US China clash over Spratlys seen - (Star)

The United States expects a confrontation with China over Chinese

expansionism in the South China Sea, including its occupation of the

disputed Spratlys, Rep. Roilo Golez said yesterday.

RP to Asean: Tackle Spratlys - (today)

The Philippines will asked Asean Leaders attending the forthcoming

summit in Hanoi to issue a joint "Declaration of Concern" over

China's intrusions into Mischief Reef in the Spratlys, Sen. Blas Ople

disclosed over the weekend.

China major supplier of goods smuggled into RP - (Standard p2)

China is becoming too big a headache for the Philippines.

Not only has this communist state of more than 1.2 billion people

intruded into Mischief Reef that lies within Philippines waters. It

has also been tagged by the authorities as a major supplier of goods

being smuggled into the country.

China Forces

This time, the Chinese Combined Fleet is active off Mischief Reef.

Did you read the Chinese paper I sent?

The Reds had "warned" us to keep our recon flights to not lower than

4-5,000 ft (in our OWN airspace), but because of poor weather, they

took the C-130 down to 500 ft. over Mischief Reef to check out the

place and the PLA Navy ships around there.

The US Congressman said he would support the Phil. position and push

to get China out, but I have yet to see how that will work out.

With Slick Commie loving Willie in DC, I fear Beijing is far more

important than we are to lose.

Since its acquisition, the Peacock vessels have, all armed with

automatic 76mm Melera guns have become the Navy's frontline defense

patrol, especially around eight Pagasa Islands claimed by the

Philippines in the Spratlys.

OTHER TOP NEWS

US offers aid for RP arms purchase - The United States is

offering the Philippines a credit line for military weapons and

equipment to be used by the Armed Forces in defending its claims to

the Spratlys against other claimants, including China.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon Jr. said Friday that the

offer was made by US Vice President Al Gore to President Estrada

during their recent meeting at the APEC leader's summit in Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia. (Star/p1)

Malaysia asks RP not to revive claims over Sabah - Malaysia urged

the Philippines yesterday not to revive its claim over Sabah to

prevent further territorial disputes, the Department of Foreign

Affairs said.

(Star/p1)

The dialogue between Mr. Estrada and Gore, however, opened the

prospects of American military assistance to modernize the Armed

Forces of the Philippines. The details of their discussion are not

known, but this is the first time the US has indicated it is open to

talks for strengthening the Philippines' defense capability. The

dialogue has raised questions of whether the ratification of the VFA

would be a trade-off for American military aid. Whether they are

linked or not, Mr.

Estrada came home showing more confidence that the VFA would be approved

by the Senate. So, if we're looking for concrete results of the

President's sojourn in Kuala Lumpur, they can be found not in his

performance in the Apec forum but in the sidelines of the Apec where

bilateral talks were more focused than the multinational concerns of

the forum over the economic crisis. (Editorial/Inquirer)

-----

Whatever, somebody who had lived in the Palace has warned that despite

early avowals of not wanting to tour the world, once in office the

Malacanang tenant is under extreme temptation to travel every chance

he gets. Even before he could master the presidential ropes, Erap has

gone out twice already. Next month, he will fly to Vietnam for the

ASEAN summit, to be followed by a state visit to Thailand. The state

visit to the US, a must for a Philippine president seeking a White

House validation of his election, is expected to be set after the

VFA's ratification by the Senate. (Pascual/Star) (PNA) BFM/OPS/hlm

-----------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1998 18:41:45 +0000

From: Balita News

Subject: nn: Siazon: RP favors joint use of Mischief Reef

MANILA, Nov.21(PNA) - Secretary Domingo Siazon of the Department of

Foreign Affairs (DFA) maintained Saturday Manila and Beijing have agreed

in principle on the joint use of the disputed Mischief Reef.

The mechanics of joint exploration would have to be firmed up in a

series of bilateral talks beginning January.

The "modalities for joint use (and) the technical details of

access" would have to be negotiated in meetings by the expert group on

confidence building measures, Siazon said during the Saturday edition of

President Joseph Estrada's weekly program JEEP ni Erap: Ang Pasada ng

Pangulo.

He said the Philippines is standing pat on its original position

that the Mischief Reef is part of the Philippines on the basis on the

United Nations law on the 200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) since

the reef is about 187 nautical miles from Palawan province.

"Ang original proposal ng Pilipinas ay dahil iyang Mischief Reef ay

malapit sa ating, tayo ang dapat mag-manage.. based on the concept of

stewardship principle (Because of its proximity to us, our original

proposal was for us to manage the Mischief Reef based on the concept of

stewardship)," Siazon said.

Siazon said he and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan agreed on

the joint use of Mischief Reef, a move that was later endorsed by

President Estrada and Chinese President Jiang Zemin during their

one-on-one meeting Tuesday on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Kuala

Lumpur.

The two leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to a peaceful

solution of the dispute as they endorsed the creation of an expert group

on confidence building measures that will start meeting sometime in

January.

Siazon said in an earlier press briefing in Kuala Lumpur that he

expects to firm up the first expert meeting when he meets with his

Chinese counterpart again during the Association of Southeast Asian

Nation (ASEAN) summit on Dec. 16-17 in Hanoi.(PNA) RGC/OPS/aav

PNA 11211550

SPRATLYS A HAVEN FOR ILLEGAL POACHERS -- MERCADO

Manila, Dec. 2, 1998 - The Philippine government is filing a diplomatic

protest over the case of 20 Chinese fishermen caught by the Philippine Navy

while poaching in Philippine-claimed waters using cyanide, a fishing method

declared illegal under Philippine laws.

Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora said yesterday that Malacanang has given

the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) the go-signal to make the initiative

through a note verbale "for the latest clear intrusion into the Philippines'

200-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ)."

He added that the 20 Chinese fishermen will eventually be freed after a

short detention and a lecture "on how to respect and not to blatantly

violate the Philippines' (EEZ)."

"They will be detained for a short period. They will be lectured about not

violating the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines and after, they

will be let off," he said. "It is an ordinary incident. This has happened

before and I'm sure this will happen again."

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Policy Lauro Baja Jr. said they expected

China's demand for the release of the fishermen but said the "Philippine

judicial process will have to be followed."

A Philippine Navy patrol arrested the 20 Chinese fishermen over the weekend

aboard six small boats called on Alicia Annie Reef near Mischief Reef, a

portion of the disputed Spratlys.

The government, which calls Mischief Reef Panganiban Reef, claims the reef

is well within the country's 200-mile EEZ as it is only about 180 kilometers

from Palawan.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told reporters that "their (the fishermen)

capture shows we can no longer bear Beijing's continued transgression of our

exclusive economic zone."

Mercado also told reporters at Camp Aguinaldo that when the Philippine Navy

patrol approached, the Chinese fishermen attempted to take refuge in

Mischief Reef, where Beijing maintains garrison-like concrete structures.

"It appears that Mischief Reef is now becoming a haven for these illegal

fishermen," he added.

Mercado also told reporters that the "mother vessel" -- which usually

accompanies fishing boats -- escaped after the Navy tried to approach and

seize the boat.

Mercado the Chinese fishermen had been taking endangered sea turtles called

"pawikan" and were engaged in illegal fishing.

Navy officer Romulo Gualdrapa reported Monday that the Chinese were arrested

for illegally fishing in Philippine territory and using sodium cyanide to

catch fish in violation of Philippine laws that ban the practice.

Cyanide is added to sea water by some fishermen to stun fish so they can be

caught and sold alive to restaurants. But the substance also kills many

other fish and destroys coral reefs.

During their arrest Sunday, the Chinese had in possession several kilos of

freshly-caught fish and two dead pawikan.

Mercado said he is turning the case over to the Department of Justice for

the filing of appropriate charges against the Chinese fishermen, who are

still detained at a Navy detachment in Ulugan Bay near Puerto Princesa City

in Palawan.

Last October, the Philippines accused China of sending armed naval ships to

the area to build what permanent structures for military use. Beijing

refused to remove the facilities, saying they were merely fishermen's

shelters which needed renovation. China has proposed the joint use of the

structures and the Philippine government said it was studying the offer.

