Time for China to go it alone?

It is now 20 years since the former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping put forward the constructive initiative of shelving disputes and seeking joint development at the Third Plenary Meeting of the Central Advisory Committee in October 1984. Over the past 20 years China has upheld this initiative and made unremitting efforts to promote it, in the hope that some day it would be made a reality and put into practice.

To demonstrate its good will, China embarked on negotiations with the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries to draw up a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea. These negotiations finally led to the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002, which has contributed a lot to the peace and stability of the South China Sea. China has made every effort to push for the full implementation of the DOC.

But when the Guidelines for the Implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea were eventually agreed by the contracting parties it was already 2011, nine years had passed. Despite all the efforts, the cooperation stipulated in the DOC and the Guidelines has not been really started yet. Predictably the low-sensitivity fields, as clearly listed in the DOC, have not been seriously taken by some signatories; let alone the joint development promoted by China.

There was a glimmer of hope in 2005 when state oil companies of China, Vietnam and the Philippines signed an agreement on joint seismic research in some areas of the South China Sea. This agreement, which can be seen as a step toward joint development, was actually an experiment in low-sensitivity cooperation. But despite the strong feasibility of putting the agreement into practice, the cooperation was halted abruptly when the new government of the Philippines refused to accept the former government's deal with other nations. Later on many other initiatives were put forward by China, but few of them have received a positive response.

To get the whole picture of the situation, we also need to look at what other littoral states have done at sea in the past 20-plus years. Vietnam and some other countries have unilaterally concluded many contracts with Western companies and drilled many wells in the southern areas of the South China Sea, many of which are in areas that China also has legitimate claims to. Taking Vietnam as an example, more than 50 oil wells operated by Vietnam fall within waters that are disputed with China.

China lodged diplomatic protests in the face of these infringements upon its legitimate rights, but did not take any forcible measures to stop them. As pointed out by an China Foreign Ministry official, it is not that China did not have the ability to stop the encroaching, but China values the peace and stability in the South China Sea more highly and was willing to show self-restraint.

Many equitable and feasible scenarios for joint development have been laid out and promoted by China and widely acknowledged by the international community, sometimes including the US.

Now China might have had enough, it will not allow its legitimate rights to be wantonly encroached upon by some of its neighbors any more. Vietnam's reckless move of forcibly disturbing the normal operations of a Chinese company in areas without any dispute is likely to trigger new thinking from China about exploiting the resources in the South China Sea. In the coming years if Vietnam continues its troublemaking, China will probably have no option but to weigh the possibility of blazing a trail and drilling alone in some sea areas where disputes exist between China and Vietnam.

The author is a Beijing-based scholar.

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