Looking Forward

“The first rule for fishing around the Nansha (Spratly) Islands is to figure out which reefs are controlled by China and which are controlled by another country,” Liang Yaxue, a local fishing boat captain, told NewsChina. “Otherwise, you may blunder onto another country’s turf.”

Comprising 750 reefs, islets, atolls and islands spread over 425,000 square kilometers of open ocean in the South China Sea, the Nansha Islands have become a flashpoint for tensions between China and its neighbors, with interested parties claiming sovereignty over swaths of overlapping “territory” and some even stationing garrisons on reefs or islets. Confrontations have been frequent, due to the proximity of certain garrisons.

For example, the Chigua (Johnson South) Reef, garrisoned by China, was the site of a brief naval battle between China and Vietnam in March 1988. Chigua is only 4 nautical miles away from the Guihan (Johnson North) Reef, controlled by Vietnam.

During a fishing run in 2010, Liang’s boat was pursued by what he describes as “an armed fishing boat” launched from Guihan Reef. He claims the boat only abandoned the chase when the Chigua Reef garrison fired warning shots.

In the latest conflict, the Chinese fishery authorities detained two Vietnamese fishing boats claimed to be operating in a disputed area on May 16, 2012. Two days later, five Chinese fishing boats were pursued by three Vietnamese gunboats, which were in turn confronted by an armed Chinese fishery administration vessel, Yuzheng 310.

With tensions mounting and the major players in the area increasing their presence in the South China Sea, calls are growing in China for a more assertive policy towards its regional claims.

Civil Presence

Vietnam is believed to have garrisoned some 2,000 armed personnel in the South China Sea, while the Philippines and Malaysia have a military presence comprised 100 and 120 soldiers respectively. Numerically, China is generally understood to have the military advantage, though the People’s Liberation Army has never released personnel figures for its South China Sea bases. However, asserting viable sovereignty over this disputed region is more than a numbers game.

China’s sovereignty claim over the Nansha Islands is largely based on historical records. Today, actual control and governance, in particular civil jurisdiction, is increasingly considered more important in exerting this claim. International law also tends to favor the side that exercises actual governance. In this regard, the question of territorial authority in the South China Sea remains unresolved.

Unlike the Xisha Islands, or the Paracels, another disputed island chain which has been kept under de facto Chinese control, many reefs and shoals in the Nansha Islands fell under the control of neighboring countries in the 1980s, before China resumed its regional patrols in the 1990s.

Currently, China controls seven reefs in the Nansha Islands. Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia control 30, nine, and five islands and reefs respectively, with the three largest islands, Taiping (Itu Aba), Zhongye (Thitu) and Nanwei (Spratly), variously controlled by Taiwan, the Philippines, and Vietnam respectively. Airstrips have been constructed on both Zhongye and Nanwei islands, along with other administrative facilities. China’s diminutive port on Yongshu (Fiery Cross) Reef, the largest reef under Chinese control, is Beijing’s only major permanent presence in the area.

With 30 islands and reefs under its direct control, Vietnam has long been China’s major rival in the region. Unlike China, Vietnam has endeavored to diversify its operations, maintaining a military presence while ramping up a civil presence and strengthening governance. For example, besides stationing a battalion of 600 soldiers on Nanwei, the Vietnamese have constructed an entire town complete with a hotel, a school, a temple and a hospital. Now, a second generation of native islanders has grown up calling Nanwei home, a major challenge to China’s sovereignty claim. In its latest effort, the Vietnamese government “approved” six Buddhist monks as abbots of temples on certain other Vietnamese-controlled islets and reefs. With settled civilian populations, the stakes for any military intervention on the part of other claimants are raised exponentially.

The Philippine government has also been encouraging civilians to settle Zhongye Island, though rather less successfully. A village called Pag-Asa has been established on the island with an official population of 350. In reality, the island has less than 60 permanent residents, most of whom are government employees. However, in early 2012 the Philippine government announced that it would accelerate its Zhongye settler program, building more facilities, in- cluding a port and a school, as well as upgrading the airstrip on the island with a view to developing a local tourism industry.

In recent years, China has also been trying to establish a civil presence and some semblance of governance on the islands and reefs it controls in the South China Sea. A post office with only one staff member and China Mobile’s extension of cellphone coverage to the seven Chinese-controlled reefs and islets in September 2011 have, however, not led to any form of viable settlement. Limited available land on the reefs, which are located hundreds of miles from the Chinese mainland makes it impossible to sustain a sizable permanent population. Currently, the Chinese have established seawater desalination facilities and farms, but mainly to support the reefs’ garrisons. Civilians are thin on the ground.

So far, China’s efforts have mainly focused on extending the scope of its fishing operations in the area. In addition, Mischief Reef has been contracted to Lin Zhailiang, former vice-director of the Hainan Provincial Bureau of Aquatic Products, for the development of marine aquaculture. But, with fish feed having to be brought in from the island province of Hainan, which lies more than 1,000 kilometers to the north and which claims jurisdiction over the entirety of the Nansha Islands, the business is hardly profitable.

Similar problems are also plaguing the fishing business. Chen Jiming, chief engineer for the Hainan Fishery Research Institute, told NewsChina that 500 fishing boats are now authorized to fish the Nansha reefs, but only 300 are in service, 600 less than in the 1990s.

