Vietnam Offers South China Sea Monitor Sea Oil Blocks to India

During the official visit of India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Vietnam from August 24-26, the two countries renewed their bilateral relationship and Hanoi urged for stronger Indian participation in Southeast Asia.

During the official visit of India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to Vietnam from August 24-26, the two countries renewed their bilateral relationship and Hanoi urged for stronger Indian participation in Southeast Asia. In the background of an assertive China in the South China Sea, Vietnam offered five oil and gas blocks in the South China Sea to India for exploration. China has always opposed internationalising the issue and warned other nations to stay out of the regional maritime disputes. However, with growing Chinese aggression in the disputes, nations like Vietnam and the Philippines are looking towards other regional powers for support against Beijing.

Maritime security was one of the key areas of discussion between the delegations. While addressing the Third Round Table of India-ASEAN Think Tanks, Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh noted that "future development and integration (between India and China) lie in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean". While Vietnam explicitly expressed its interest in seeing a greater Indian presence in the South China Sea, the Indian side did not make any direct comment on the issue. Swaraj however did emphasise on the importance of India’s ties with Vietnam especially with regard to its Look East Policy.

Sushma Swaraj is believed to ’have laid the foundation for the upcoming visit to Vietnam by President Pranab Mukherjee in September. The high level visits to Hanoi are aimed at underlining the growing ties between the two countries and reflecting India’s interest in engaging further with the region. This was the first visit by the External Affairs Minister and apart from meeting her counterparts, Swaraj inaugurated the Third Round Table of India-ASEAN Think Tanks. The Minister also convened a meeting with the Indian Heads of Mission from Southeast and East Asia to discuss the developments in the region. Vietnam could pave the way for New Delhi to engage further with the region – an opportunity that is crucial to India’s Look East Policy.

MEDIA WATCH

China Media says Japan’s naming of 160 East China Sea Islands ’Farce’
Chinese state media has slammed Japan’s move of naming 160 islands in the East China Sea, claiming that it infringes on China’s sovereign rights. (The Japan Times).

U.S., Chinese officials to meet at Pentagon after jet intercept
Chinese and U.S officials met at the Pentagon after a Chinese fighter pilot flew acrobatic maneuvers around the U.S. Navy’s P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine and reconnaissance plane. (Reuters).

Sushma Swaraj in Hanoi, India Examining Vietnam’s South China Sea Oil Blocks Offer
Vietnam sought greater Indian engagement in maintaining maritime safety, security and settlement of territorial disputes in the disputed South and East China Seas. (The Times of India).

China to hold First Combat Drill with ’Opposition Forces’
Chinese air and naval forces would hold combat drill with realistic scenarios with "opposition forces" unlike previous drills which were in accordance with preplanned scenarios. (The Economic Times).

Philippines to protest to Beijing over Shipping Activity in South China Sea
Philippines is set to protest Beijing’s increased patrols in the South China Sea. The protests were against Chinese vessels which have entered Recto and Reed Banks which lie within the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone. (South China Morning Post).

Japan’s provocative ’reconnaissance’ in the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone
Japanese Air Defense forces entered the Air Defense Identification Zone instituted in November 2013. A Japanese F-15 twice attempted to engage with Chinese aircraft. (People’s Daily).

U.S. to monitor South China Sea for de-escalation after China rebuff
The U.S is set to monitor the South China Sea to see whether "de-escalatory steps" are being taken after China resisted pressure to rein in actions in the disputed waters, according to the U.S. State Department. (Reuters).

China Rejects Push at ASEAN to Curb South China Sea Activity 
In a meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, China rejected a motion by Philippines to curb Chinese actions in the South China Sea. Maritime rights and Chinese actions were important points of discussion at the meeting. (Bloomberg).

Indian Frontline Warships Test Waters in South China Sea
Three frontline warships have been deployed in the South China Sea to conduct naval drills with Japan and the U.S. China has objected to India’s attempt at oil exploration in these waters. (Hindustan Times).

