese demanded the removal of the rig, instead of defusing the situation, Chinese further increased the complications by dispatching 80 ships to the area, including seven naval vessels. Dozens of navy and coastguard vessels from both countries are now in the area, where China has deployed the giant rig. For any one, who is familiar with Chinese tactics, it would be clear that Beijing is trying to impact its foot print in the area for the first time. China perhaps is the only country in the world, which has territorial disputes not only with many of its neighbours, but also with countries that are located far away from its borders. Besides major overland disputes with India and Vietnam, Chinese having been claiming almost entire South China Sea as its own territory and even some islands presently held by Japan in East China Sea.

China has taken an official stance that it has sovereignty over all of the South China Sea, which happens to be an important sea lane for global commercial traffic. Chinese maps show an imaginary dashed line with 9 dashes that encloses about 90 percent of the 3.5 million square kilometers of South China Sea as part of China. Even though this line was first claimed by Chinese Government in 1947, no other country objected to it then. Chinese Government submitted a territorial claim for the area of the South China Sea, falling within the 9- dashed line, on May 7, 2009 to the UN. Immediately, the Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China for claiming the whole of South China Sea illegally. Vietnam and Malaysia filed their joint protest a day after. As things stand, Chinese claim is being contested not only by Vietnam and Philippines but by other ASEAN countries like Taiwan, Brunei and Malaysia. Indonesia joined this group when China extended the range of South China sea disputes even further last year by claiming part of Indonesia’s Riau Islands province as its own territory by including it into its so called 9 dash line.

In spite of all the claims made by it, China had never tried to station any ship in the disputed parts of the sea, though Chinese ship continued to sail through often. With last week's action, China's strategy of maintaining status quo and only launching verbal claims, seems to have undergone a major change. International experts also note the fact that the Chinese have moved ahead in placing their oil rig immediately after President Barack Obama’s visit to four Asian countries in late April. This clearly shows Beijing's intentions to test the resolve of Vietnam, other ASEAN members and above all Washington.

China might have calculated that with developments in Ukraine, Nigeria and Syria, Washington may be unwilling to back up strong security assertions made to Japan and the Philippines during President Obama’s trip. An oil industry official in China, on condition of anonymity, confirms this when he says that the decision to position the rig appears to be a political decision rather than a commercial one. He adds that this decision reflects the will of the central government and is also related to the U.S. strategy on Asia.

After it noticed the Chinese rig, representatives from the Foreign Ministry of Vietnam met representatives of the Chinese Embassy in Ha Noi and handed over a ministerial diplomatic note to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The note affirmed that the activities of China's drilling rig HD-981 and vessels seriously infringed on Vietnam's sovereignty, sovereign right and jurisdiction over Viet Nam's Hoang Sa archipelago, exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. They also seriously violated agreements reached by the two countries' leaders and went against the spirit and wording of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and related regulations in international law. The note demanded that China "immediately withdraw the drilling rig, vessels, equipment and personnel from Lot 143 in Viet Nam's continental shelf and prevent the recurrence of similar acts."China did not pay much heed to Vietnamese concerns, as can be seen from subsequent developments.

Considering the fact that Vietnam stands no comparison with China's naval might, only thing it can do is to make enough noises by taking the matter to international arbitration. Since Chinese move is a political one and not commercial, the future depends on how Americans respond to the situation.

This week, another ASEAN Summit is likely to take place in Myanmar. Considering this fact, it is obvious that China has posed a challenge not just only to Vietnam but to entire ASEAN community that the South China Sea belongs to it. Much would now also depend upon how ASEAN members respond to this challenge since all of them, except for Cambodia are affected by the Chinese action.

9^th May 2014