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China, Vietnam churn diplomatic waters Latest Headlines

Sto ck s & Sec ur i ti e s 21-DEC-2007 Intellasia | Asia Times Online
Dec 21, 2007 - 7:00:00 AM Man sets himself on fire to
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Public exchanges between Hanoi and Beijing asserting their respective
territorial claims of the Paracel Islands, in the north of the South China Sea,
and the Spratly Islands in the south, and surrounding waters are becoming
increasingly shrill.
Underscoring the escalation of words, Vietnam authorities for the first time
in recent memory allowed several hundred students and others to
demonstrate over the past two weekends outside the Chinese embassy in
Hanoi and consulate in HCM City.

Waving Vietnamese flags and wearing T-shirts with the red and gold starred
Vietnamese flag, protestors held maps of the disputed islands and signs
saying ''China hegemony jeopardises Asia'' and ''Beware of the invasion."
They were quoted as shouting ''Defend the homeland''and ''Down with
China.''

Given the usual official intolerance of public demonstrations in Vietnam, the

fact that these protests were allowed indicates that the dispute over the
South China Sea, or what Vietnam refers to as the East Sea, has the
potential to dangerously escalate moving into 2008.

There have been occasional naval clashes over the Spratly Islands. In 1988,
China and Vietnam clashed over possession of Johnson Reef in the Spratlys.
Chinese gunboats sank Vietnamese transport ships supporting a landing
party of Vietnamese soldiers.

Over the past year, the problem periodically made news headlines then

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quickly faded as the two countries moved to defuse tensions and reassert
their confidence in recent warming bilateral ties, which have included several
reciprocal visits by political leaders and top officials, and growing economic
links.

Yet the failure to resolve the South China Sea dispute has kept historical
antagonisms alive. In April, Beijing complained that a BP-led gas exploration
and development project off southern Vietnam was being conducted in
China's territorial waters. Hanoi denied Beijing's claim, but BP has
suspended its exploration in the area, known as block 5.2. China has
recently challenged energy exploration in other offshore blocks tendered by
Vietnam.

One case in particular involves India's state-owned ONGC and the offshore
blocks 127 and 128, located off Vietnam's central coast, it was awarded in
May 2006. On November 22, the Chinese embassy in New Delhi wrote to
ONGC to say that the concession award of the blocks by Vietnam was not
valid. To date ONGC has invested US$100 million in its exploration
programme in the concession areas.

More dramatically, in early July Chinese naval vessels fired on a Vietnamese

boat near the Paracel Islands, causing one death and several injuries. While
it is has not been uncommon for Chinese naval vessels detaining Vietnamese
fishing vessels for straying into contested waters, the use of force was
unusual and seemed to represent an escalation in tensions.

Hanoi has so far responded with restraint. While being firm about its
territorial claims in official statements, Hanoi declined to take a provocative
stand and remained reticent in speaking publicly about meetings it held with
Beijing over the issue. But the December demonstrations outside China's
diplomatic missions suggest that Hanoi is now taking a firmer stand.

That has not been lost on Beijing, which publicly chided the Vietnamese for
allowing and possibly even encouraging the protests. The Chinese Foreign
Ministry said that China was ''highly concerned'' and urged Vietnamese
leaders to ''prevent further developments and avoid harming bilateral
relations".

''China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands,''
ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular news conference amid the
protests.

What may have finally provoked Hanoi was a policy measure enacted in
November by the Chinese State Council administratively incorporating both
the Paracel and Spratly Islands into Hainan Island Province. A Chinese
administrative outpost on one of the Paracels, Woody Island, was reportedly
given the new status as ''county-level city'' of Sansha through the
administrative act.

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said in apparent response that Vietnam had
"adequate historical evidence and sufficient legal basis to proclaim its
sovereignty" over both archipelagoes. The ministry also said that the
Chinese action had seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty and did not
correspond with the prior common understandings reached by the two
countries' leaders. In November, Hanoi also protested against a Chinese
military exercise conducted in the Paracels.

Vietnamese prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung raised the issues on the
sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit in
Singapore in mid-November while meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Dung later said the two countries should continue to exchange opinions to

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find suitable fields and forms of cooperation in disputed and overlapping

areas in accordance with international laws and with full consultation and
consensus with related parties.