The Spratlys are believed to be rich in oil, gas and minerals. China,

Vietnam and Taiwan claim all of the Spratlys, while the Philippines,

Malaysia and Brunei claim parts of the island group.

Mon Dec 14 1998

US-China clash over Spratlys seen

The United States expects a confrontation with China over Chinese

expansionism in the South China Sea, including its occupation of

the disputed Spratlys, Rep. Roilo Golez (LAMP, Parañaque) said

yesterday.

He said documents and information shared with him by US Rep.

Dana Rohrabacher (Republican, California) and the American

lawmaker's staff indicate that the US "expects a showdown with

China over the South China Sea issue within 15 years or less."

Full General Stories Phil.StAR

US-China clash over Spratlys seen

The United States expects a confrontation with China over Chinese expansionism

in the South China Sea, including its occupation of the disputed Spratlys, Rep.

Roilo Golez (LAMP, Parañaque) said yesterday.

He said documents and information shared with him by US Rep. Dana

Rohrabacher (Republican, California) and the American lawmaker's staff indicate

that the US "expects a showdown with China over the South China Sea issue

within 15 years or less."

He said one document given to him is a recent report to the American Congress

by US Defense Secretary William Cohen which assesses China's military

preparations, particularly in its southern flank.

Golez quoted the report: "Since the early 1990s, the focus of Chinese military

strategy has been preparing for potential military contingencies along China's

southeastern flank, especially in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea. Thus,

China's goal is to field forces capable of rapidly deploying to fight and win a future

regional war under high technology conditions along China's periphery."

Golez cited another report by Director Richard Fisher of the Asian Studies Center

of the Heritage Foundation, a US think tank, which noted that China has

developed a 16-kilometer range TV-guided anti-ship missile that can be fired from

its Z-9 helicopters.

"From small platforms in the disputed Spratly islands, Z-9s equipped with these

missiles would pose a greater threat to other claimants and to contiguous

international shipping lanes," he quoted Fisher's report as saying.

He said the structures he, Rorhabacher and a big group of Filipino mediamen saw

when they flew over the Spratlys last Thursday can serve as launching platforms

for helicopters and missiles.

Assessing what the Chinese have been doing in the disputed islands, Golez, a

graduate of the United States Naval Academy and a former Philippine Navy

officer, revealed that China is apparently building a small naval base on Mischief

Reef and nearby shoals.

"They are constructing a circle of huge, concrete, hardened structures with radars,

guns and helipads and make a mini-navy base," he said.

He said what they saw last Thursday belies the assurance given to the Philippine

government by the Chinese ambassador to Manila that China is just repairing

shelters for its fishermen and that there are no naval ships in the area.

Photographs and film footage taken by the Golez and Rorhabacher group showed

that there are three Chinese warships anchored at a deep lagoon near Mischief

Reef.

Golez said the Rorhabacher visit was a "diplomatic breakthrough" that elicited only

a "very mild, even timid response" from China, compared with the loud protest it

made when a similar Filipino media group planned to fly over the disputed islands

during the Ramos administration.

Perhaps, this is because the visiting official comes from a super power like the US,

he said.

He said through the Rorhabacher visit, the Philippines was able to bring

international attention to "Chinese incursions and bullying" in the Spratlys.

He added that the American lawmaker, who is a member of the House

international affairs committee, will submit a report next week on what he saw in

the disputed islands .

"He promised that he will be our point man in the US Congress in our effort to

make international noise and make this an international issue to let the world know

how a giant power like China is bullying a weak, small country like the Philippines,

which is simply protecting its exclusive economic zone," Golez stressed.

He announced plans to visit the US Congress early next week to brief other

American lawmakers on the situation in the Spratlys.

"This is part of the noise barrage that can be our best defense weapon," he said.

He said the dispute over the Spratlys cannot be settled in bilateral negotiations

"because the Chinese will just stare us down, bludgeon us with their weight, and

continue and continue doing what they have been doing."

Phil Star 14 Dec 98

US solon to Washington: Stop Chinese in Spratlys

A United States congressman urged the US government yesterday to exert

political and economic pressure on China to dismantle its structures in

Philippine-claimed areas in the Spratly group of islands in the South China Sea.

"We can't ignore this bullying by the communist Chinese in the Spratlys. This is

intolerable," Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California said after

flying over the Spratlys and seeing military structures built in the area by China.

Rohrabacher, who was accompanied on a C-130 cargo plane by Philippine

military officials and Parañaque Rep. J. Roilo Golez, said that aside from the

structures, he also saw three Chinese warships strategically positioned in the

Spratly group of islands which China, the Philippines and other countries claim.

"The presence of the Chinese military troops in various reefs in the Spratlys is not

only a concern of the Philippines," he explained. "It is also a concern of the US and

other democratic countries in the world. My mission is to shine a spotlight on these

fortifications and the military ships. This is unacceptable. This is an act of

aggression."

Rohrabacher's trip to the Spratlys, which China had opposed, was the first in

recent years by a lawmaker from a country not part of the conflicting claims to the

territory.

The Spratlys, which straddle vital sea lanes in the South China Sea, are claimed in

whole by China, Vietnam, and Taiwan, and in part by Malaysia and the

Philippines. Brunei is also claiming one reef.

Aside from their strategic location, the Spratlys are also believed to be sitting atop

large deposits of oil and natural gas.

Rohrabacher said he was going to submit a report to the US House committee on

the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region. "The United States and the

Philippines as well as all the freedom-loving people in the Pacific should not

tolerate this," he said. "Now is the time to put pressure on the Chinese. The

Spratlys could play a role in whether there is peace or war in the Pacific."

Chinese Ambassador Guan Dengming sought a meeting late yesterday with

Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon to express concern over Rohrabacher's

trip to the disputed islands. Beijing also strongly protested a similar trip to the area

by local and foreign media in 1995 when the first structures there were discovered.

"Beijing has always been against the presence of a third party because it will only

create more problems," he said.

Last month, Manila lodged a protest with Beijing after Chinese workers began

enlarging buildings erected at Mischief Reef which the Philippines call Panganiban

Reef and claims as part of its territory.

China answered that the concrete structures were shelters for fishermen, but the

Philippines said they could have military uses.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, who heads the Senate committee on national defense, earlier

criticized the trip, saying it could heighten tension in the Spratlys. Executive

Secretary Ronaldo Zamora, too, was reported to be against the trip although he

later denied it.

Siazon, for his part, said he recommended the jaunt to President Estrada who

immediately approved it. The Foreign Affairs chief said Rohrabacher's trip was an

act of a friend.

"When you have a member of Congress of a friendly nation who wants to go there

... we think it is in the interest of transparency and or better understanding. It was

all right for us to assist him," he said.

The President, who met with Rohrabacher in Malacañang last night, said the

Philippines should not always be concerned about what China would say or think.

"Kung mahirap pigilin ang galit nila, mahirap ding pigilin ang galit ko (If it's

difficult to stop their anger, it's also difficult to keep my anger)," he said.

US solon takes a closer look The plane carrying Rohrabacher flew for about 20

minutes over

Mischief Reef, making six passes and flying as low as 300 feet at one point over

the structures to steer clear of clouds. The California Republican used binoculars

and took pictures while kneeling in front of a small round window.

Below, four large clusters of structures on stilts stood on the fringes of the reef,

surrounded by warships and several other Chinese boats.

Army Major John Bonafos, an expert on the Spratlys who joined the trip, said

satellite dishes have been installed on all of the structures which can serve as docks

for large ships.

Rep. Roilo Golez, chairman of the House committee on public order and security

who assisted Rohrabacher in the trip, said the Chinese structures in the Mischief

Reef had been expanded by as much as 20 times over the past three years.

"We are talking now here of a giant expansion of the Chinese government in the

Spratlys. We are not only talking of expansion by 10 percent but we are talking

here of multiplying the Chinese structures by as much as 20," he said.

Golez said that in spite of the cloudy weather, they spotted Chinese men

continuously working on the structures in the reef.

