Vietnam is not known to public rallies and demonstrations. So, there is some tacit official encouragement to the protestors. As media despatches put, this is a clear sign of Hanoi’s increasing anger with its neighbour’s aggressive posturing in the South China Sea.
Unless both sides sit across the table and put their heads together to find a middle path to the dispute, the Paracels and Spratlys will remain on the boil what with the prospect of oil and gas being found there. Only last month Vietnam adopted a law that declared both the islands as a part of its territory. In a swift response, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation has called for bids to explore for oil in the disputed waters.
True, China’s claims are not limited to these two islands. It considers much of the oil and natural gas-rich South China Sea as its own, and as a result is locked in territorial disputes with a number of its South-east Asian neighbours.
One of these neighbours is Philippines, which has been locked in a stand off over the horseshoe shaped reef, Scarborough Shoal, not too far from its coast. Known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, the Shoal is a group of rock formations, about 225 km west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.
Given the unpredictability of the Communist mood swings, Manila is getting ready to arm itself for any eventuality. It has turned to the U.S., for help though Washington’s proclaimed official policy has been strict neutrality in the dispute. Both have staged naval exercises in the recent months. And, now the Philippines is requesting US spy plane intelligence on Chinese movements in the disputed waters.
Beijing isn’t amused by Manila’s plan but President Benigno Aquino’s resolve to get these ‘sky birds’ shows that he is prepared to face the risks. Moves are afoot to step up vigil along the country’s 36000 km long coast with ‘radar’ cover. Yet, President Aquino doesn’t want China to be alarmed by Philippine efforts to improve its monitoring capability, saying that his country does have the capacity to become an aggressor.
This hardening of Philippines position is rather a surprise because only in June, the Aquino government had pulled out a lightly armed coast guard ship and a fisheries boat due to bad weather around the Scarborough Shoal. And it has not yet decided on returning the ship to its old position.
President Aquino said: “The Philippines has demonstrated time and again its interest to preserve the peace and the de-escalation of the situation but we don’t exist in a vacuum. We would want to see China reciprocate all of these moves that have been done as far as de-escalating the tensions”.
The flip-side of the face off between China and Vietnam and China and the Philippines is the Obama doctrine on the freedom of navigation in Asia –Pacific region particularly South China Sea. As the United States and China seek to increase their naval power in the energy rich waters, tensions have risen and so is the potential for the biggest military flashpoint in Asia.
Energy experts aver that the oil and gas reserves in South China Sea range from 28 billion to as high as 213 billion barrels of oil. China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia have competing claims on the sea, but China’s claims encompass almost all its waters.
Common refrain amongst strategic analysts is that Washington is encouraging Vietnam and the Philippines to take a bolder stance over the sea dispute. They may be right but that doesn’t in any way obfuscate the reality that these smaller countries have a genuine concerns of their own and that they are no longer willing to remain or appear to remain as unwilling players to please an energy hungry neighbour.
– M RAMA RAO
