Roaring on the Seas China’s Power Grab Is Alarming

Roaring on the Seas

China’s Power Grab Is Alarming

Few aspects of China’s dynamic emergence as a global power have generated as much insecurity and danger in its neighborhood as its mounting campaign to control the South China Sea, a vital waterway for international commerce. On Wednesday, at a high-level meeting in Hanoi, China’s top diplomat scolded his Vietnamese hosts for complaining about an oil rig that Beijing planted in early May in waters that Vietnam claims, as its own.

The sharp back-and-forth represented one of the lowest points in relations between the two countries since a brief territorial war in 1979, and it added to worries in Washington and elsewhere about Beijing’s continued bullying in energy-rich waters that not only Vietnam but other small Asian nations lay claim to.

In addition to installing the rig, Beijing’s efforts to assert sovereignty over the many specks of rock dotting the South China Sea now includes a novel twist: the piling of sand on isolated reefs and shoals to create what amount to new islands in the Spratly archipelago.

Vietnam, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian nations that also claim sovereignty in the Spratlys have watched this island-building with growing alarm, but despite their protests — and a strongly worded statement last month by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel condemning China’s “destabilizing, unilateral actions” in the South China Sea — Beijing is showing no intention of changing its ways.

The Spratly Islands are uninhabited and of no economic value in themselves. But the archipelago covers rich fishing grounds and is believed to harbor large oil and gas reserves, and China could claim an exclusive economic zone within 200 nautical miles of each of the three or four islands it is creating. The new islands, projected to reach 20 to 40 acres in area, would also serve the projection of Chinese military power by providing bases for surveillance and resupply.

China insists that the Spratlys, Paracels and other islands have always belonged to China. But Vietnam also claims sovereignty, and parts of them are claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei. In 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China signed a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, agreeing to resolve territorial disputes “without resorting to the threat or use of force.” That declaration is not legally binding, and China has argued that Vietnam and the Philippines have already developed some facilities in the islands, though without adding acreage.

The real problem, in any case, is not the muddled question of sovereignty, but the way China appears to believe that its expanding military and economic power entitle it to a maximalist stance in territorial disputes. Certainly the smaller nations abutting the South China Sea are no match for China in a fight, but the fear and anger that China’s aggressive actions have generated among its maritime neighbors, and the tensions they have raised with Washington, hardly seem to be in Beijing’s interest, or in keeping with the image China’s president, Xi Jinping, tried to project when he said in Paris in March that “the lion that is China has awoken, but it is a peaceful, amiable and civilized lion.”

That is not the lion now roaring over the waters of the South China Sea, threatening the stability and security that have benefited, above all, China. That is all the more reason for Beijing to heed the 2002 declaration’s call for self-restraint in activities that would complicate disputes or disturb the peace.

NYT

Recent Tanker Hijackings Add to Problems in the South China Sea

Malaysian marine police officers inspecting a Singapore-owned tanker hit by pirates in April. Credit Lai Seng Sin/Associated Press

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Add another problem to the rising tensions in the South China Sea this year: a mysterious spate of tanker hijackings since late April, as armed bands of men have boarded and commandeered the ships, siphoned their cargos of diesel and gasoline onto barges or other tankers, and fled into the night.

Complicating matters is the fact that two of the hijackings took place near the heart of Malaysia’s offshore oil and gas production, in waters where China is making an increasingly forceful claim to sovereignty.

Interpol, intelligence agencies and military forces in the region are investigating the eight attacks — the most recent of which was last Friday — and are trying to figure out how to stop further ones, said Noel Choong, the head of the Asia office here of the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Center.

One goal of the investigation is to determine whether the diesel fuel and gasoline are being sold for profit by criminals or are being used to finance political activities, possibly even terrorism.

Map: Territorial Disputes in the Waters Near China

In one incident in late May, “they were wearing ninja-type clothes, black, so they looked professional,” Mr. Choong said.