Earlier, the Parañaque solon revealed that aside from the Mischief Reef, the

Chinese have also constructed concrete structures complete with military facilities

and manned by armed personnel in four other reefs in the Spratlys.

"I would like to reiterate that the Chinese are continuing to build concrete

structures in Spratlys. The Chinese ambassador's claims that it will stop building

structures in the area were complete lies," Golez said.

Rohrabacher, meanwhile, commended the Philippines for protesting China's

intrusions into the disputed reefs.

"It's clear that ignoring this problem isn't going to make it any better and a lot of

people want to stick their heads in the sand and ignore the Chinese acts," he said.

"When you're dealing with gangsters and dictatorships like Communist China, they

only understand it when you're strong and courageous and standing up for your

rights."

Rohrabacher also noted that he would urge the US government to stop investing in

China and instead redirect its investments in democratic countries like the

Philippines.

"I think it's time for the US to make it as a policy to try to redirect our investments

into countries like the Philippines. Why should the US do business with a

communist country? I think we can redirect our policy to help channel the flow of

investment into countries which share our values," he said.

Rohrabacher, whose father reportedly served in the Philippines as part of the US

air force during World War II, arrived in Manila Saturday to hold consultations

with Defense officials and legislators on the country's plan to modernize its armed

forces.

He said he would author a bill that would allow the granting of arms loans to the

Philippines. -- Jose Rodel Clapano, Liberty Dones, Marichu Villanueva,

Sandy Araneta, wires Phil Star 11 Dec 98

Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 11:58:17 +0000

From: Balita News

Subject: Philippines, China to discuss joint use of Spratlys reef

MANILA, Nov 21 (AFP) - Experts from the Philippines and China will

discuss joint use of a disputed reef in the Spratly islands in a bid

to ease a simmering conflict, Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo

Siazon said Saturday.

Speaking on President Joseph Estrada's weekly radio show, Siazon

said "we have to accept the objective of joint use. In order for us to

enter (into discussions), we have to accept joint use."

"The modalities of joint use, all the technical details on access,

we still have to negotiate" during the experts' talks that the two

countries have agreed on, Siazon said.

Estrada and Chinese President Jiang Zemin last week endorsed a

proposal for the two countries to hold expert-level discussions on the

disputed Spratly Islands following renewed tensions over Mischief Reef

in the South China Sea island chain.

This occured after Manila protested against China's expansion of

structures it earlier erected on the reef, which the Philippines says

is within its exclusive economic zone.

China has insisted that the structures are fishermen's shelters and

offered to share them with the Philippines but this has been turned down.

Siazon admitted that "in principle, we can't share Mishcief Reef"

but said that they had to agree to discuss joint use since that was

the only way they could move to their "final objective" of the various

claimants to the Spratlys sharing "stewardship" over the island chain.

He said the experts would discuss "confidence building measures"

probably in the Philippines next year but admitted they still did not

have funding for such a meeting.

The Spratlys, which lie near vital sea lanes and are believed to

sit on vast oil and mineral deposits, are also claimed in whole or in

part by Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam.

mm/tc

(Agencie Press France - Not for reposting to other lists)

These are Chinese military sites:

Date: Thu, 10 Dec 1998 18:02:10 +0000

From: Balita News

Subject: US legislator accuses China of "aggression" on Spratlys reef

MANILA, Dec 10 (AFP) - A US legislator Thursday accused China of

aggression by sending three "warships" to a disputed reef in the

Spratlys chain which is also claimed by the Philippines.

US Representative Dana Rorabacher, a senior member of the

committee on international relations, told reporters he saw three

Chinese "warships" near Mischief Reef when he was earlier flown over

the area in a Philippine air force plane.

"We saw fortifications on Mischief Reef and those fortifications

are there and the people in those fortifications are working

vigorously to trying to expand that structure," he said.

"Something very alarming is the three naval vessels. The Chinese

government has sent three warships to the Mischief Reef. This is a

clear act of intimidation," said the chair of the areospace and

aeronautics sub-committee of the US Congress.

He said when he returned to the United States, he would

"describe the aggression that's going on there in the Spratlys and

the use of military force and the arrogance behind the use of

military force."

"Anyone who sees three Chinese warships this close to the coast

of the Philippines ... will be alarmed. This is an act that cannot

be tolerated by a people who love freedom and peace in this world

and it is very alarming," he said.

Chinese Ambassador to Manila Guan Dengming denounced the

Rorabacher's visit as "meddling" in a bilateral dispute during a

meeting with Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon.

"The Chinese stand is that we can solve this problem between the

Philippines and China through peaceful consultations. So we believe

that meddling by any third party only makes things more complicated

and not easy," Guan said.

Manila says Mischief Reef is well within the country's 200-mile

exclusive econonic zone. China claims the entire Spratlys chain as

historically part of its territory.

The Philippines last month accused China of expanding permanent

structures on the reef in violation of a code of conduct to preserve

peace in the area signed last year.

(Agencie Press France - Not for reposting to other lists)

The feat is mainly attributed to the joint efforts of the shipping

companies and the Maritime Industry Authority (Marina) as the lead

regulatory agency overseeing maritime concerns.

In July 1997, Marina, through Memorandum Circular No. 122, advised

shipping companies engaged in international trade to secure ISM

certification and avoid risks of detention and exclusion at foreign

points. Only those ships which have been issued Safety Management

Certificates shall be allowed to fly the Philippine flag."

>

Subject: pn: Marines scores anew vs. NPA four dead in a month

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Nov.23(PNA) - Four suspected New People's Army

(NPA) members already died in southern Palawan in a month following two

separate heated encounters between the military and the rebels.

Western Command (WESCOM) chief Major General Ponciano S. Millena

said, the 1st Marine Battalion Landing Team of the Philippine Marines

assigned in southern Palawan "unsuccessfully tried to capture alive on

November 18 three alleged NPA members" in the mountains of Barangay

Kalatagbak in the municipality of Quezon, 148 kilometers south of this

city.

"Pinilit ng mga sundalo na mahuli sila ng buhay pero lumaban sila,"

Millena clarified to shed light on the deaths of suspected rebels

identified only as Ka Nikki, Ka Atine and Ruffie Patnon.

Millena vehemently denied they violated the human rights of the

three suspects, nor that their death was a result of an ambush. "Wala

kaming bina-violate na human rights nila. Sila ang unang nagpaputok," he

said.

Barely a month ago, Roberto Bornales, a suspected NPA, member was

also killed in an encounter in Sitio Garawang, Sofronio EspaÑola. He was

walking in the mountainous part of the area with another suspect Abe

Sungit, who was later arrested by the Marines.

According to a report by the 1st Battalion under Col. Ariel

Querubin, the encounter took place after concerned citizens in

Kalatagbak reported the presence of around 12 men armed with

high-powered pistols and firearms.

The armed were apparently in the area to conduct a meeting with the

members of the community and to recruit new members for the NPA. The

group allegedly introduced themselves as members of a fishing

organization called "Lambat-Palawan," which meaning has not yet been

determined by the military as of press time.

Because of the report, Querubin said, they immediately conducted

internal security operation in the area which unfortunately resulted to

the death of the three suspects who shot guns with the elements of the

Battalion.

The other suspects were able to avoid the incident as some

allegedly left Kalatagbak to return to their home base in a still

unidentified site in Quezon, while the three victims chose to sleep in

the house of Kalatagbak barangay chairman Tony Makoy.

"Kung puwede lang talaga namin silang kunin ng buhay ay ginawa na

namin, ang kaso lumaban naman sila kaya we have no choice but to defend

ourselves,"Querubin said.

Confiscated from the suspects were three M-16 rifles with

magazines, three bandolers, a home-made shotgun, one grenade launcher,

one grenade, a binocular, a satellite pro-laptop computer set, one

floppy disk drive for the computer, a circuit breaker, a stethoscope,

and several papers and documents believed to be the key to solving NPA

existence in the province.

Makoy reported to the 1st Battalion that before the encounter, the

armed men have been collecting "revolutionary taxes" to residents of

Kalatagbak who cannot refuse for fear of a reprisal. "Kung hindi kami

magbibigay baka sasaktan nila kami," he said.

