China-bashing over South China Sea disputes will further endanger peace
Mark Valencia says alarming flare-ups in the South China Sea over territorial disputes between China and its neighbours are not solely Beijing's fault, as some are hypocritically claiming
China-bashers in Southeast Asia, Japan and the US are having a field day. Indeed, China is getting hammered by a perfect storm of its own clumsy public relations, its actions and reactions, and what China perceives as the harmonised public diplomacy strategy of its detractors. However, the situation is more complex and nuanced than journalists and "experts" would have it.
More worryingly, this campaign is set to end badly, probably with a smarting, angry and relatively politically isolated China. That will not be good for peace and stability in the South China Sea, or the region as a whole.
The latest imbroglio involves China's placement of an oil rig within Vietnam's claimed 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and on its claimed continental shelf. Vietnam has protested vehemently and sent coastguard and police vessels to the site to prevent the rig from drilling.
US Secretary of State John Kerry has called China's move "provocative", while Japanese officials have also criticised it. However, the Association for Southeast Asian Nations - which is closer to the situation and its ramifications - has not blamed China, at least not directly or collectively, despite lobbying by both Vietnam and the Philippines for it to do so.
China's unilateral action has certainly raised tensions and probably violates the spirit if not the letter of the 2002 Asean-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, particularly the provision stating that "the parties concerned undertake to resolve their territorial and jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means, without resorting to the threat or use of force, through friendly consultations and negotiations by sovereign states directly concerned, in accordance with universally recognised principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea".
Notably, the declaration says disputes such as those between China and Vietnam, and China and the Philippines, should be resolved between "sovereign states directly concerned". China believes the Philippines has violated this provision and that Vietnam may be on the verge of doing so.