Japan Defence Paper Warns over China’s ’Dangerous Acts’ in Sea, Air
The annual defence white paper has warned that "dangerous acts" over territorial claims in the East China Sea could lead to "unintended consequences" in the region. The paper noted that China’s military budget had quadrupled over the past decade and said Japan was seeing an "increasingly severe" security environment. (The Times of India).

COMMENTARIES

China’s "Historical Evidence": Vietnam’s Position on South China Sea
– – Nguyen Huu Tuc

In their joint RSIS Commentary entitled "South China Sea Disputes: China has evidence of Historical Claims", Dr Li Dexia and researcher Tan Keng Tat asserted that "China’s territorial claim is based on centuries of verifiable historical records, long-term use, treaties, international/customary laws plus records from the prodigious sea voyages of the Yuan and Ming dynasties". I argue, however, that these evidences are unconvincing in the framework of international law.

In the process of advancing its hegemonic ambitions in the South China Sea, China has always sought to use international law as the basis for its claims of sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the waters within its U-shaped line. Yang Jiechi, China’s former foreign minister once told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that there is "plenty of historical and jurisprudence evidence to show that China has sovereignty over the islands in the SCS and the adjacent waters".

China’s "historical evidence"

However, as Professor Mohan Malik from the Centre for Security Studies (Honolulu) noted in the World Affairs Journal, the vast majority of international legal experts have concluded that China’s claim to historic title over the South China Sea, implying full sovereign authority and the need for consent by other states to transit, is invalid.

In his visit to Germany in March 2014, Chinese President Xi Jinping was given an antique map as a gift by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This was a 1735 map of China made by French cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville and printed by a German publishing house. The map was based on earlier geographical surveys done by Jesuit missionaries in China and represented the "summation of European knowledge on China in the 18th-century".

The map showed, according to its original Latin caption, the so-called "China Proper" ? that is, the Chinese heartland mostly populated by ethnic Han people, without some minorities such as Mongolia, or Manchuria. The island of Hainan ? the southern-most part of modern China ? is shown with a different colour border. Of course, there were no signs of the Paracel or Spratly archipelagoes in this map.

Professor Mohan Malik pointed out that, China’s present borders largely reflect the frontiers established during the spectacular 18th-century Qing (Manchu) expansionism, which over time hardened into fixed national boundaries following the imposition of the Westphalian nation-state system over Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Now ten-dash line?

Dr Li and Mr Tan asserted that "Chinese records also named the Paracels as Chi-chou yang shan, referring to the nine western islets of the Paracels. During the late Qing dynasty, the name Xisha islands became common" and that, "one of the earliest Chinese references to today’s Xisha (Paracels) is the ’Chu Fan Chi’ a 13th century book". Actually, in the Manchu or Qing dynasty maps, it is Hainan Island, not the Paracel and Spratly Islands, that is depicted as China’s southern-most border.

Furthermore, China’s so-called "historic claims" to the South China Sea are actually not "centuries old". Historical documents demonstrate that they only go back to 1947, when Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist government drew the so-called "eleven-dash line" on Chinese maps of the South China Sea, enclosing the Spratly Islands and other chains that the ruling Kuomintang party declared were now under Chinese sovereignty.

Following the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in the civil war in 1949, the People’s Republic of China adopted this cartographic coup, revising Chiang’s notion into a "nine-dash line" after erasing two dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1953. Most recently, China drew the new map to show its claim over the South China by marking a "ten-dash line" around the region just off the coasts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines’ island of Luzon.

From the legal aspects, statements about the basis in law and China’s respect for international law in the South China Sea dispute seem to merely exist in words. What China claims (from eleven, to nine and ten-dash lines) remain vague and lacks legal basis.

Vietnam’s position on South China Sea

For its part, Vietnam has full historical and legal evidences to prove that the Vietnamese states of the past have claimed sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes. The ancient documents such as official references, maps, books and the sovereignty steles were collected and exhibited; they have clearly asserted that Hoang Sa and Truong Sa belong to Vietnam.