Millena said "it can no longer be denied that rebels do exist in

Palawan, and it is up to the people to cooperate or not, with the

military to solve the problem before it gets worst."

As of this time, WESCOM is pursuing a plan to conduct barangay

information campaigns versus communism, and to do so, the military will

be doing the activity co-equally with the provincial government in

multi-sectoral relief efforts called "floating government and

government-on-wheels."(PNA) rgc //BCC/CRF/utb

PNA 11231734

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 11:54:11 +0000

From: Balita News

Subject: pn: Palawan leaders root for diplomatic solution ....

Palawan leaders root for diplomatic solution of Spratlys dispute

By Celeste Anna R. Formoso

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, November 23 (PNA) - The Provincial Board has

passed a resolution commending efforts by the national leadership to

settle the Spratlys dispute through diplomatic means.

The resolution, co-authored by Board members Winston Arzaga and Lani

Abogado says there is no way we could solve the dispute over Spratlys by

issuing more statements that could only irked China.

"We should keep a cool head to solve this problem. We can't afford to

wage war against China considering the size of its military strength,"

Arzaga said.

But both believe the Philippines should not give up Mischief Reef

since it is within the country's 200-nautical miles exclusive economic

zone (EEZ). If we will give up the controversial reef to Chinese

control , Abogado said, it will be easier for China to lay claim over

other reefs and even islands in the area which are by rights our

properties.

In related news, Mayor Edward S. Hagedorn believes too that "the

best way to settle the Spratlys dispute is through multi-lateral

diplomatic approach." It will be suicidal on the part of the Philippines

to even think of a military display in the area.

It is also about time, Hagedorn said, that the national leadership

give serious importance to Palawan's strategic location. Out of more

than 7,000 islands in the country, 1,700 are found in this province, and

yet naval support is almost nil in protecting its huge coastal areas

which are rich in marine resources.

"It is also my opinion that we have the rightful claim over the

Mischief Reef since it is within our country's exclusive economic

zone(EEZ). I am confident Pres. Estrada will be able to settle this

conflict peacefully," the mayor said.

Governor Salvador P. Socrates, on the other hand, is praying local

fishermen here will not provoke China by going near the disputed reef.

"My only wish that our fishermen will not go near the Spratlys until

such time everything has cooled down. It is very dangerous," Socrates

said.(PNA) je/wpt/BCC/CRF/

PNA 11231357

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 1998 12:20:47 +0000

From: Balita News

Subject: fn: Beijing envoy says China's friendship with RP remains rock solid

MANILA, Nov. 23 (PNA) -- Chinese envoy to Manila, Ambassador Guan

Dengming said their friendship with Filipinos remain rock solid and

will not be "disturbed in anyway by passing disputes or

misunderstanding."

The ambassador, who recently met with Senator Blas Ople in Makati,

assured that undying friendship and cooperation is a cardinal principle

in China's foreign policy for the Philippines.

He said the entire Chinese leadership from President Jiang Zemin to

the members of the National People's Congress, have issued instructions

that "China's friendship with the Philippines should not be undermined

in any way."

"We simply should ignore the forces trying to divide us," Guan told

Senator Ople during their meeting.

The general impression among observers, both Filipinos and foreign,

is that China says one thing but does the opposite of what it officially

declares. (PNA) DCT/JCN

China says US should not meddle - (Times)

Seeking drag Washington to its territorial dispute with Beijing on

the South China Sea, Manila yesterday gave visiting American

congressman Dana Rohrabacher of Califormia a quick aerial tour of

Mischief Reef.

But the four-hour trip to Mischief abroad a military transport

C-130 Hercules aircraft immediate drew a protest from the Chinese

ambassador to the Philippines.

Spartlys could cost China us trade perk

An American congressman, Califormia Rep. Dana Rohrabacher,

yesterday said he will ask the US government to abrogate the "Most

Favored Nation" status it accorded to China in order to pressure the

Chinese government to dismantle its military structures in the disputed

Spratlys Islands. (Standard)

Rohrabacher urges US govt to help in AFP modernization - A US

congressman, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Republican, California) is planning

to seek his government's help in modernizing the Armed Forces of the

Philippines. (Star)

Payumo offers Subic to US military - American military forces may

use their former base in Subic for training if the VFA between the

Philippines and the US is ratified. (Star)

Rohrabacher's real point

Considering how deeply US economic interest are interwined with

China's - or how deeply the Americans hope it would be-California Rep.

Dana Rohrabacher's posturing against Chinese "bullying" in the Spratlys

should be taken with a grain of salt.

Not to miss the real point, however, there is undeniably one thing

significant about the Rohrabacher's visit, the implications of which

prompted a reticent presidential spokesman Jerry Barican to stress to

that the congressman's views do in fact "carry weight" and, the expected

rhetoric notwithstanding, cannot be ignored. For the first time, a

high-profile US officials, a member of the influential House Committee

on Foreign Relations at that, has articulated what Manila has been

stressing all this time: the Spratlys dispute is not a problem of he

claimed alone. (Editorial/Today)

IN EARLY APRIL OF 1997 a Chinese oil and gas exploration ship, the Kan Tan III, began plying the waters between Hainan Island and the Vietnamese coast in search of petroleum. This type of exploratory activity would have been routine almost anywhere else, but in the South China Sea, where unresolved territorial disputes threaten to flare quickly, the presence of a Chinese survey ship swiftly escalated into a diplomatic scuffle between Vietnam and China. Subsequent talks failed to bring either side closer to compromise, and the crisis was averted only when the vessel, having completed its survey, withdrew from the area a month later. This particular territorial fracas did not have the "stuff of war" in it, but the commotion it generated is a reminder of the fragility of the peace reigning over the South China Sea. From the standpoint of regional security, the adamance of rival claimants to vast, overlapping water space in the South China Sea continues to make this maritime zone a brewing flashpoint.

That the multilateral dispute simmers at all is largely the responsibility of China, whose assertion of absolute sovereignty over a great majority of the South China Sea, coupled with its apparent willingness and growing ability to reinforce its claims, has effectively stymied any real progress towards a settlement. The explanation for this unbending posture is complex, rooted in goals and ambitions of many domestic actors in China. Rather surprisingly, though, Beijing's behavior in the South China Sea over the last decade has shown a consistent motivation: a growing desperation by Beijing to control the potentially lucrative natural resources of the region. While strong assertions of sovereignty form the backdrop of China's claims, and nationalism impels Beijing's leaders to defend their presumed rights there, sensitivity to resource encroachments and a growing fear of economic dependence has emerged as the primary determinant of China's willingness to assert itself physically in the South China Sea.

This article examines circumstances surrounding China's occupation of nine reefs in the Spratly island group in 1988, 1992, and 1995, in support of the thesis that economic threats have been the triggers for China's appropriation of territory in the South China Sea. The case studies will show that steps taken by rival claimants--Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines--to exploit the natural resources of the seabed incited Beijing to respond with ever-deeper physical penetrations into the Spratly archipelago. Understanding what spurred China to enlarge its presence in the South China Sea will not only strip away much of the uncertainty surrounding Beijing's intentions in this maritime zone but suggest how and where future conflict may take place, in this region and perhaps elsewhere.

Attempts to establish sovereignty over the formerly uninhabited archipelagos in the South China Sea--the Paracels and Spratlys being the largest--are a modern phenomenon. Today China is the most adamant of claimants, but for thousands of years the Chinese saw these uninhabited cays and shoals as places off the map, zones beyond civilization. China expressed no desire to control or possess barren, peripheral territories until Western encroachments, beginning with the Opium War in 1839, shocked China into a new awareness of its geographic vulnerabilities. Until then, because the islands were of marginal economic value,few other Southeast Asian states made any effort to secure clear title to them either.

The littoral states perched on the South China Sea were gradually awakened to the porosity of their borders by prolonged periods of victimization by foreign powers during the colonization era. The history of exploitation from the sea crystallized the notion among Asian leaders, especially in China and Vietnam, that they must not be soft on the issue of territorial integrity.

