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Chinese naval display may backfire

Richard Lloyd Parry
• June 20, 2011 12:00AM

IT must have been intended by the Chinese military as an assertion of bold confidence, a statement of authority by an aspiring superpower in the sea it regards as its own backyard.

But a series of recent moves in the South China Sea may backfire on Beijing by driving its rattled Southeast Asian neighbours toward its strategic rival, the US.

Beijing insisted last week it would not use coercion in the dispute over the ownership of islands that have been the scene of tense confrontations with Vietnamese and Philippine vessels.

Vietnam conducted live artillery firing exercises in the South China Sea last Monday, in a blunt warning to China after weeks of tension over maritime territory claimed by both countries.

Vietnam and The Philippines accuse China of harassing their survey vessels in an area suspected of holding valuable energy resources and of building on islands subject to long-running territorial disputes.

"We will not resort to the use of force or the threat of force," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. "Some country took unilateral actions to impair China's sovereignty and maritime rights and interests."

The assertiveness of the Chinese navy in the South China Sea, where six countries have competing claims, is spreading alarm through Southeast Asia. It is igniting rare displays of open anti-Chinese feeling in Vietnam, whose government suppresses expressions of popular feeling.

But it may also have the side-effect of encouraging Southeast Asian nations to seek the protection of the US in an effort to offset a rising China.

On June 12, in a display that must have been at least tacitly sanctioned by the authorities, hundreds of Vietnamese marched peacefully but noisily in the capital, Hanoi, and Ho Chi Minh City, denouncing China.

But an even stiffer warning came the next day, when Vietnamese forces fired artillery shells during military exercises off the coast. The island where the firing took place, Hon Ong, is not claimed by China, but the threat was clear that Hanoi may resort to military force to head off aggressive Chinese action in territory it insists is its own.

Vietnam claims the entire Spratly Islands group as the Truong Sau archipelago; China and Taiwan each claim them as the Nansha islands. Under a variety of different names, Malaysia, The Philippines and Brunei call some of the islands their own.

In 1976, the Chinese forcibly seized the Paracel Islands, north of the Spratlys, from Vietnam. In 1988, the two countries fought a sea battle over Johnson Reef, in which 70 Vietnamese sailors died.

The most important thing about the islands is the oil and gas that passes by them on tankers, on its way from the Gulf to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Half the world's merchant traffic by tonnage passes close to the Spratlys, two-thirds of it crude oil.

The Times