Tension in the South China Sea

A collection of tiny islands in the South China Sea, with a combined land area of just five square kilometres, is at the heart of a dispute that has embroiled six nations. Vaughan Yarwood investigates.

The Spratly Islands are an archipelago of islets, coral reefs and sea mounts scattered over 425,000 square kilometres of ocean, which have been claimed - in all or part - by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. Tension over these competing claims has been rising in recent years now threatens to undermine regional stability.

The Spratlys are of great strategic value, sitting as they do on one of the world’s major shipping routes. They also occupy an area rich in fish, and which is believed to contain significant oil and gas reserves.

In 1992, the six ASEAN nations of the time attempted to defuse sovereignty disputes through the Manila Declaration, which committed them to the peaceful resolution of differences and to the possibility of joint exploration.

Vietnam, China and the Philippines later signed an agreement to protect oil and gas in the South China Sea. But after incidents at sea in mid-2011, both Vietnam and the Philippines accused China of trying to sabotage their exploration efforts in waters they claim exclusive economic rights to under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

For its part, China denied the charges, claiming it had sovereignty over the South China Sea.

China and Vietnam, which fought a short war along their shared border in 1979, first clashed over the Spratlys in 1988, and have struggled to make any agreement binding. The latest, a set of guidelines agreed by ASEAN and China last October, was interpreted by observers as little more than an agreement to keep talking.

Meanwhile, US company Exxon Mobil announced the discovery of a sizeable gas field near the Vietnamese city of Danang, while ONGC, a state-owned Indian energy company, has said it intends to begin exploration in the disputed waters this year.

Last October, Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang said: “All cooperation projects between Vietnam and other partners, including ONGC, in the field of oil and gas are located on the continental shelf within the exclusive economic zone and under the sovereign rights and jurisdiction of Vietnam.”

John Hemmings, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute said the Vietnamese were much more exposed than they first thought. “Vietnam feels out on a limb. It understands that a naval conflict with China could be over very quickly.”

Ominously, China’s state-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial: “If these countries do not want to change their ways with China, they will need to prepare for the sound of cannons. It may be the only way for the dispute in the sea to be resolved.”

Comments by Chinese officials have been more measured, but also underscore the level of concern at what are felt to be encroachments on China’s domain. (Its maritime claim extends south more than 1000km and well into the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam).

Last June, China’s ambassador to the Philippines, Liu Jianchao, warned rivals to stop prospecting “in these areas where China has its claims”, and defended Chinese activities in the region as “part of our exercise of jurisdiction”.

Signalling a tougher stance itself, the Philippines – which last year invited bids for 15 new offshore exploration blocks – began referring to the South China Sea as the West Philippine Sea.

“When people keep saying that it is the South China Sea there is a subliminal message that this is indeed a sea belonging to a country whose name appears in the name,” explained Commodore Miguel Jose Rodriguez.

“Vietnam calls it their East Sea and China calls it their South Sea. We in the Philippines should call it West Philippine Sea.”

Writing in the Manila Standard Today, academic and lawyer Harry Roque Jr. noted that the Philippines’ claim to the Spratlys may not be “iron-clad”, as it was based on the notion that the island group was without owner when Japan renounced its title after World War II.

But Roque argued that, as the closest claimant, the Philippines was the only country with a “presumption of ownership”, and was the only one that had “scientific evidence to prove that the bulk of the contested area constitute its extended continental shelf”.

Some analysts suggest that China would find it hard to back down in this tussle over resources – the country has become increasingly reliant on imported oil to fuel its economic growth. However, the effect of its stand has been to drive other claimants – and even concerned bystanders Japan and South Korea – closer to the US, increasing the likelihood of a confrontation between the world’s two dominant powers.

Earlier this year, the Philippines confirmed that it was exploring ways to “maximise” defence links with the US, including what foreign affairs secretary Albert del Rosario called “a rotating and more frequent presence by them.”

For its part, the United States denied that it was contemplating re-establishing bases in the Philippines or anywhere else in the region as part of a China containment policy. Nevertheless, its joint naval exercises with both Vietnam and the Philippines, which China matched with its own naval manoeuvres, gave substance to a comment by the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that “ongoing incidents could spark a miscalculation, and an outbreak that no one anticipated.”

By Vaughan Yarwood