Given the relative remoteness of the offshore islands and the frequency with which the issue of ownership was overshadowed by more pressing domestic priorities, the history of occupation and control over the archipelagos during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly of the two most contested areas, the Paracels and Spratlys, is checkered. Ownership of islets changed hands repeatedly over the last century as various regional and extra-regional actors exerted influence over the maritime expanse. As one contemporary scholar has noted with irony, "Until World War II, the islands in the South China Sea were only worth their weight in guano."¹

From 1956 onward, Chinese forces happened to occupy the largest island in the Spratlys, which under customary law entitled the Chinese to en toto ownership of the archipelago.² But China's self-presumed dominion over the South China Sea islands was challenged in the early 1970s as their intrinsic strategic and economic value became more apparent. Taking advantage of a China distracted by the Cultural Revolution, rival claimants started methodically to absorb fragments of the Spratlys within their own boundaries. Desperate to find viable domestic sources of petroleum, both Vietnam and the Philippines began to occupy, and bolster defenses on, the largest islands in the Spratlys; by 1973 each had occupied six.

Interest in developing offshore petroleum quickly added an economic dimension to the territorial disputes. Indeed,strong correlations soon developed between the relative value of oil to each claimant and the intensity of their ownership claims. This dynamic deserves greater amplification, particularly in light of the importance offshore oil has played in other maritime jurisdictional disputes around the globe.

Offshore petroleum exploration is relatively recent in Asia. Until exploiting hydrocarbons trapped below the sea floor became technologically and economically feasible, it received little official attention. However, early seismic studies in Asian waters were performed in 1968 under UN auspices, and the following decade saw most of the Southeast Asian nations establishing joint ventures for oil prospecting. Oil was discovered in 1976 at Reed Bank, midway between Palawan and the Spratlys, and production was developed by the Philippines beginning in 1979. Indonesia's offshore oil industry, which began in 1970, accounted for 35 percent of Jakarta's total oil output in 1979. Malaysia's offshore oil production doubled each year throughout the 1970s. Hanoi, eager to welcome back concessionaires in the wake of reunification, also oversaw the resumption of offshore drilling in 1976, with a six-well program. In 1981, after Western oil companies pulled out due to rigid contract terms and disappointing preliminary finds, Vietnam and the Soviet Union formed a joint venture to explore and exploit hydrocarbons from Vietnam's southern continental shelf, striking oil three years later.³

China's first experiments with offshore drilling occurred as early as 1971, in the Bohai Gulf, but throughout the decade China generally lagged behind its neighbors by a significant technological margin. China objected perfunctorily to foreign exploration in traditional disputed zones, but it was ill equipped either to enforce its protests or compete through offshore programs of its own. Beijing was annoyed by growing encroachments in its claimed areas, but its ire was somewhat tempered by a thriving domestic petroleum industry on land. Output from its onshore sites was so prodigious that in 1974 China surpassed Indonesia as East Asia's top petroleum producer.⁴

China's exclusive emphasis on onshore exploration turned out to be an ephemeral luxury. Southeast Asia's successes in offshore development through the late 1970s and a decline in China's domestic oil production in 1980 figured prominently in Beijing's decision to expand its search for hydrocarbons off shore. China sought foreign assistance in developing fields and in February 1982 established the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to coordinate contracts with foreign oil companies on behalf of the State Council. Seven months later, the first of many cooperative ventures was signed. These joint ventures concentrated their activities in the Gulf of Tonkin and off the mainland coast (particularly in the Pearl River Basin, adjacent to Hong Kong). China's leaders were buoyed by reports that almost a fifth of all estimated Chinese oil potential lay on its continental shelf.⁵

If dwindling onshore petroleum production in the early 1980s was a major consideration in China's new emphasis on offshore production, exploiting resources on the continental shelf was attractive for other reasons as well. Not only were the offshore fields closer to consumers (industrial and population centers along the south and east coast of China), but they were less vulnerable than the onshore fields in northeast and northwest China to potential Soviet attack. The "sweeter" quality of the crude lifted from the South China Sea seabed (the oil was less waxy and sulfuric) also reduced the processing burden on China's heavily taxed oil refineries.

In the years preceding China's first attempt, in early 1988, to occupy reefs in the Spratlys, China's rocketing economy and its need for refined petroleum products threatened to outstrip domestic production capacity. Since 1984 a growing discrepancy had emerged between China's energy supply and demand, and had grown since. The situation was exacerbated by a decline in foreign investment in offshore oil exploration in 1986. In early January 1988, economists calculated that "there is no way a three percent per year growth in oil production can feed sustained growth in refined products demand of six to eight percent per year or growth in demand for light and middle distillates of eight to twelve percent per year."⁶ Oil experts estimated China could sustain its 1986 oil production level through at least 2020 but that the expanding consumption requirements of the Chinese economy would oblige it to begin importing oil within the decade.⁷ A shortage of energy became one of the most important factors retarding economic growth, and the Chinese increasingly turned their eyes to offshore areas, including the South China Sea.

China's developing energy crisis lured Beijing to the sea, but other ocean resources were gradually becoming important to China's national health as well. Fishing, for example, was emerging as a source of nutrition that could partly compensate for relative declines in agricultural output. The limiting factor in China's agricultural productivity was, and is, the availability of cultivable land--approximately 10 percent of China's land mass. About half of this cultivable land is of low quality due to such conditions as soil salinity or alkalinity, falling water tables, erosion, and desertification. Significant losses of arable land occurred between 1970 and 1987 as farmland was converted to industrial, transportation, and urban construction purposes. Increasing the efficiency of agricultural production through greater mechanization was complicated by lack of funds for investment and the problem of displaced rural labor.⁹

China not only faced declining amounts of cultivable land, but its population was growing steadily. In the 1980s it was predicted that by the year 2020 China would have 250 million more mouths to feed.¹⁰ Even with population control measures and enhanced agricultural techniques, China's leaders realized, the nation would become increasingly dependent on alternative sources of food. As early as 1984, a high government official asserted that the diet of China's large and growing population would increasingly require the protein supplied by fish. Chinese journals in 1989 similarly argued that 80 percent of the earth's living resources were in the sea and that fish would become an increasingly important source of animal protein.¹¹ A strong fishing industry had an obvious nutritional benefit, was compatible with China's need for low-technology, human-intensive occupations, and was preferable to importation.

A Chinese article published in 1988 best captured China's growing sense of the South China Sea's economic value:

With a view toward emerging resource shortfalls, particularly in the field of energy, China's response to Vietnam's April 1987 occupation of one of the largest reefs in the Spratlys, Barque Canada, was vitriolic. China demanded Vietnam's immediate withdrawal from Barque Canada and nine other islands in the archipelago. Citing Soviet-Vietnamese economic cooperation as evidence that continental shelf oil exploitation was a key project, the Chinese asserted that "Vietnam's purpose in illegally dispatching troops to [Barque Canada] is to occupy the continental shelf nearby and pave the way for its future exploitation of oil."¹³ China had been aware the Spratlys had very good oil prospects as early as 1982, when the then president of China's geological society made favorable predictions about oil exploitation there.¹⁴ To reaffirm these calculations, in spring 1987 the People's Republic of China (the PRC) conducted extensive oceanographic research in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands. By the fall of 1987 the Chinese government had concluded that the continental shelf north of James Shoal, in the southernmost part of the archipelago, had a large sedimentary basin that probably contained substantial natural gas and oil deposits. In November 1987, around the time of these findings, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) began to survey outposts for construction in the Spratlys. Soon after, the decision was made to establish a Chinese "sea-level weather research station" on Fiery Cross Reef.

Alarmed by PLAN operations in their "backyard," Vietnam sent aircraft to monitor Chinese construction efforts, and Vietnamese warships shadowed Chinese vessels engaged in survey and patrol.¹⁶ Friction between these opposing forces correspondingly mounted. The volatile mix of Chinese and Vietnamese ships in the same waters predictably led to a series of near-clashes. These brushes usually involved Vietnamese units approaching the reefs on which Chinese investigation teams were working; on at least three occasions, Chinese warships intercepted and turned away the Vietnamese vessels. The situation climaxed in mid-March 1988, when the PLAN sank a Vietnamese auxiliary and damaged an LST operating in the vicinity of Johnson Reef.¹⁷ The PLAN subsequently consolidated its position in the region, planting flags and occupying six reefs (all previously uninhabited) by April 1988.

