MANILA, Philippines (April 14, 2011) – The Chinese government cannot accept the claims of the Philippines on its sovereignty over some islands in South China Sea, a high ranking official of China said today.
This after the Philippine government filed a protest before the United Nation, claiming control over parts of Nansha Islands, parts of the Kalayaan Group of Islands.
In a regular briefing in Beijing today, spokesman of China’s foreign ministry Hong Lei said: “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South China Sea islands and adjacent waters.”
“China owns sovereignty and jurisdiction over the related sea area, seabed and subsoil,” Hong pointed out.
“The sovereignty of China over the South China Sea and related rights and jurisdiction are well-grounded from both historical and legal perspectives,” Hong added.
Early last month, the China insists sovereignty on the area where a Filipino ship, searching for oil near the disputed Spratly Islands, were allegedly harassed by Chinese patrol boats.
In a statement, Ethan Sun, China’s spokesman and deputy chief of Political Section here, said his nation has sovereignty over the area where the reported harassment happened.
“What I want to point out is that, ever since ancient times, China has indisputable sovereignty over Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters,” he cited.
He assured that China is sticking to the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and committed to maintaining peace and stability in the area.
“The Chinese side maintains that the related disputes should be resolved through peaceful negotiations,” he added.
The statement came after the Philippine government sought explanation of the incident, where two Chinese patrol boats allegedly harassed a Philippine boat near the disputed islands.
The March 4 incident prompted the United States to call on the Philippine and Chinese governments to exercise restraint over the incident.
U.S. Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr. said the two countries must exercise “restraint” in resolving the issue.
China’s Maritime Disputes Fueled by Need for Energy
A destroyer of the South China Sea Fleet of the Chinese Navy fire a missile during a training in South China Sea,
The Chinese government has downplayed its maritime disputes with its neighbors in the region, although maintaining its sovereignty over islands in the East and South China Seas that are also claimed by other countries in the region.
When China recently released its biennial defense white paper, it was clear that the country’s number one maritime security issue is Taiwan, a separately-governed island that Beijing considers part of Chinese territory.
One maritime issue that got little attention, though, was the contested islands around China.
In the South China Sea, there are the Spratly and Paracel islands. The Spratlys are largely rocky shoals which are claimed by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. The Paracels, a smaller island group, are claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam.
In the East China Sea, China and Japan disagree strongly about who owns the islands that the Chinese call the Diaoyu and the Japanese call the Senkaku.
The islands are near key shipping lanes and important commercial fishing areas. But, more importantly, they are believed to sit astride large oil deposits.
Gabe Collins is a commodity specialist with the analytical website, China SignPost. He says he thinks China’s thirst for energy is one important explanation for its interest in maintaining sovereignty over the islands.
“Each barrel of oil that you can produce from your own adjacent offshore regions is at least ideally one less barrel that you have to import from somewhere else,” Collins states.
Collins points out that China’s onshore oil production is starting to decline and that the country will soon need to look elsewhere.
“But I think in the coming years, as onshore production continues to plateau, if things geologically do pan out for the Chinese and their offshore exploration and production, I think you are going to see offshore oil and gas production rise as a percentage of the total in China over the next five to 10 years,” he said.
Another major reason for China’s strong claims for the disputed islands has to do with national pride. Li Mingjiang, a political science professor at Singapore’s Rajaratnam School of International Studies, says this feeling has to do with recent history – when China felt Western powers were taking advantage of it.
“And, this of course is related to the so-called century of humiliation. And, many Chinese feel that in the past, China was weak and it was not able to control or compete with other powers in the South China Sea to protect China’s interests,” Li said. “But now it is getting stronger and so it is time to protect its interests.”
These two interests are highlighted in all official Chinese pronouncements on the subject. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu last month was asked China’s position on Philippine oil exploration in the disputed Spratly area.
Jiang says China owns indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands, which is what the Chinese call the Spratlys.
She says oil and gas exploration activities by any country or company in waters under China’s jurisdiction, without permission of the Chinese government, constitutes violation of China’s sovereignty, rights and interests. She says China considers such actions illegal.
Many other countries are closely watching the Chinese navy’s actions.
