‘Ready to fight’: Tensions escalate in South China Sea
Armed ships have faced off in the disputed South China Sea region as China’s “provocative” actions finally push its neighbours too far.
Asia has just taken a giant leap towards disaster: The combat jets of four nations have squared off above a disputed island. Vietnam is challenging an aggressive Chinese spy ship. And the Philippines has appealed to the US for protection.
On Wednesday a chaotic confrontation unfolded above a tiny island claimed by both South Korea and Japan.
Chinese and Russian bombers infringed the territory, with Tokyo and Seoul fighting over the right to defend the airspace.
South Korea says it fired more than 300 warning shots at the Russian bombers.
Meanwhile, Hanoi has accused Beijing of violating its sovereignty by sending a survey ship to Vanguard Bank, which sits within Vietnam’s UN-recognised 370km (200 mile) exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Beijing arbitrarily claims the South China Sea — in its entirety — as its own.
“Vietnam has made contact with China and staunchly demanded China to stop all unlawful activities and withdraw its ships from Vietnamese waters,” Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said at the weekend
It came shortly after a demand by Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte for the protection of the US Navy after a deadly collision in the disputed Spratly Islands.
“I’m calling now America. I am invoking the RP-US pact, and I would like America to gather their Seventh Fleet in front of China. I’m asking them now,” he said during an interview.
US State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus has called on Beijing to “cease its bullying behaviour and refrain from engaging in this type of provocative and destabilising activities”.
SKY CLASH
Russia denies its A-50 radar surveillance aircraft — flying in concert with two of its own Tu-95 bombers as well as two Chinese H-6K strategic bombers — had twice breached the airspace over the Sea of Japan yesterday.
Instead, it accuses South Korea of “dangerously” intercepting its bombers during a “planned” flight over “neutral” waters.
At the heart of the confrontation is two small islands, called Dokdo by the Koreans and Takeshima by the Japanese. The islands are tiny — covering a total of just 46.346 acres — but are considered strategically important.
Military analysts say the move may have been to analyse Seoul and Tokyo’s air defence abilities — and provoke tension between the two allies.
Both Japan and South Korea insist it was their sovereign right to defend the airspace, calling the presence of the other’s fighter jets a “provocation”.
“This mission will have given (Russia and China) a comprehensive map of the (South Korean) national air defence system,” Peter Layton, a former Royal Australian Air Force pilot and analyst at the Griffith Asia Institute, told CNN.
The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying its aircraft had taken part in a “joint patrol” with Chinese long-range bombers, adding it was the first joint air patrol using long range aircraft in the Asian-Pacific region.”
The patrol was “carried out in order to deepen and develop Russian-Chinese relations”, the statement reads, adding it was “not aimed against third countries.”
The Chinese and Russian combat aircraft loitered within the 12 nautical mile (22km) sovereign territorial zone around the islands for some 24 minutes.
SEA SHOWDOWN
“Over the last several days, the Chinese survey ship, Haiyang Dizhi 8, and its escorts conducted activities in the southern area of the East Sea that violated Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf,” Le said in a statement on Friday. (East Sea is the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea).
The Chinese survey ship appears to be engaged in high-resolution mapping of the sea floor.
The standoff began earlier this month, with Chinese coastguard vessels supporting the survey ship confronted by Vietnamese patrol ships. One of the Chinese escorts, the Haijing 3901, is among the world’s largest coastguard vessels at 12,000 tonnes.
Update (July 19): The Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 continues operations in Vietnam's jurisdictional waters. Graphic shows all activities to date. pic.twitter.com/EH2HO7XkOk
— Ryan Martinson (@rdmartinson88) July 19, 2019
The coastguard and survey vessels have been loitering near a new Vietnamese drilling rig. The platform has been contracted from Russia to exploit the oil and gas reserves beneath. The Haijing 3901 allegedly conducted high-speed manoeuvres near two Vietnamese offshore supply vessels on July 2, passing within 100 metres of them and less than a kilometre from the rig.
In 2014, Chinese and Vietnamese vessels clashed when a Beijing-controlled oil company moved an oil platform into waters Vietnam claims as its own.
Now, Beijing says such commercial activity by Vietnam is a provocation and a glance at the map reveals why.
Beijing claims a vast U-shaped area in the South China Sea. The so-called Nine-Dash Line refers to the undefined, vaguely located, demarcation line used by China. The territorial claim overlaps with island and maritime claims among numerous other countries including Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam.