While it remains unclear what criteria China had used to select the reefs on which it settled, one may have been an aim to undermine rival claims to prospective resources nearby. The occupied reefs are dispersed throughout a number of smaller archipelagos--Laoita Bank, Tizard Bank, Union Reefs (just south of Tizard), and London Reef. By landing on reefs near islands and on reefs held by other claimants, China may have intended to supersede, or at least neutralize, any legal rights of other nations to the surrounding seabed and water column. The only reef distant--and this for defensive purposes--from claims of other states is Fiery Cross, the PLAN "headquarters" in the Spratlys.

Beijing did not have the technological know-how in late 1987 and early 1988 to exploit petroleum so far from its shores. China's leaders, however, acted as if they meant to thwart physical incursions they could not halt using the time-worn technique of diplomatic protest. To Beijing, competition for offshore resources in the South China Sea was becoming a zero-sum game. Aware of the limitations of its existing resource base, China sought to deter foreign encroachments and reserve the area for its own future exploitation.

The next significant development in the ongoing ownership quarrel over the South China Sea was the adoption in February 1992 by the Chinese National People's Congress of the Law of the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone. Contrary to China's promises to resolve outstanding territorial disputes through friendly discussion, the law was a hard-line assertion of Chinese maritime rights.¹⁸ Its articles claimed exclusive sovereignty over the Paracels and Spratlys, asserted a right to evict other nations' naval vessels from its territorial waters (presumably even those still under dispute), and authorized the PLA Navy to pursue foreign ships violating its regulations to the high seas. The law also required all foreign warships to give notification of intent to pass through China's territorial seas and to receive permission before doing so. These regulations not only threatened freedom of navigation but revived regional antagonisms over maritime sovereignty.¹⁹

China quickly acted on its claims. Less than a month after the territorial sea law's proclamation, Chinese forces landed on Da Ba Dau reef, near the Vietnamese-held island of Sin Cowe East. A clash (of which the intensity is not known) took place between Chinese and Vietnamese forces on 19 March 1992. Four months later, Chinese marines landed on Da Lac reef on Tizard Bank. No direct economic benefits accrued from occupying these features. However, Da Ba Dau reef, as of then the easternmost point occupied by the PLA in the Spratlys, is so close to Sin Cowe East Island that its occupation would seem an attempt to trump Vietnam's claims to resources in the eastern part of the archipelago.²⁰ As in 1988, the PLA avoided direct assaults on occupied islands, landing only on uninhabited reefs.²¹

Why was China suddenly taking a more aggressive stance? The most plausible explanation returns to China's pressing economic conditions. Beijing probably interpreted joint development schemes sponsored by other claimants to exploit offshore petroleum in the South China Sea as threats to China's long-term economic sustainability.

The near-simultaneous declaration of the Law of the Territorial Sea, the Chinese occupation of reefs, and the skirmish with Vietnamese naval units all reflected China's heightened sensitivity to resource invasions in the South China Sea. They were a shrill warning to its neighbors that they could not exclude China from development of the area's natural resources. China's efforts in this direction were undoubtedly encouraged by a renewed promise of huge finds. Revised geological surveys by the Chinese Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources led to speculation that the Spratlys archipelago could contain as much as 105 billion barrels of oil, an amount greater than China's on-shore reserves. The area surrounding James Shoal alone was also estimated to contain upwards of 90 billion barrels of oil.²³

The latest encroachments, coupled with China's shifting status from oil exporter to net importer, likely had convinced Beijing it needed to become more energetic in asserting its rights over a potentially world-class petroleum field. For influential elements in the Chinese leadership the South China Sea was probably a prize worth the minor costs of diplomatic turbulence with ASEAN. At stake was China's modernization program, which depended upon the finite fuel resources then at its disposal. China's goals were transparent to its neighbors. President Lee Teng-hui of Taiwan commented in 1993, "The Chinese Communists want access to the South China Sea since the amount of petroleum there could exceed that under the North Sea."²⁴

China's new emphasis on controlling petroleum exploration in distant waters further manifested itself in an unprecedented cooperation contract between CNOOC and an American firm, the Crestone Energy Corporation, in May 1992.²⁵ The contract called for joint exploration in a twenty-five-thousand-square-kilometer block in the southwest perimeter of the Spratlys archipelago, just inside China's sweeping claim line. The contract was significant not only for its sheer ambitiousness--the water was so deep in most of the contract block that exploration would present major technological challenges--but because the concession was located within two hundred nautical miles of the Vietnamese coast. China appeared to be using Crestone to reaffirm and internationalize its title, justifying its actions by pointing to Vietnamese exploration activity directly west. Hanoi insisted the Crestone concession was illegal, because it fell on Vietnam's continental shelf, but it avoided chastising the U.S. oil company in order not to jeopardize the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo.²⁶ Endeavoring to reap a share of the rewards of the offshore oil production of its competitors, China was willing to run the risk of sponsoring exploration within Vietnam's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). China even promised PLA Navy protection for Crestone personnel and equipment.

A more assertive policy to satisfy energy concerns helps explain Beijing's actions in the southwest Spratlys where oil prospects were good. But in 1995, Beijing decided to occupy Mischief Reef, in the Philippines claim zone, where the oil potential was relatively meager. Beijing seemed to be throwing political capital to the wind by penetrating deeply into the Philippine EEZ. Why?

The best explanation involves China's perceptions of economic threats and its desire to preempt foreign exploration that would leave it a net loser in terms of territory and resources. China's occupation of Mischief Reef was not a bolt from the blue; it was preceded by a chain of events that began with a falling-out with the Philippines over hydrocarbon exploration in the northeast region of the Spratlys.

Joint development talks between China and the Philippines over gas-rich Reed Bank broke down in early 1994; in May, Manila decided to grant a six-month oil exploration permit to Alcorn Petroleum and Minerals.²⁷ The Philippines was interested in collecting seismic data on the seabed southwest of Reed Bank. Manila hoped the contract would remain a secret, but news of the collaboration soon leaked. Beijing swiftly issued a statement reasserting its sovereignty over the area covered by the license and ignored Manila's belated invitation to become a partner in the project. Manila back-pedaled on the diplomatic front for weeks, but the damage had been done. By secretly licensing an exploration effort the Philippines had appeared to engage in unilateral efforts to exploit the natural resources of the Spratlys.

Stung by Manila's "betrayal," China decided to advance eastward for better surveillance coverage of any Philippine-sponsored oil exploration. Mischief Reef is in the lower-middle section of the Alcorn concession; a presence there would also strengthen China's hand were petroleum ever to be discovered in the area. The Chinese post on Mischief Reef was discovered by Filipino fishermen in February 1995, the advanced state of its buildings indicating that construction had begun in the fall of 1994, just a few months after Manila's "faux pas." China had quietly advanced onto the reef because it believed physical occupation was the only method by which Chinese interests could be protected. Beijing's own misstep was in not foreseeing that this characteristically "defensive" response would be interpreted as offensive.

Economic determinants clearly account for the timing of China's advances in the South China Sea. Oversimplifying the sources of China's behavior, however, can be dangerous and misleading. A more comprehensive view of China's motives to use force in the South China Sea can be reached by examining matters through a broader domestic lens. The demands of national industrialization aside, factors within Chinese government and society that contribute to China's territorial resolve include nationalism, the bureaucratic interests of the Navy (the PLAN), the relative influence of the PLA in domestic politics, and provincial development objectives.

