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In a scene similar to what is seen in the South China Sea, fishing boats are docked at a harbour on May 29 in Lianyungang in China's Jiangsu Province. (ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images)
It’s fishing season again in the South China Sea, and with it comes an invigorated spat between China and Vietnam over territorial claims in the South China Sea, an issue noted by experts as a possible flashpoint for armed conflict.
This is not a new dispute, but it has grown particularly nasty recently following a June 9 incident during which China said armed Vietnamese ships “illegally evicted” Chinese fishing boats from the waters near the Spratly Islands in the sea “with no regard for the fishermen’s lives and safety.”
“The Vietnamese ships dragged Chinese fishing boats backward for about an hour,” China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters on Thursday, according to the ministry. “Only when the Chinese fishermen took the initiative to cut off their fishing nets did the two sides separate.”
“Furthermore, the eviction made the nets of a [Chinese] fishing boat’s tangle with the cables of a Vietnamese oil and gas exploration ship that was illegally operating at the scene.”
Telling almost an opposite story, Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga said on Thursday at a press conference that in the morning a Chinese fishing boat and two Fishery Administration vessels cut the cables of Viking II, a Vietnamese oil and gas exploration ship that was making a seismic survey in Vietnam’s “Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf,” according to the VietNamNet newspaper.
Nga said that the three Chinese ships travelled past Viking II’s prow and accelerated when the Vietnamese ship was conducting seismic surveys.
“Though the Vietnamese ship fired warning signals, the Chinese ship numbered 6226 intentionally entered Vietnamese exploration area,” Nga said. “Viking II’s cables then became tangled in the specialized cable-cutting equipment belonging to the Chinese 6226 ship.”
When asked by a reporter to comment on Vietnam’s claim that Chinese fishing boats have been cutting Vietnamese ships’ cables, Hong dismissed the allegations as “absolutely contrary to the truth.”
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Wednesday reiterated his country’s “undeniable sovereignty” over both the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
In a speech at the coastal city Nha Trang in commemoration of World Ocean Day, Dung said Vietnam would vigorously defend its claims to offshore territories and warned against external forces stirring up trouble in the South China Sea.
“[The] Vietnamese people have will and strength to maintain and defend its waters and islands,” Dung said, according to the VietNamNet newspaper. “Vietnam asks related parties to restrain and do not commit activities that make the situation in the East Sea more complicated [and] to observe their commitment on solving disputes by peaceful measures based on principles of the international law.”
Expanding on Dung’s rhetoric, a Vietnamese grassroots campaign has sought to control the debate by controlling the language. A petition to change the name of the South China Sea to the Southeast Asia Sea has gathered steam on the activist website Change.org; as of noon Friday it had over 100,000 supporters.
The current name is inaccurate, as China’s total coastline is 46 times shorter than the combined coastlines of other Southeast Asian countries, the movement claims.
“The sea is not restricted to a specific country,” the statement on Change.org reads. “The countries of Southeast Asia encompass almost the entire South China Sea with a total coastline measuring approximately 130,000 kilometers (81,250 miles) long; whereas the Southern China’s coastline measured about 2,800 kilometers (1,750 miles) in length.”
“The sea is not restricted to a specific country,” the petition said. But its outcome doesn’t carry any legal clout.
Spokesman Hong said that for generations Chinese fishing boats have been operating in the waters surrounding the Spratly Islands, over which China holds “indisputable sovereignty.” He said China demands Vietnam to stop all “rights-infringing activities” and all actions that “complicate and intensify the existing conflicts.”
“China hopes Vietnam will make due efforts toward protecting the peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Hong said.
The primary dispute in the ongoing and complicated South China Sea entanglement involves six different countries’ claims to the Spratly Islands: China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Unclear ownership of the islands and surrounding waters, despite a 1982 United Nations pact on the Law of the Sea, has seen a flare-up in conflicts involving fishing and exploratory ships from different claimants.
Due to the unique economic benefits the islands provide--a leg up on shipping and military projection, as well as natural resources such as gas and oil--security analysts have deemed the South China Sea a potential powder keg.
The U.S. has made several public statements making clear that the Chinese regime’s attempts to control the waters are contrary to international law and will meet with resistance. Meanwhile, Chinese external propaganda messaging has equivocated between claiming the Sea as a “core interest,” putting it in the league of politically explosive issues like Tibet and Xinjiang, and saying it is merely “important.”In May, Philippines President Benigno Aquino III warned China’s defense minister of an arms race if tensions worsened over quarreling in the South China Sea.
