Chinese ‘hyper-nationalism’ poised to aggravate
Days before Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei urged On May 20, a Chinese vessel rammed into a Vietnamese trawler while it was fishing in the With Chinese fishing boats operating as an arm of local authorities and the national government, “normal law enforcement” would mean that any action against foreign fishermen in waters claimed by “Chinese propaganda has convinced Chinese fishermen that the South China Sea belongs exclusively to This has forced some experts to go beyond what has been assumed as the main reason for the The waters are thought to be teeming with fish and holding vast untapped reserves of oil and natural gas that could potentially place But analysts say it appears that undersea resources are not the main reason for simmering. “The main drivers are now nationalism, particularly in “There is now considerable evidence that there are no large reserves of oil and gas in the key disputed waters,” Bateman told Vietweek. The Analysts say while “Significant oil and gas reserves tend to be located at the margins of China's claims, in the Gulf of Tonkin, off the coast of China's Guangdong Province, between Vietnam's Vung Tau and Indonesia's Natuna islands, and at the Reed Banks off the Philippine coast,” said Alexander Vuving, a security analyst at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii. A comprehensive paper released in May 2012 by two experts at the “The estimates as to the oil and gas potential of the ”The key reason for this is that the estimates available are based, at best, on geological assessments rather than being extensively ‘ground-truthed’ and backed up by industry data,” Schofield said. “This is inevitably the case because the overlapping jurisdictional claims have tended to limit surveys and largely rule out exploration activities such as drilling.” Fish stocks depleted Analysts say seafood resources in disputed waters are also valuable. So, while there may not be oil and gas, there is still a lot of fish. But even this comes with a caveat. Since May 16, China has put in force its unilateral two-month-and-a-half fishing ban on waters around the Paracels, which it has occupied illegally by force since 1974 after a brief but bloody naval battle with the forces of the then US-backed Republic of Vietnam. China said the ban, which has been in place since the late 1990s, was aimed at preserving the fish stock during the breeding season but its fishermen have been blamed for overfishing and marine pollution that has caused the depletion of fish stock in the East Sea. To make matters worse, early this month, “ No turning back This vague boundary was first officially published on a map by Most Chinese consider it a fact that the nine-dashed line delineates The Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to which both “ Tensions resurfaced in 2009 when But from the perspective of ordinary Chinese citizens, their government is making a completely legitimate claim. “Generations of [Chinese] citizens have grown up with the [nine-dashed line] map engraved in their memory,” said Vuving, the Hawaii-based expert. “Now, all of a sudden, they see neighboring countries protesting what they believe is an indisputable fact. What do they think? Naturally, most would react with indignation,” he said. Facing an increasingly nationalistic domestic audience who are pushing the Chinese new leadership to stake out its claims in a wide swathe of ocean territory, coupled with China’s confidence that it can successfully impose its will there, analysts say the main drivers of China's claims to the East Sea are primarily power and security, with resources coming in a distant second. The “Strategically speaking, whoever controls the South China Sea will control “ The increasingly nationalistic response to its sovereignty claims has made it almost impossible for “There are little signs that the activities today have gone beyond the past engagement,” said Sun Yun, a Washington DC-based Elsewhere in Filipino fishermen have also lamented lost livelihoods since the Chinese occupied their fishing grounds off the Scarborough Shoal in 2011 after a two-month standoff between Given the status quo, analysts say fishermen are increasingly getting caught in the crossfire of the territorial disputes in and around the Other than the boat ramming on May 20, Vietnam also reacted strongly to a Chinese ship firing flares at four Vietnamese fishing boats from Quang Ngai Province that were fishing in their traditional fishing grounds in the Paracels last March. Phung Dinh Toan, deputy director of the Quang Ngai fisheries resource protection agency, said he had recorded “quite a few” other cases in which the local fishermen had been harrassed by the Chinese since early this year. Over the years, hundreds of Vietnamese fishermen and their crews have been victimized by Tran Van Khang, captain of the fishing boat that was slammed by “We are scared, really scared of the Chinese. They have never been that aggressive,” Khang, a 61-year-old veteran fisherman, told Vietweek. Vietnamese fishermen have been encouraged to assert “We are fighting a life-and-death battle, literally, for our livelihood and for national sovereignty,” Khang said. Khang and his crew have been working flat-out to repair the damaged vessel so they can get out to sea again soon.During the telephone interview, he could be heard urging his crew not to forget get the national flag. “Fishing in our territory, our waters to make a living is very, very important,” he said. “But it is more important to do whatever it takes to protect our sovereignty there.” By An Dien, Thanh Nien News |
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