The wellspring of modern Chinese nationalism is the humiliation the nation suffered at the hands of foreigners intent on exploiting and dismembering China for economic and political profit. The nineteenth century saw Western powers seize concession areas in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Qingdao, and Dalian; Russia bit off sections of Manchuria; Japan captured Taiwan, Korea, and the Ryukyus; and France colonized Indochina. Outer Mongolia took advantage of a deteriorating dynasty to achieve nominal independence in 1912. In 1932, Manchuria became a puppet of Japan. Although some territories were recovered after World War II, by the time the Communists took over in 1949 the erstwhile Qing empire had been sliced into five separate entities: the PRC, the Republic of China on Taiwan, the Mongolian People's Republic, Macau, and Hong Kong.²⁸

The Chinese accordingly possess a particular sensitivity about their territorial integrity; it finds expression in contemporary nationalist statements about reunifying the motherland. The Chinese press considers "inseparable" or "inalienable sovereignty"the strongest phrases it can invoke to signal seriousness; the Paracel and Spratly islands are consistently referred to in these terms.

Since the late 1970s China's leaders have promoted Chinese nationalism as a unifying force to replace the "carcass of communism."²⁹ In the decade after Mao's death, the Party realized that revolutionary fervor was becoming unreliable as a source of social cohesion. Emphasizing instead a theme that touches the roots of Chinese pride, the center began to elevate the citizenry's collective "consciousness of suffering" (with regard to sovereignty) as a way of uniting elements of Chinese society that were increasingly disenchanted with the Party's socialist ideology.

By attaching the regime's legitimacy to its ability to protect and defend Chinese sovereignty, however, Party leaders committed themselves to holding firm on the prickly questions of autonomy in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and the Spratly Islands. Any Chinese leader who suggests greater autonomy, much less independence, for these areas risks being pilloried for sundering the "sacred motherland." Having wrapped themselves in the flag, the regime's leaders can brook no compromise on the issue of territorial integrity, even if it would be in the short-term national interest to do so.

Assertive nationalists, however, are not the only elements in Chinese society that encourage a hard-line stance. The PLA Navy has seized on instability and tension in the South China Sea to advance its own cause. In its aggressive effort to acquire larger budgets and more modern capabilities, the PLAN has consistently spotlighted as threats the issues emerging from the South China Sea. In the middle to late 1970s the PLAN crafted and obtained political endorsement of an offshore defense policy by linking naval expansion with the maritime threats posed by the ever-present U.S. Seventh Fleet and Soviet Pacific Fleet. Sino-American rapprochement in the late 1970s and Sino-Soviet warming in the mid-1980s, however, dealt major blows to the PLAN's offshore strategy by depriving it of overt threats with which to justify a large, oceangoing maritime force.³⁰ Recovery of so-called "lost territories," which hitherto had been a secondary priority of the PLAN, now surfaced as a major, budget-driving mission. Other primary missions of the PLAN, which include strategic deterrence (by submarine-launched ballistic missiles) and the liberation of Taiwan, did not warrant the expensive and wide-ranging capabilities that sea control would. Defending maritime economic interests, particularly offshore territorial claims, soon became the most concrete justification for the PLAN's prospective blue-water navy.³¹ Operations at long range from the mainland, such as in the remote Spratlys archipelago, an area fraught with navigational hazards and in proximity to multiple threats, required a "modern, technically proficient, combat-ready, long distance navy skilled in joint operations."³²

Success in acquiring the requisite share of the budgetary pie hinged on the Navy's ability to fuse its narrow organizational interests with broad economic goals and core national issues. Toward that end, in 1984 the PLAN's commander listed as one of the Navy's main goals the capability to defend Beijing's claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea's rich maritime resources, including offshore petroleum deposits, manganese nodules, and fish.³³ In 1992, during budgetary debates in the National People's Congress, the deputy Navy commander echoed these resource-based arguments, especially China's long-term necessity to make better use of maritime riches, particularly petroleum. Observing that China's offshore oil production output was only 62 percent of Vietnam's, he warned that China could not continue to lag behind other nations in exploiting marine resources without a negative impact on China's economic growth levels in the next century. The PLAN believes the seas have become the "new high ground of strategic competition."³⁴

The notion that China's future economic growth depends on its ability to exploit living and nonliving marine resources, and that the PLAN must be equipped to secure these zones, has taken root in the most powerful factions of the Party and central government. The Navy's success in convincing the regime of the fleet's importance in this endeavor is reflected in the Chinese media:

Absent an overt Russian or Japanese threat, the PLAN can be expected to continue to view the South China Sea as an area from which new threats to China's sovereignty are likely to emerge. In short, naval leaders hope that protecting Chinese territorial interests from foreign encroachments (i.e., defending the water column and seabed minerals that may be invaluable to China's energy and food supplies in the future) will have wide patriotic and political appeal.

The PLAN's influence over budgetary and strategic policy at the seat of government is partly attributable to its success in intertwining its parochial interests with China's national objectives, but it is also facilitated by the influence of its parent organization, the People's Liberation Army itself, in political circles.

The nature of factionalized party-army rule in China has made the PLA the arbiter of power among contending groups atop the Chinese communist system. Indeed, a party leader's power today ultimately relies to a great degree on the breadth and robustness of his personal links with the military. However, the PLA is not a monolithic institution; cleavages exist within it, caused by the attempts ofindividuals to promote their careers and seek professional security. The PLA's potency is also somewhat weakened by senior military leaders' dependence on Party patronage for political leverage; nonetheless, the PLA exerts a high degree of political authority in Beijing.³⁶

The People's Liberation Army is only one of several major organizations that vie for political attention in Beijing, but by virtue of its control over instruments of lethality, it wields substantially more influence than its rivals. The PLA's relative prominence among competing bureaucracies in Beijing was brought home when in 1992 conservative military and senior Party officials pushed through the territorial sea law over the Ministry of Foreign Affair's objections.³⁷ As telling, for the past five years the senior uniformed military officer on the Politburo was the former PLAN commander, Liu Huaqing, champion of the Navy's strategy in the South China Sea.³⁸

Lastly, loosely allied with the nationalists and Navy commanders are officials in the island province of Hainan. Since it became an independent province in 1988, the island has seen rapid economic growth. To maintain this momentum, Hainan is giving top priority to construction of large industrial projects, including a refinery and a gas-fired chemical fertilizer plant, cornerstone industries that will process mineral resources mined on shore or lifted from the floor of the South China Sea. Indeed, the development and processing of mineral resources is being pursued as a key industry of the province over the next five years. Close to thirty mineral resource development projects are to be carried out, the collective output value of which is predicted to be eight times existing production.³⁹

The interest of Hainan in Chinese control over the mineral supplies of the South China Sea became clear when its governor made an inspection tour of the Spratlys in January 1992, one month prior to the formal declaration of the 1992 territorial sea law. The governor believed that every 1 percent of the exploited proven resources in the South China Sea would yield a profit equivalent to sixty times Hainan's total economic output in 1990.⁴⁰ It is imperative, he stated, for Hainan to "develop the rich resources on the Spratly Islands and in the surrounding waters, to change them into huge material wealth."⁴¹

In the final analysis, ownership over and exploitation of the South China Sea's economic abundance has wide appeal across the spectrum of China's officialdom, from national-level strategists seeking a panacea for China's growing energy demands to provincial administrators eager to expand their areas' industrial capacity.

Some analysts have concluded that if China is serious about tapping the abundant resources of the South China Sea, its best option is to settle the overall dispute and split the profits that would most profusely flow from joint development in a peaceful environment. This path, however, is obstructed by several major factors, not the least of which is China's cultural, political, and economic paradigm of self-reliance.

Deeply embedded in the Chinese psyche is an all-pervasive sense of a patron-client hierarchy and a conviction that dependence implies subordination. The era of exploitation by the West that transformed China into a veritable vassal state in the last century was intensely humiliating. These memories still wound the Chinese national self-esteem and sense of identity, nourishing Chinese nationalism in a modern form that is both powerful and assertive. Sensitivity to past injustices has also influenced China's foreign policy and its economic decisions, where autonomy and self-sufficiency are ideals.

Of course, in the interests of providing for the welfare of its citizens China has been forced to make pragmatic choices that compromise its goal of self-reliance. China needs access to Western technology and expertise to modernize, and it has opened trade doors accordingly. Indeed, Jiang Zemin has placed himself at the forefront of such sweeping change. Beijing has set limits on these endeavors, however. Beijing has taken steps to protect its "pillar industries," one of which is the energy sector; it has been hesitant to approve dozens of major refinery and power-generating projects.⁴² Despite proclamations of openness, great divisions still exist within the Chinese bureaucracy over how far and how fast foreigners should be allowed to penetrate economically the "motherland."

