Countries With Territorial Conflict

China averts collision in South China Sea

China averts collision in South China Sea
By Jian Junbo

LONDON - China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have reached consensus on guidelines for handling territorial disputes over the South China Sea between China and some ASEAN member states - Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei.

Talks were held at a China-ASEAN foreign ministers meeting on Indonesia's Bali Island on July 19, with formal guidelines adopted two days later. The guideline aims at ensuring concrete implementation of the Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which was adopted by China and ASEAN in 2002.

The DOC is not a legal treaty to regulate the concerned parties' conduct, and it could be said the adoption of the guidelines is the


natural result of several meetings held on the implementation of the DOC between senior Chinese and ASEAN officials in recent years.

Beijing considers the guidelines to be significant for China-ASEAN relations. "[It's] an important milestone document on the cooperation among China and ASEAN countries", said Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin. "We have a bright future and we are looking forward to future cooperation".

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said both the DOC and the guidelines encourage the resolution of disputes through cooperation and negotiation. "[We should go] step by step. Now we have to start these projects as soon as possible and to achieve results. Go step by step.

South China Sea: Détente vs. Deterrence | Asian American Press ...

New America Media

LOS ANGELES (July 25, 2011) — The race to secure natural resources in the South China Sea has only just begun, argues NAM contributor Thi Lam, and long-simmering territorial disputes over the oil-rich Spratly islands between Southeast Asian nations and a newly assertive China are intensifying. Deterrence, he says, may hold the key to resolving the crisis.

When it comes to geopolitics, especially in the South China Sea, there’s a time for détente and then there’s a time for deterrence.

On May 26, a Chinese vessel, part of that country’s Marine Surveillance Unit – an organization created in 1998 to oversee activities within China’s self-defined Exclusive Economic Zone – cut the cable of a Vietnamese gas exploration ship operating within Vietnam’s territorial waters. This blatant violation of the 1982 United Nations Charter on the Law of the Seas added to a persistent pattern of Chinese expansionism in the region: occupation of the Paracel Islands in 1974 and of the Spratly archipelago in 1979, as well as the acquisition of 12,000 square kilometers of territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin conceded by Hanoi under a pact signed in 2000.

China’s claims on the rich gas field near the Natuna Islands, 400 miles northeast of Sumatra, Indonesia, and its dispute with Japan over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, nearly set off a regional crisis in the 1990s.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is too weak and too divided to present a united front to China’s aggressiveness. Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, for instance, are more or less subservient to China, while the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia have strong military ties with the United States.

Moreover, China’s self-serving dispute settlement policy calls for bilateral negotiations – in which it can bring about its overwhelming power to intimidate and bully weaker negotiating partners. This “divide and conquer” strategy has left ASEAN in the cold and hindered its ability to manage regional disputes involving member states.

The United States, meanwhile, continues to monitor political and military developments in the South China Sea. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed as much during the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi in July 2010, reiterating America’s “national interest” there and calling for a regional solution. On a visit to Beijing last July, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen restated Washington’s determination to maintain a long-term presence in the region; he also expressed concern that barring a resolution, the crisis could trigger a regional conflict with unpredictable consequences.

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