To assess China’s behavior, we should take a closer look at the recent events. Roughly since 2009 the conduct of all claimants in the South China Sea has become increasingly aggressive.
By Vera Dicke and Heike Holbig
Image Attribute: Photo licensed under Creative Commons by SurfaceWarriors
To assess
China’s behavior, we should take a closer look at the recent events. Roughly
since 2009 the conduct of all claimants in the South China Sea has become
increasingly aggressive. In May 2009 a UN deadline expired that had been set
for the affected Southeast Asian states to submit their respective claims on
areas going beyond their EEZs (Kreuzer 2014).
Vietnam, Malaysia and the
Philippines submitted claims that encompassed disputed waters (Swaine and
Fravel 2011). China reacted with a note verbale to the UN Secretary-General,
claiming “indisputable sovereignty over the islands of the South China Sea”, which triggered counterclaims by the Philippines. Tensions have
since increased in the South China Sea. Various countries’ coast guard ships
have rammed fishing boats, while exploration vessels have been forced by other
nations to leave disputed areas.
The roles of aggressor and victim have
constantly changed, although confrontations between China and Vietnam or the
Philippines have more frequently been reported than those between Vietnam and
the Philippines. In 2012 the Philippines was the first country since the 1980s
to use an armed military ship on the Scarborough Shoal against Chinese
fishermen. In the context of the South China Sea disputes, this was a clear
sign of escalation (Kreuzer 2014).
Although
reports about risky incidents and coast guard ships ramming fishing boats have
increased, Vietnam’s strategy toward China seems to be more subtle. In 2007 it
amplified its own oil exploration efforts in waters also claimed by China and
in 2011 conducted seismic surveys in those same waters (Swaine and Fravel
2011). In the diplomatic realm, Vietnam’s strategy has been to internationalize
the dispute – something China wants to avoid – in order to generate support for
its claims among the international community (Swaine and Fravel 2011). It has
hosted several international conferences about the South China Sea (the last in
July 2014), the deployment of the Haiyang Shiyou 981 platform and the
possibilities of an international lawsuit against China (ibid.; Dien 2014). By
inviting international guests, Vietnam is publicly underlining its own claims
and trying to legitimize them. Vietnam also decided to take legal action
against China over the Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig (Dien 2014).
Despite this,
there have also been diplomatic efforts to ease tensions between the two
countries. For example, in 2011 China and Vietnam agreed to conduct bilateral
negotiations on the South China Sea and to enhance cooperation in less
sensitive fields, such as maritime environmental protection and sea-related
scientific research (Vietnam+ 2011). Hotlines between the countries’ respective
foreign ministries and agriculture ministries were established in order to
manage emerging confrontations. Furthermore, during Premier Li Keqiang’s visit
to Vietnam in October 2013 (Vietnam News 2013), numerous agreements were
signed, thus revealing how intense economic and diplomatic cooperation had
become throughout the previous few years.
However, in
the security realm, things look different. Vietnam is increasingly
strengthening its ties with the United States and Japan (Manyin et al. 2012),
both of which support Vietnam’s coast guard – a central actor in the disputes
in the South China Sea. In the light of China’s positioning of the Haiyang
Shiyou 981 oil rig, Vietnamese officials have suggested that US warships could
be allowed to visit the country’s strategic port of Cam Ranh Bay. Whereas the
Philippines has sided with the United States as part of a bandwagoning strategy
and opposes China, Vietnam has employed a balancing approach and cooperates
with both the United States and China in order to preserve room for maneuver
(Kreuzer 2014). In view of the recent events, however, this balance of
cooperation might tilt toward the United States.
China has a
longstanding two-pronged strategy in the South China Sea. On the one hand, it
tries to avoid severe conflicts through negotiation and cautious management. In
these negotiations, it aims at deferring any final solution. On the other hand,
it maintains a fierce defense against any attempts by the other claimant states
to change the status quo to its disadvantage (Swaine and Fravel 2011). China’s
placement of the Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig could fall into the second part of this
strategy. Although it is difficult to say what exactly triggered China’s
decision to move the oil platform into the disputed waters, it is highly
probable that China – despite diplomatic efforts on both sides – felt provoked
by Vietnam in a spiral of reactions and counter-reactions. For example, in 2012
PetroVietnam and CNOCC both invited foreign companies to explore the same area
in the South China Sea, which resulted in a diplomatic crossing of swords
(Bloomberg News 2012). This may have instigated a race to be the first to drill
for oil in this area. If the deployment of the oil platform fits with the
second part of the two pronged strategy, its early withdrawal could belong to
the first part – namely, the avoidance of severe conflicts. In removing the oil
rig from the disputed waters one month earlier than scheduled, China reaffirmed
that the purpose of the oil rig was exploratory drilling and that it had always
intended to leave once it had finished its work. Nevertheless, the diplomatic
damage had certainly been done and will remain for some time. It is thus clear that
the second element of China’s two pronged strategy guided this action.
To be clear,
China’s actions in the South China Sea cannot be described as peaceful or
purely as self-defense; though the same can be said about the other claimant
states. The level of assertiveness by all concerned parties has increased
considerably in recent years and has triggered an endless spiral of
provocations, reactions and counterreactions. The alleged – and in fact
questionable (Kreuzer 2014) – oil reserves only explain part of this
development. Territorial issues have always been and always will be an area of
high sensitivity. Decisions have to be balanced between strategic geopolitical
considerations, diplomatic conduct and nationalist sentiment among the
population. In recent years strategic geopolitical concerns and nationalism
have clearly dominated, though the remaining rules of diplomatic conduct have
been able to prevent major escalations. Also, China’s decision in spring 2013
to merge the various competing bureaucracies in charge of maritime policies
into the new State Oceanic Administration – which aims to regain control and
command over domestic actors’ behavior in territorial disputes with neighboring
countries (Noesselt and Hieber 2013) – corroborates the willingness of the
Chinese leadership to avoid a dynamic escalation of existing tensions.
Cite This Article:
Dicke, Vera ;
Holbig, Heike ; GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies -
Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien (Ed.): Rising
Sino-Vietnamese tensions in the South China Sea. Hamburg, 2014 (GIGA Focus
International Edition 8). URN:
http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-405527 / Download the Paper - LINK
This article is made available under a CC BY-ND License (Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Germany CC BY-ND 3.0 DE) by the Original Publisher - GIGA-German Institute of Global and Area Studies. For more Information see:
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