China: Beijing Strengthens its Claims in the South China Sea
May 13, 2009 by SAF Desk
Summary
In response to evolving economic conditions, growing international involvement and anticipated legal battles over control of several contested island groups and reefs in the South China Sea, Beijing has established a Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, enhanced the capabilities and number of patrols by the Fisheries Administration Bureau and planned shifts in the disposition of its naval forces. China’s more aggressive attempts to assert its sovereignty in the South China Sea will lead to increased friction with its neighbors and the United States — something that could easily escalate if there are miscalculations or accidents at sea.
Analysis
As part of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS), for states that joined the UNCLOS by 1999, May 13 is the deadline to submit to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) supplementary claims to economic rights beyond the standard limit of 200 nautical miles. At stake is access to subsea mineral and energy resources, rights to fisheries and influence over maritime boundaries and activity. In the South China Sea, competing claims for sovereignty over various island and reef groups — including the Spratly Islands (called Nansha by China) and the Paracel Islands (called Xisha by China) — are shaped in part by China’s assertion of sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.
While the Chinese have long claimed authority over the contested waters, changes in recent years in China’s international economic and political involvement, as well as anticipated formal challenges to China’s claims amid the ongoing U.N. process, have caused Beijing to accelerate actions reasserting its authority over the South China Sea. As China grows more active in establishing its authority in the region, it is likely to trigger more aggressive actions by its neighbors with competing claims, and increase friction with the United States — all of which may make maritime accidents and incidents more likely.
On March 10 — two days after a confrontation between Chinese patrol, fishing and intelligence collections vessels and the USNS Impeccable 75 miles south of China’s Hainan Island — the South China Sea Fisheries Administration Bureau, part of the Ministry of Agriculture, dispatched the China Yuzheng 311 on its maiden voyage. The ship, a 4,450-ton former navy support vessel, is China’s largest nonmilitary ocean surveillance vessel, and is tasked with patrolling the South China Sea to assert China’s claims to the territory. A second vessel, a 2,500-ton ship that will carry a helicopter, is expected to join the China Yuzheng 311 in 2010 as part of an expanding patrol operation in the South China Sea.
In late March, The Chinese Foreign Ministry set up the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs, consolidating in a single department the responsibility for Chinese border disputes, competing territorial claims and joint development at sea (likely including projects like joint natural gas exploration with Japan in the East China Sea). The department, which began operations in April, will be headed by Ning Fukai, a Chinese diplomat who has worked in Chinese-Asian affairs for several decades, in recent years dealing primarily with the Korean Peninsula. Ning’s deputies are Wang Zonglai, who studied international law at Peking University and is considered an expert on maritime law, and Ouyang Yujing, who has been active in border negotiations and demarcations.
The focus on specialists rather than political appointments suggests that Beijing will continue trying to shape the regional understanding of the UNCLOS to fit its own interpretation — which includes limiting U.S. Navy research operations in the region. These research activities, by sea and air, are designed in large part to map out the undersea terrain and identify Chinese submarine operations, patterns and capabilities in waters that are vital not only to international shipping but also to U.S. Navy transit from the West Coast to the Indian Ocean and Middle East.
In addition to increased fisheries patrols and greater legal efforts inside and outside the United Nations, Beijing is considering revising the distribution of ships among its three fleets. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) comprises three fleets: the North Sea (Beihai) Fleet, East Sea (Donghai) Fleet and South Sea (Nanhai) Fleet. The North Sea Fleet, headquartered in Qingdao in Shandong province, is responsible for operations from Shandong province to the Korean border, the Yellow Sea and maritime activity in Northeast Asia. The East Sea Fleet, with its headquarters in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, is responsible for operations from Jiangsu to Fujian province, the East China Sea and issues relating to Taiwan. The South Sea Fleet, with its headquarters in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, covers Guangdong to the Vietnamese border and operations in the South China Sea.
Traditionally, the North Sea Fleet took precedence, serving to protect the Bohai Gulf and the old core of Chinese industrial power, as well as the approaches to Beijing. The East Sea Fleet, with responsibility for Taiwan, was also strong, though backed heavily by land-based assets including missiles and air power. As China’s economy began to expand and its international trade grew, Beijing began to shift additional attention to the South Sea Fleet in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
In recent years, this shift in attention has accelerated, and Beijing now is considering shifting its largest destroyers from the North Sea Fleet to the South Sea Fleet to allow for more active operations. In addition, while the North Sea Fleet is expected to become the home of the former Soviet carrier Varyag, which will be used as a training platform for Chinese carrier operation, new aircraft carriers China plans to build will be assigned to the South Sea Fleet, to allow more regular air patrol over the South China Sea. The South Sea Fleet will also be given greater responsibility for expanded operations, through the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean and on to the African coastline.
Overall, China intends to take a more active approach, diplomatically and militarily, to assert its claims on the South China Sea in the coming years. This will include contesting competing claims in the United Nations, accelerating moves to create joint exploration and exploitation of various resources in the South and East China Seas to gain political backing in international forums, and wider-ranging and more-frequent patrols of the South China Sea. This latter point, in particular, has the potential to create additional friction in the area. Already this year, China has had several encounters with U.S. Navy vessels traversing or conducting research in the area. And these U.S. operations will only accelerate as China’s PLAN becomes more active, particularly with its submarine patrols.
The South China Sea is a shallow, contested and highly traversed body of water, and the area is going to become rather crowded quickly as the United States and China expand their naval activities and as other countries — from Japan to Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam or Indonesia, among others — also step up operations to keep an eye on the increasing activity. With the growing crowd, the chances for accidents, miscalculations and other unfortunate incidents also grow. And, as was seen in the 2001 collision between a Chinese Jian-8 and a U.S. EP-3E surveillance aircraft, such occurrences can quickly escalate from a local collision to an international security incident.
Courtsey-Stratfor.com
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