In contrast to the military assault rifles sometimes carried by pirates off Somalia and Nigeria, the pirates in the South China Sea have tended to be armed with handguns or even machetes. No one is known to have been killed in any of the hijackings, but three tanker crew members were abducted in one of the episodes and have not been seen since.

The hijackings raise geopolitical issues. Seven have taken place close to Malaysia and one close to the Anambas Islands of Indonesia. But two of the hijackings close to Malaysia occurred in waters near James Shoal, a disputed, submerged reef near the north coast of Malaysian Borneo.

Malaysia has had commercial activities there for many years, and it is a center of the country’s extensive offshore oil and gas industry. Oil and gas revenues cover nearly half of the Malaysian government’s budget.

But China has been increasingly assertive over the past several years in claiming that James Shoal lies inside its so-called nine-dash line, a huge expanse of the South China Sea that Beijing has been claiming with increasing boldness, particularly this year. A small flotilla of Chinese naval vessels went to James Shoal in January, and Chinese officers held an oath-swearing ceremony there to pledge that they would defend China’s sovereignty.

Malaysia glossed over the matter, saying that the Chinese vessels had stayed in international waters during their activities. Malaysia has tried to maintain a nearly neutral stance toward China within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but it could find the balancing act more difficult next year, when it assumes the rotating chairmanship of the association.

The hijackings also come at a time of considerable nervousness about jihadist recruiting efforts in Malaysia, which is heavily Sunni Muslim. The Malaysian authorities have detained more than a dozen people in the past month, reportedly including a Malaysian naval officer, in an investigation into recruiting and other support activities on behalf of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the militant group that has seized control of a large part of northwestern Iraq.

The International Maritime Bureau, which is part of the International Chamber of Commerce and works closely with the United Nations on shipping issues, has been quietly tracking the hijacking problem and plans to issue a detailed report next week calling for further international attention to the problem, Mr. Choong said. The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency has said that it is trying to solve the crimes and increase security at sea.

Cmdr. William J. Marks, a spokesman for the United States Navy’s Seventh Fleet, said the fleet had not received a request for antipiracy help in more than two years, but generally worked closely with countries in the region, including conducting a joint exercise last year with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

In a typical year, one tanker is hijacked in the South China Sea or the adjacent Strait of Malacca, or none at all. Freighters and pleasure boats are sometimes stopped and their crews and passengers robbed and, on rare occasions, kidnapped. From $1 million to $2 million worth of fuel has been stolen from each of six tankers that have lost part or all of their cargos in the South China Sea since mid-April.

Pirates briefly seized two other tankers but did not try to steal their cargos after discovering that they were carrying chemicals that were not readily salable. One of the tankers was carrying methanol, used in making paints and plastics, and the other was carrying bitumen, a thick fuel used for firing boilers.

Mr. Choong declined to identify publicly the owners of the eight tankers, except to say that one was owned by a global oil company and most of the rest were owned by companies in Singapore. None of the tankers were large vessels that carry crude oil, which would take a long time to siphon into another ship and would be harder to resell.

One of the biggest worries, Mr. Choong said, is that if tankers develop a reputation as being profitable, easy targets to attack, then piracy could spread, much as it did off the coast of Somalia over the last several years.

Piracy off the Somali coast dropped steeply after shipping companies began hiring armed guards and putting them aboard vessels. But Indonesia and Malaysia have longstanding bans on any armed private guards aboard ships, reserving the right to bear weapons for their own military and police.

“We don’t want it to get out of control,” Mr. Choong said.

NYT

Asia Pacific

Directory: tlairson -> china
china -> The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 11, Issue 21, No. 3, May 27, 2013. Much Ado over Small Islands: The Sino-Japanese Confrontation over Senkaku/Diaoyu
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tlairson -> Chapter IX power, Wealth and Interdependence in an Era of Advanced Globalization
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china -> The Economist Singapore The Singapore exception To continue to flourish in its second half-century, South-East Asia’s miracle city-state will need to change its ways, argues Simon Long
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china -> The Economist The Pacific Age Under American leadership the Pacific has become the engine room of world trade. But the balance of power is shifting, writes Henry Tricks

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