Diplomatic divergence

From Vietnam's perspective, that would include adherence to the 1982

United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the more recent 2002
Asean declaration for the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the South China
Sea, where the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have
competing claims.

Wen said he agreed that the two sides should carry out their top leaders'
agreements to cooperate, maintain peace and stability, and ''keep calm in
dealing with emerging issues through solutions acceptable by both sides, so
as not to affect bilateral relations.'' Wen also reportedly said that he hoped
the South China Sea issue could be solved through a joint exploitation
approach, while putting to one side maritime boundary claims.

That would draw a box around the disputed areas and allow exploitation of
any petroleum or other resources found in the areas through a joint
development scheme under which returns would be shared. There is already
one tripartite exploration programme underway between China's CNOOC,
Vietnam's PetroVietnam and the Philippine National Oil Co in one eastern
region of the Spratlys.

Apart from churning diplomatic waters, the re-emergence of the South China
Sea dispute casts an unwelcome cloud over Vietnam's latest international
triumph, given its recent selection to assume one of the two-year non-
permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. Just as accession to
the World Trade Organisation earlier this year marked a milestone in
Vietnam's efforts to open and integrate globally its economy, so its election
to the Security Council underlined the country's rising stature in the regional
and international community.

Over the past year, Hanoi has pushed hard to raise and improve Vietnam's
international profile. prime minister Dung, a 58-year-old who assumed office
in April 2006, has made a series of diplomatic forays. These include a visit in
late January to Rome to meet Pope Benedict in the Vatican to discuss the
situation of Vietnam's several million Catholic adherents. Foreign leaders,
ministers and business delegations have also been beating a path to
Vietnam's door, attracted by the country's strong commercial prospects.

Hanoi has sought to avoid diplomatic controversy. It has reached out in all
directions, maintaining ties with old communist allies in Cuba and Russia
while building trust with former adversaries in the US, Europe and Australia.
Hanoi has also innovatively looked to build ties in South America, especially
with Venezuela and Brazil, and has demonstrated a willingness to transcend
US-led antagonisms and reach out to North Korea and Iran.

Aside from the South China Sea dispute with China, the only major
diplomatic issue facing Vietnam has been recent criticism in the US and
European Union about its harsh treatment of pro-democracy dissenters and
its ongoing restrictions on religious freedom. Even here, Hanoi has tried to
defuse tensions, declaring that human rights are respected in Vietnam and
taking certain actions to moderate criticism, such as the occasional release
or reduction in sentence of high-profile imprisoned dissidents.

Some contend that Vietnam's conciliatory approach was part and parcel of
its lobbying effort to win a seat at the UN Security Council, where Vietnam
will speak for the 53 Asian nation block along with the existing non-

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permanent Council member Indonesia and permanent member China. Hanoi

will soon find itself in more difficult diplomatic terrain, when it will be called
upon to make binding decisions and votes that have an impact on relations
with countries it has recently cultivated at a bilateral level.

For Dung and his generation of leaders in the Communist Party-led

government, the importance and prestige of achieving Security Council
membership cannot be underestimated. Dung, who in the American war was
a young Viet Cong guerrilla in the south and has been a card-carrying
member of the Communist Party since 1967, has watched the full cycle of
Vietnam slipping into international isolation in the 1970s and 1980s,
tentatively coming in from the cold in the 1990s and now assuming a senior
leadership position at the UN's central decision-making forum.

It wasn't that long ago that Vietnam was the focus of Security Council
criticism, following its invasion of Cambodia in December 1978 and its
subsequent 11-year occupation of the neighbouring country. Then Vietnam's
relations with China were a point of global concern after a short but bloody
border war between the two sides in 1979, Beijing's armed response to
Hanoi's military move to oust the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge regime.

Only after the UN-brokered 1991 Paris Peace Agreement ended Cambodia's
foreign-influenced civil war was Vietnam able to restore normal relations
with non-Soviet bloc countries, including China, with which it re-established
full diplomatic ties that same year. Now those crucial bilateral relations are
strained again, this time over contiguous island chains but similarly with
wide-ranging implications for regional stability. As Vietnam prepares to enter
the front ranks of the international community through its UN posting, it's
not beyond the realm of possibility that its own bilateral tensions with China
could during its term end up on the Security Council's agenda.

By Andrew Symon

© Copyright 2007 by Intellasia.net

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