“Sometimes, there are less than 10 boats operating in the Nansha Islands area,” said Chen.

Fishing

Lin Hongyong, secretary-general of a fishermen’s cooperative based in Sanya, Hainan, told NewsChina that the sheer distance between Hainan, the home port of almost all Chinese fishing boats operating in the South China Sea, and the Nansha Islands means that only large trawlers can turn a profit. According to Lin, existing local fishery policies based on specific economic and environmental considerations actually discourage fishermen from investing in larger boats. For example, a cap is automatically put on the addition of new fishing boats to Hainan’s fleet due to a requirement that new additions do not exceed the fleet’s current combined horsepower.

To encourage fishermen to ply their trade in the South China Sea, the government has offered a 97,000 yuan (US$15,000) per 1,000 kilowatt diesel subsidy to boats fishing in all areas south of 12th parallel north. According to Liang and other fishermen, this subsidy is too small to make a difference to most fishermen, though that hasn’t stopped some from exploiting it by sailing just south of the demarcation line then allowing their boats to drift, before returning home and claiming their handout.

Safety concerns are another major factor keeping Chinese trawlers out of what the government claims is Chinese territory. According to the data from South China Sea’s fishery bureau under the Ministry of Agriculture, 380 cases of “foreign assault” on Chinese fishing boats and their crews have been reported between 1989 and 2010, involving 750 vessels and 11,300 fishermen. In that time, more than 800 Chinese fishermen have been detained or jailed, with 25 killed or missing and 24 injured.

In order to better protect the safety of Chinese fishermen, fishery authorities in Hainan Province sponsored the installation of China’s Beidou navigational system, China’s equivalent to GPS, on all fishing boats over 80 tons in 2010, allowing for quicker triangulation of the location of fishing boats in trouble. However, most local fishermen want greater guarantees. Liang, for example, suggested that the government build bigger fishing boats and contract them out to fishermen, allowing greater profits while also discouraging opportunistic attacks from foreign marine patrols.

Oil Tap

Many argue that China’s territorial claims have less to do with fish and more to do with the promise of oil and gas wealth in the region. According to Liu Feng, a professor from the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, there are currently 1,350 oil wells in the South China Sea, with 790 in the vast region over which China claims sovereignty. However, not one is under Chinese control.

According to Liu, China has made two attempts to assert its oil claims in the past. In 1992, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) struck a deal with Crestone Oil, a US-based oil company, to explore an oil field in the western part of the Nansha Islands, only to have the claim blocked by neighboring Vietnam. China later adopted a stance that forbade oil companies from countries without regional claims from exploring the disputed area, and dropped the joint project.

With the signing of the “Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea” with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members in 2002, China has been advocating the idea of “shelving disputes and engaging in joint exploration.”In 2005, China signed an agreement with Vietnam and the Philippines on seismic data collection in the South China Sea, a joint program which has led to the discovery of various oil-rich or gas-rich geological structures. Unfortunately, the discovery of these reserves has only intensified regional differences, with both Vietnam and the Philippines preferring to work with foreign companies rather than with China when it comes to extracting oil and gas wealth.

According to estimates from Chinese officials, 30 million tons of oil, more than half of CNOOC’s annual output, are being pumped every year from foreign-operated wells in what Beijing claims is China’s sovereign territory. The policy of “joint exploration” has been dismissed as a failure, and, under growing domestic pressure, China has started to adopt a tougher stance. In May 2011, for example, a Chinese ship cut the exploration cable of a Vietnamese surveying vessel. “China can no longer afford to ‘wait and see,’”said Liu Feng. “The life span of the average oil well is only 25 to 30 years.”

The launch of a new generation of drilling platform, which en- ables China to explore oil and gas in deep water regions of the South China Sea, has been perceived as China’s first attempt to actively explore oil and gas wealth in the region. However, even if oil is successfully extracted, transporting it safely back to China still poses a daunting challenge. Building a pipeline across a thousand miles of 4,000-meter-deep seafloor is out of the question. The only option is tanker shipping through disputed and heavily-patrolled sea lanes.

Such a scenario would require a heavily-staffed forward base in the Nansha Island chain to provide logistical support. However, establishing such a base is far from simple. According to Xu Sen’an, former vice-director of the Policy Studies Office under the State Oceanic Administration, the “relevant authorities” are evaluating the logistics of building such a base in Mischief Reef. “With its huge lagoon as deep as 6 meters and with three main entrances, Mischief Reef could, in time, accommodate an aircraft carrier,” he told our reporter.

On June 21, China announced that the three disputed island chains would be given prefecture-level administrative status under the jurisdiction of Hainan Province. The new prefecture, named“Sansha” (indicating a grouping of the Three Shas - Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha, complete with a “capital” on Yongxing Island, part of the Chinese-controlled Paracel chain), marks the first major Chinese attempt to extend political control to all three disputed chains.

But as countries in the region and some of the world’s major countries, such as the US, Japan and India, all have a stake in the region, China faces a delicate balancing act involving sensitive diplomacy, complex military strategy and hard economic pragmatism which, if mishandled, could escalate regional tensions into a full-blown armed conflict.