China's Newest City Raises Threat of Conflict in South China Sea
China has declared its establishment of a municipal settlement on a disputed
island chain in the South China Sea. The move, combined with an earlier
announcement about the islands' militarization, further raises tensions in
this geopolitical hot spot
By <
http://world.time.com/author/austinramzy/> Austin Ramzy |
<
http://www.twitter.com/austinramzy> _at_austinramzy | July 24, 2012 |
<
http://world.time.com/2012/07/24/chinas-newest-city-raises-threat-of-confli
ct-in-the-south-china-sea/#disqus_thread> 57
Sharing TIME stories with friends is easier than ever. Add TIME to your
Timeline.
A ceremony is held on July 24, 2012, to mark China's establishment of
Sansha, a city on Woody Island in the disputed Paracels archipelago
Sansha, <
http://topics.time.com/china/> China's newest city, would seem to
be a paradise. It has tropical waters,
<
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-07/17/c_131721193.htm> about 2
million sq km and just 3,500 permanent
<
http://www.21cbh.com/HTML/2012-7-24/3NNDEzXzQ4MTY3Nw.html> residents on 13
sq km of palm-covered islands. There's an airstrip but no airlines yet, so
<
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/photo/2012-07/10/content_15564956.htm>
transportation is still largely relegated to a 17-hour boat trip. But
perhaps the biggest drawback is that it sits in the South China Sea, where
rival territorial claims have intensified in recent months. On Tuesday,
Sansha established a prefecture-level municipal government, and China's
People's Liberation Army (PLA)
<
http://eng.mod.gov.cn/TopNews/2012-07/21/content_4386334.htm> says it will
soon establish a military garrison there. Sansha is the tiniest city of its
kind in China, but it is having an outsize impact on the country's
increasingly tense territorial disputes with some of its Southeast Asian
neighbors.
(MORE:
<
http://world.time.com/2011/09/19/is-this-how-wars-start-india-and-china-now
-feud-over-the-south-china-sea/> South China Sea Disputes: Is This How War
Starts?)
China and <
http://topics.time.com/taiwan/> Taiwan both claim almost all of
the 3 million-sq-km South China Sea, and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia
and Brunei have partial claims. All except Brunei occupy disputed islands
and reefs in the sea. The possibility of rich, undersea
<
http://topics.time.com/oil/> oil and gas resources has led to increasing
conflict between the neighboring states, and analysts say China's new city
will only worsen the disputes. "All trends are in the wrong direction," says
Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in
Singapore. "The claimant countries have hardened their positions on
jurisdictional claims. That's made a legal resolution or a negotiated
settlement harder because there's less room for compromise."
The dispute roiled the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
foreign-ministers meeting in Cambodia that took place July 9-13. It failed
to agree on a concluding joint statement for the first time since the group
was founded in 1967. While the Philippines and Vietnam pushed for adding the
South China Sea standoff to the statement, China's ally Cambodia balked at
including the issue, which China says it wants to resolve in bilateral
discussions with each claimant rather than in a multilateral forum.
In April, the Philippines' largest warship, the World War II-era frigate
Rajah Humabon, confronted Chinese fishing boats it accused of harvesting
endangered species near the Scarborough Shoal, which China calls Huangyan
Island and the Philippines the Bajo de Masinloc. China sent marine
surveillance vessels, and the Philippines soon replaced its warship with
coast-guard craft, resulting in a standoff that still festers. The
Philippines says it recalled its ships, but Chinese vessels remain near the
shoal. "If someone entered your yard and told you he owned it, would you
agree?" Philippine President Benigno Aquino said in his annual state of the
nation
<
http://president.gov.ph/speech/english-translation-benigno-s-aquino-iii-thi
rd-state-of-the-nation-address-july-23-2012/> address on Monday. "Would it
be right to give away that which is rightfully ours?"
(MORE:
<
http://world.time.com/2011/08/31/can-philippine-presidents-visit-to-china-e
ase-tensions/> Can Aquino's China Visit Ease Tensions?)
Many Southeast Asian states are beefing up their armed forces in response to
China's new assertiveness. Last year the military budget for the
Philippines, one of the weakest military powers in Asia, nearly doubled.
That means increased risk in the South China Sea, according to a
<
http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/north-east-asia/china/229-stirri
ng-up-the-south-china-sea-ii-regional-responses.aspx> report released
Tuesday by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank.
"While increased military power is likely to raise the threshold for, as
well as cost of, armed conflict, it could also embolden countries to be more
pro-active in their territorial claims, making skirmishes harder to
resolve," the report said. "There is a risk that in seeking to flex their
military muscle, claimant states will engage in brinkmanship that could lead
to unintentional escalation."
The Philippines and Vietnam both protested China's creation of Sansha. China
announced the move on the same day that Vietnam issued a law declaring the
Paracels and Spratlys to be in its jurisdiction. China, which took control
of the Paracels after a brief war with South Vietnam in 1974, established
Sansha's government on the largest Paracel isle, Woody Island. Also known as
Yongxing in Chinese, the island has a grocery store, hospital, library and
karaoke parlor but as yet no kindergarten, according to reports of Chinese
journalists who have visited. Yongxing will likely be the headquarters of a
new PLA garrison, though few details have been revealed. "This pronouncement
of a garrison is symbolic," says Rory Medcalf, director of the international
security program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.
"It may take a long time to operationalize, but it is placing a firm
military marker on China's claim in the South China Sea."
The disputing parties have often used paramilitary and civilian forces such
as coast guard and fisheries enforcement agencies to defend their
territorial claims. The move to establish a Sansha garrison, though, is a
sign of the growing reliance on hard power. Another indicator was the July
11 grounding of a Chinese navy frigate on Half Moon Shoal, which is claimed
by both China and the Philippines. Perhaps more surprising than the initial
presence of the Chinese navy ship just 100 km off the Philippines' Palawan
province was the speed with which it received assistance from its
compatriots. "In about 24 hours they got five ships, including a tugboat, to
Half Moon Shoal, and that's quite a way from China," says Storey. "That goes
back to the point of increasing militarization. These warships were clearly
on patrol or somewhere in the area."
For now, the most significant impact of Sansha may be to increase the
importance of the conflict for average Chinese citizens. In recent weeks
Chinese media have run <
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/721902.shtml>
personalized
<
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2012-07/13/content_15578338.htm> stories
of reporters visiting the islands. "Both the city and the garrison
unfortunately raise the emotional stakes for Chinese people," says Medcalf.
"That makes compromise even harder."
Read more:
<
http://world.time.com/2012/07/24/chinas-newest-city-raises-threat-of-confli
ct-in-the-south-china-sea/?iid=gs-main-lede#ixzz21ZxNiqJa>
http://world.time.com/2012/07/24/chinas-newest-city-raises-threat-of-conflic
t-in-the-south-china-sea/?iid=gs-main-lede#ixzz21ZxNiqJa
------------[ Sent via the dehai-wn mailing list by dehai.org]--------------
Received on Tue Jul 24 2012 - 17:48:49 EDT