China has been attempting to prevent other countries from conducting oil and gas exploration in the Nine-Dash Line, despite conducting its own searches.
#Vietnamese fishermen took this picture of the #Chinese survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 8 and one of its escort ships at #VanguardBank. The Chinese ships continue to operate in #Vietnam's jurisdictional waters. pic.twitter.com/6y1q7kdZxJ
— IndoPacific_SCS_Info (@IndoPac_Info) July 21, 2019
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang warned Hanoi to “respect” Beijing’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction, “and not to make any move that may complicate matters”.
China’s coastguard comes under the direct control of the nation’s navy, the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
That seems unlikely. In a statement published on the Vietnam Coast Guard website, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told sailors to “stay vigilant and ready to fight” and to be alert for “unpredictable developments”.
China’s enormous Haijing 3901 had earlier been patrolling the southern end of the Spratly Islands, claimed by Malaysia. There it reportedly elbowed its way within 80 metres of two Malaysian oil and gas supply vessels.
“Given the close-quarters and provocative behaviour on display, there is a clear risk that an accidental collision could lead to escalation,” the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative think-tank has warned.
“China’s actions off both the Malaysian and Vietnamese coasts since May show that Beijing is increasingly willing to employ coercion and the threat of force to block oil and gas operations by its neighbours, even while pursuing its own energy exploration in disputed waters.”
DUTERTE’S DESPERATION
As tensions in the South China Sea escalate, Mr Duterte has invoked the Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT) with the US. He called on the US Navy’s Seventh Fleet, based in Japan, to enforce international law in the disputed Spratly Islands.
“I will join them,” Mr Duterte told a TV interviewer. “I will ride on the boat with the admiral of the US … When the Americans say, ‘We’re here now. Ready?’ I will press the (button).”
Mr Duterte was expressing frustration at growing national unrest after a Chinese ship rammed and sank an anchored Filipino fishing vessel. Its 22 crew were abandoned to drift in their lifeboats.
The incident occurred at Recto Bank fishing ground some 160km off the Philippine island of Palawan and well within its UN-defined national maritime borders.
“Maybe that would be the end of Palawan,” Duterte added. “Palawan may be devastated, occupied or there will be nuclear bombs. We will dry up. So nothing will grow here, we can just wait, just like a big hole coming our way, to suck us to eternity …”
Even if Mr Duterte was serious in his call, the United States is unlikely to consider the ramming incident as an “armed attack”. That is the trigger-phrase in the 68-year-old treaty calling US forces to the aid of the Philippines.
Mr Duterte’s plea is due to the inability of his nation’s aged navy to police its territory. Manila won an international court case against Beijing in 2016 with a Hague ruling declaring that China’s claims over the South China Sea were unfounded.
Beijing rejected the ruling and has used its armed coastguard and fishing militia — based out of its illegal artificial island fortresses — to muscle-in on the lucrative fishing grounds.
RESOURCE GRAB
The US State Department’s Ms Ortagus said in a statement that China’s “repeated provocative actions aimed at the offshore oil and gas development of other claimant states threaten regional energy security and undermine the free and open Indo-Pacific energy market”.
By blocking moves by ASEAN states such as Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines to access the resources contained within their UN-defined territorial waters, China is choking some $US2.5 trillion from the region’s economy.
“China’s reclamation and militarisation of disputed outposts in the South China Sea, along with other efforts to assert its unlawful South China Sea maritime claims, including the use of maritime militia to intimidate, coerce, and threaten other nations, undermine the peace and security of the region,” Ortagus said.
Beijing has ignored US calls for a “hotline” to de-escalate tensions in the region.
“The US has a longstanding request with China … for me, to have a crisis communication with the Southern Theatre Command, which manages the South China Sea, and (China’s) Eastern Theatre Command,” US Admiral Philip Davidson of US Indo-Pacific Command said last week. “They have yet to respond to that ask.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed earlier this year that “any armed attack on Philippines forces, aircraft or public vessels in the South China Sea” would trigger the treaty with the Philippines.
But Beijing has been making clever use of “grey zone” tactics to avoid a formal confrontation.
Such tactics are designed to generate sufficient uncertainty and “plausible deniability” under international law and rules of engagement to cause opponents to hesitate.
For that reason, Beijing is using its government-controlled fishing fleet and nominally civilian coastguard to aggressively lay claim to territory — and not its officially designated military warships.
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer. Continue the conversation @JamieSeidel
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