China's pledges fail to convince security forum
Fresh tensions over the South China Sea emerged on the diplomatic stage yesterday as the defence ministers of Vietnam and the Philippines challenged their Chinese counterpart's commitments to a peaceful solution.
Within minutes of Defence Minister General Liang Guanglie pledging peace, at the Shangri-La Dialogue on Security in Singapore, the tables started to shift.
'China is committed to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea,' Liang told the audience of regional defence officials, military brass and analysts. He said that freedom of navigation and over-flight - both repeatedly stressed by the US - would never be impeded.
But Vietnamese Defence Minister General Phung Quang Thanh appeared on the same stage to express concern at recent maritime incidents, saying he hoped China would honour its policies in future.
'As we can see in the [South China Sea], clashing incidents have happened from time to time, giving rise to concerns for the littoral states,' Thanh said.
He said that Vietnam was buying Russian submarines as deterrence while his Philippines counterpart, Voltaire Gazmin, urged the US to 'exercise its persuasive power' over the South China Sea.
In unusually detailed addresses at a forum that rarely strays beyond platitudes, both officials mentioned specific incidents involving Chinese vessels inside their economic zones.
Thanh said there must be no repetition of a May 26 incident in which a Chinese ship cut cables towed by a Vietnamese oil exploration ship 148 kilometres off its coast.
Thanh also referred to China's 'nine-dotted line' claim to much of the South China Sea, saying it had no basis in international law and could not be used to settle matters with a joint exploration agreement.
Gazmin, meanwhile, outlined a pattern of harassment, including the placement of construction material on an unoccupied reef within Philippine waters.
Harassment, such as the ramming of fishing boats, 'unnecessarily makes other states like the Philippines worried and concerned'.
Both countries have lodged formal diplomatic protests with Beijing over recent events, with Chinese officials warning Vietnam against creating 'new incidents'.
Vietnam has since stated that the incident was so close to its coast that it was not in an area of dispute.
When asked by the South China Morning Post for details about the construction activity, Gazmin said Chinese vessels were observed unloading construction material on Amy Douglas reef on the Philippine side of the Spratly archipelago between March 21 and 24. The unloading took place while Gazmin met Liang in Manila during the latter's swing through Southeast Asia.
Gazmin said Chinese diplomats had formally denied knowledge of the incident but had stressed China's sovereignty over the reef. Philippine fishermen had since removed the material, he said.
'If this is confirmed then this is very serious,' he said. 'It is the most serious breach of the DOC (Asean and China's Declaration of Conduct on the South China Sea) since it was signed in 2002,' he said. 'It is very worrying to us.'
Dr Ian Storey, a Singapore-based scholar of South China Sea issues, echoed Gazmin's view. 'If confirmed that China is really building up an unoccupied reef, then it is a huge issue,' said Storey, based at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
'If the DOC was on life support, then China has just pulled the plug.'
Amid spiraling diplomatic tensions last year, China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations started discussions over the DOC's requirement to create a legally binding code of conduct to maintain peace until the dispute can be solved.
The South China Sea holds oil and gas as well as East Asia's most important shipping lanes. China and Vietnam claim the Paracel and Spratly islands in whole, while Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei claim part.