Admiral Robert Willard, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, last week told a House of Representatives committee that, although confrontations between American and Chinese ships have been rare, there is still some reason to be concerned.
“The Chinese do continue to shadow some of our ships as they conduct their missions in international waters that are approximate to China,” Willard said. “The confrontations that have occurred have occurred with our partners and allies in the region.”
He pointed to recent incidents with Japan about the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands, and with a Philippine ship in the South China Sea.
The United States sparked some controversy in the region in July when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington thinks the claimants should pursue their territorial claims in accordance with the United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Singaporean professor Li says these comments worried China. He says Beijing is seeking to resolve the territorial disputes bilaterally, because it feels it has a better chance of working things out in its favor.
“Right now, China does not control some of the major islands in the Spratly Islands, and many clauses of the U.N. Convention of the Sea are not favorable for China, as well. So there is fear on the part of China that China might end up losing a lot of things in the South China Sea, if the dispute is submitted to international arbitration,” Li explains.
Li says he thinks countries in Southeast Asia were happy, to a point, to see the United States involve itself in the South China Sea maritime dispute. But he says, because all of the countries in the region are so economically dependent on China, they also do not want to be forced to take sides.
Scholars advise gov’t to be aggressive in Spratly islands dispute in South China Sea
TAIPEI — Taiwan should be more actively seeking to engage in discussions on South China Sea affairs to avoid being left out of the equation as Asian countries around the region step up their efforts to engage in dialogue, scholars said Sunday.
“The best way to solve the territorial dispute over the South China Sea is to increase bilateral or multilateral dialogues to prevent tension caused by accidents, and Taiwan should be part of these discussions,” said Liu Shih-chung, a researcher at the Taiwan Brain Trust, a local think tank.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said later yesterday that the Spratly islands are part of Republic of China territory and called for peaceful settlement of the regional dispute over the sovereignty of the archipelago in the South China Sea.
Foreign Ministry spokesman James Chang made the remarks in response to press queries over a recent formal complaint to the United Nations by the Philippines over China’s claim to the Spratlys and other island groups in the region.
Chang said all the countries involved should “first shelve their disputes and then seek to solve the issue peacefully.”
Taiwan, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei each claim all or part of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer South China Sea.
The hot-button issue resurfaced last week after Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung met with Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of the Chinese Central Military Commission, and they agreed to “work closely to develop basic measures” on issues related to the sea, according to Vietnamese media and China’s Xinhua news agency.
Meanwhile, the government of the Philippines made an official complaint to the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf about China’s claim to the sea.
The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed April 14 reports that the country had filed a formal protest with the U.N. April 5 over China’s territorial claim over the entire South China Sea.
“It seems to me that the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou has been very low-key on the issue in order not to affect the warming ties across the Taiwan Strait,” Liu said.
The last time Taiwan voiced its sovereignty over the South China Sea was July 29 last year, days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regional forum in Vietnam that the U.S. “has a national interest in freedom of navigation and open access” to the region.
The South China Sea dispute is not only related to sovereignty, but also to energy resources and piracy, among issues, Liu said, adding that Taiwan should leverage the airstrip it maintains on Dongsha Island and hold discussions with other countries on programs such as humanitarian relief cooperation so that it can remain “in the equation.”
Liu said the government has been trying to seek cooperation with China on the issue through meetings between scholars from both sides of the strait — what he described as “second-track diplomacy” — but added that no decisions have been made.
The U.S. will also play an active role in the matter, Liu said, because “that’s what the ASEAN countries want.”
“The ASEAN countries want to establish sound relations with China but they are also concerned about China’s possible hegemony in the region, which is why they want U.S. involvement,” he said.
Speaking on the same occasion, Wang Kao-cheng, director of Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies, said Taiwan’s exclusion in the dispute reflects the reality of international politics, given that it does not have diplomatic relations with the other claimants of the South China Sea.
He said Taiwan should be more aggressive in seeking dialogues, as “Taiwan’s military presence on Dongsha Island and its claim of sovereignty over the region are facts.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was scheduled to hold a meeting the following day to respond to the think tank’s findings, according to James C.K. Tien, director-general of the ministry’s Department of Asian and Pacific Affairs.
Vietnam Politics 
Posted on April 17, 2011
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