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4 July 2015

South China Sea: China’s HD-981 Oil Rig Is Back


The return of the oil rig and rapid land reclamation belie China’s South China Sea rhetoric. 

The latest oil rig gesturing shows an inconsistency between rhetoric and action in China’s policy in the South China Sea. Together with its mass reclamation activities, the use of the oil rig is part and parcel of coercive diplomacy. It affirms China’s territorial ambition in the highly strategic seawater. Still, though, it is hard to see the situation escalating to the point of conflict.

China’s Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig is back, following on from last year’s headline dispute with Vietnam. Only this time, the rig is being reintroduced in timely fashion, just weeks before the first visit by the general secretary of Vietnam’s Communist Party to Washington. According to reports, the platform is currently located 17°03’75’’ North latitude and 109°59’05’’ East longitude.

While the rig’s present location is not as close to Vietnam as it was last year, the intent is fairly obvious. Yet it is unlikely that Vietnam will overreact to this provocation. It has no immediate reason to do so and it is, after all, accustomed to Chinese displays of power. For Hanoi, continuing an approach of carefully balancing and engaging China and more distant powers seems prudent.

Land Reclamation

The move itself, announced by China’s maritime safety authorities, comes soon after Beijing indicated it was close to setting up new outposts in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia, as it nears completion of land reclamation in the South China Sea.

This dispute originates from a group of small islands and atolls in the South China Sea, which are claimed in whole or in part by a host of nations: China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. The contested area, about the size of Iraq, is one of the busiest sea transport routes in the world, features potentially lucrative oil and natural gas deposits, and offers fishing grounds that are still diverse and bountiful.

The practice of land reclamation is not exactly of Chinese innovation. The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNLOS) stipulates rights to different maritime features that are relevant to the South China Sea situation. Fully fledged islands enjoy territorial rights up to 12 nautical miles (nm), while their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) extends to a maximum of 200 nm.

Most acutely, the EEZ setup increases the potential for overlapping territorial claims in enclosed seas like the South China Sea. The result is that littoral states have hastened to establish settlements – in most cases by military outposts – on the small islands of the region in a bid to establish unique territorial claims to both an EEZ and a continental shelf.

Legalism is not always helpful in settling issues that clearly have political overtones. Interpretations of sovereignty and territorial jurisdictions that have arisen from South China Sea dispute should be understood in context.

Writing in The Diplomat, Carl Thayer says that China can hardly be seen to be practicing self-restraint, despite agreements under the non-binding Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC). China’s military modernization and construction on the islands is sufficient to one day facilitate vast expansion. Chinese aggression is epitomized in its behavior of ordering the Philippines and U.S. out of these areas while realigning territorial markers.

However, there has been a noticeable change in Chinese rhetoric regarding South China Sea policy. It is walking a fine line between, on the one hand, “indisputable sovereignty rights” – embodied in its nine-dash line map, currently printed in all new Chinese passports – and on the other, China as a responsible regional power exercising “stability maintenance.”

Beijing has even gone so far as to extend an open invitation to other regional states to use its newly constructed facilities, which include lighthouses, wireless navigation and communication, emergency rescue stations, and scientific research centers.

It is very likely, then, that China will continue to insist that its new military facilities are for defensive purposes rather than for offensive advantage. This has been termed “reactive assertiveness.” Indeed, China has surely noted the heavy costs of war, in light of the recent U.S. experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. And its own domestic problems are evident, as growth slows and a fight with widespread corruption continues.

In reality, however, Beijing’s rhetoric is out of tune with the activity taking place.

Satellite images show the unprecedented speed, scale and intensity of China’s land reclamation; crucially and most worryingly of which is a 3.5 km runway suitable for combat aircraft. It has been calculated that the total acres reclaimed jumped from 5 in January 2014 to 500 in January 2015. By June 2015, China had reclaimed 2000 acres, more than all the land reclaimed by all other countries in the region combined.

China‘s actions are entwined with its ambition: to become one of the greatest global maritime powers. Its will is driven by first achieving tactical dominance in waters it has deemed its own. Control over the South China Sea with nearby nuclear-armed submarines in Hainan Island secures China’s second strike capability to counter any hypothetical U.S. nuclear strike.

That lack of consistency threatens China’s larger foreign policy interests, specifically the One Belt One Road (OBOR) projects. This grand strategy focuses on infrastructure connectivity and economic cooperation among China and Euro-Asian countries, including ASEAN member states. Ultimately, an escalation of tensions in the South China Sea will only further unite ASEAN, which already does have a consensus on the issue, however fragile or contested it might be.

And of course, China is still surrounded by a network of U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and most recently Australia. The U.S. has announced its commitment to maintaining regional stability and maritime freedom.

With China one of the biggest beneficiaries of a status quo scenario in the South China Sea, there is every indication that a policy of amelioration is preferable. Most importantly, China has neither the ambition nor the capability to challenge the U.S. … at least, not yet. Both the costs and the risks are too high for Beijing to commit itself fully to an international showdown at this point. Rather, to claim for itself a leading role on the international stage, a clearer, pragmatic, and well-articulated foreign policy seems the most promising path.

Moving forward, gradualism remains the best approach for the region. In the process of confidence building and preventive diplomacy, it is important that the most powerful countries shoulder the responsibility to preserve at the very least, the regional status quo. Military buildups and warmongering serve only to stifle and pollute. Negotiations will end in impasse if negotiators take an “all or nothing” position.

So, the South China Sea: troubled waters or a sea of opportunity? The latter – but only if a trident of political will, collective wisdom, and regional compromise is applied to common grievances.

Chau Nguyen is a PhD candidate at the University of East Anglia, U.K.

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