In truth, Beijing's stress on, and definition of, self-reliance militates against any joint development scheme sponsored by parties interested in resolving the South China Sea quandary politically. From China's standpoint, "joint development" means China dictating terms to a single partner. Beijing prefers to negotiate with state entities and individual companies on a bilateral basis, where its hand is stronger and leverage greater than when dealing with several at once. Beijing finds unappealing political solutions calling for an equitable division of resources, not only because they may require relinquishment of what it considers sovereign ground but also because they forfeit some measure of economic independence.

Based on current predictions of China's energy requirements, China's incentive to remain unswerving in its ambitions to control most of the South China Sea is exceedingly great.

In 1994, China consumed five barrels of oil per capita; conservative estimates indicate that demand will rise to ten barrels within a decade.⁴⁴ While China is attempting to make better use of its onshore fields, technology trends (for instance, mobile rigs capable of exploring for and producing oil in ever deeper waters) suggest that the seabed will only become a more valued and accessible prize.⁴⁵ Offshore petroleum production accounts already for a fast-growing (if now small) share of China's overall output. Chinese offshore oil production has been increasing at an average annual rate of 39.6 percent for the past decade.⁴⁶ One analyst estimates by the year 2000, nearly 40 percent of China's gross crude oil yield may be brought in from sea.⁴⁷ Many Chinese think the Spratly area is likely to become the second Persian Gulf. China may well feel that it must play for keeps or inexorably become dependent on foreign energy suppliers, perhaps again subject to foreigners' manipulations.

It might be imagined that China may also perceive, however, that a powerful argument against further expansion in the South China Sea is that it may lead to global ostracization. This reasoning asserts that China risks casting itself into a kind of international purgatory if it oversteps its bounds too many times. Ironically, in fact, many Chinese think that precisely because China may find itself internationally besieged in the future, it must become ever more self-reliant. In other words, China should fully and unilaterally exploit all the resources available as a fail-safe against the possibility of future estrangement from the world community.⁴⁸

It is impossible to predict exactly the timing and location of Beijing's next move in the Spratlys, but the areas most likely to see conflict are those claimed by China but economically exploited by rivals. In April 1996 Vietnam signed an exploration deal with a U.S.-based company, Conoco, to conduct hydrocarbon surveys in two blocks that overlap the Benton (ex-Crestone) concession in the southwestern section of the Spratlys.⁴⁹ This area is a likely flashpoint, and it deserves greater attention than it currently receives. Large, proven petroleum reserves exist nearby. Vietnam's southern continental shelf is its most lucrative offshore source of oil. Two fields, Big Bear and Blue Dragon, have by themselves practically underwritten Vietnam's economy, and both fields are located less than eight kilometers west of the Benton block, and within or astride China's claim line. In the contested block reside at least two Vietnamese outposts, on Vanguard Bank and Prince Consort Bank, increasing the risks of potential conflict. Also, China appears ready to honor in this case a standing promise to protect contractor equipment and personnel with its navy.⁵⁰

Minor clashes have occurred in or near concession blocks off the Vietnamese coast. Vietnam alleges that a Chinese seismic survey ship harassed a British Petroleum--led exploration off Vietnam's southeastern continental shelf in May 1993. Vietnamese gunboats escorted a Chinese research vessel out of the Crestone block in April 1994.⁵¹ In July 1994 Chinese naval units blockaded a drilling rig licensed by Hanoi.⁵² Because both countries are becoming increasingly reliant on offshore petroleum to fuel their respective economies, the risks are high that one side or the other will contemplate force to defend its concessions. The region has been calm, lately, because Benton Oil & Gas has yet to send exploration equipment to the concession, but the volatility of this area may sharply increase when petroleum exploration vessels begin to converge. The only spark that may be needed to ignite conflict in this region is the discovery of commercially viable quantities of oil or natural gas. Given the massive volume of shipping funneled through this particular stretch of the South China Sea, developments there should be monitored closely.

Of course, several other friction points along China's periphery exist--disputed offshore zones claimed by Beijing but exploited to some degree by others. China continues to maintain serious claims, for example, in the Gulf of Tonkin and the Senkakus (northeast of Taiwan). So far, marginal hydrocarbon finds in the former and the larger strategic importance of Sino-Japanese relations restrain Beijing, but one can expect that as the disparity between domestic energy production and consumption grows, China will become increasingly less inclined to compromise away potentially resource-rich territory in these sea zones as well.

While China will almost always act pragmatically when larger strategic issues are at stake, future leaders may behave less moderately where large, proven caches of petroleum are discovered, particularly if a more muscular PLA Navy is standing by to "arbitrate" claims. Indeed, PLAN leaders assert,

Of course, the likelihood of prolonged combat over offshore disputes is extremely low. China hopes to outmaneuver rather than fight its competitors. Beijing is very much aware that if disagreements result in open warfare China risks being stigmatized as East Asia's new hegemon, in turn upsetting the stable environment within which it has prospered over the last two decades. Eruption of quick-flare, short-burn fights on the order of the March 1988 skirmish, however, cannot be so easily discounted. Indeed, China is currently gearing its military forces to deal with such special "local war" situations. In the future Beijing may feel compelled to use these instruments should other methods fail to preserve the integrity of its treasured "blue territories."

Economic imperatives have emerged as the crucial factor in the timing and rationale for China's expanded presence in the South China Sea. While the golden thread of sovereignty is interlaced with China's every move in the Spratlys in particular, current trends indicate that China takes action when economic threats break a threshold of tolerance. As innocuous as they appear, offshore joint development schemes sponsored by Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines have been consistently interpreted by Beijing as serious threats to its prosperity. Indeed, the triggers that set PLAN warships into motion are resource-related encroachments by China's neighbors. In an era of resource scarcity, these events more than any other heighten China's sense of territorial and economic vulnerability. Viewed in this light, China's occupation of reefs in 1988, the 1992 sea law, and the Mischief Reef takeover were driven less by opportunism than a belief that it was necessary to respond to imminent challenges to presumed Chinese dominion over these maritime areas.

Domestic forces reinforce China's inflexibility about control of the disputed waters. Nationalist politicians, PLAN leaders, economists, and certain provincial officials represent a loose but powerful coalition exerting influence over decision makers in Beijing. These domestic elements possess a vested interest in ensuring that China responds in a forthright manner to perceived encroachments in the South China Sea. That negative repercussions stemming from China's arrogation of Mischief Reef has not significantly altered this dynamic was best exemplified by official and semiofficial pronouncements during the 1997 Kan Tan III incident. The Chinese foreign ministry vigorously reaffirmed China's exclusive ownership of the economic zone, while the Beijing-based China Daily quoted senior Chinese economists as saying exploration of natural resources in the disputed South China Sea was essential for China's economic growth.⁵⁴

Petroleum is certainly not the sole motivating force in China's calculations, of course. A powerful argument can be made that Beijing hopes to cast the widest possible net over the sea so other marine treasures--perhaps resources that will prove more vital to China's economy than petroleum is today--can be hauled in by future generations. The islets and reefs in the South China Sea are valued not for themselves but as fixed points upon which to attach much larger claims to surrounding maritime zones.

A solution to this complex problem, which intertwines historical, political, economic, and even cultural threads, will not be arrived at easily. One can only hope China will begin to trust that dependence on foreign energy suppliers is not a major source of strategic vulnerability. Domestic trends in China, however, particularly the growth of jingoistic nationalism, suggest that Beijing will not soon abandon its efforts at maximizing self-sufficiency in its core industries. Until this paradigm shifts from within or is gently dismantled from without, one can expect that China's propensity to take action in the South China Sea will remain strongly influenced by its dependence on offshore resources. One can also expect Beijing to pay close attention to the policies of other littoral states, as well as the United States and Japan, toward evolving South China Sea issues and tensions. If this analysis is correct, moreover, one may have to examine other Chinese foreign policy issues in a new light.