Asias quiet anger with big, bad China
By David Pilling
Published: June 1 2011 22:36 | Last updated: June 1 2011 22:36
Last month, a man rode up to Chinas well-protected embassy in Hanoi, unfurled a bed-sheet-sized banner reading China has no right to ban fishing or take Vietnams Paracel islands and promptly set fire to his motorbike.
As the flames blazed skywards, the protester was marched away by a Vietnamese security official. Not a word about the incident, captured in an amateur video, has appeared in the Vietnamese press.
But this month, in the rhetorical equivalent of motorbike immolation, the Vietnamese government was itself protesting against China. At a hastily convened weekend press conference, the foreign ministry accused Beijing of committing a serious violation in the South China Sea, which Hanoi predictably calls something else the East Sea. Beijing was said to have used legally groundless claims to assert its ownership of the whole sea and turn it into its home pond.
The incident that provoked such kerosene-fuelled language took place last week, 120 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam in waters claimed by both Hanoi and Beijing. Vietnam said a Chinese patrol boat cut cables trailing from one of its survey ships. The cables were apparently 30m under water, implying the Chinese vessel was equipped with deepwater cutters.
Chinese coastguard vessels routinely detain Vietnamese fishing boats in disputed waters, capturing them and charging a ransom for their release. Clashes with oil survey ships are rarer, although Vietnam said this was not the first time Chinese vessels had cut cables.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, which also borders on the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam. These countries, sticking to the principle of where there is land, there are sea rights, have overlapping claims to waters off their coast. Hanoi ridicules the dotted line that China draws on maps to indicate its ownership of the entire sea as like a lolling bull tongue. There are also competing claims to the Paracel and Spratly islands.
Hanoi has what Brantly Womack, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, calls an asymmetric relationship with Beijing. Vietnam runs a $12bn trade deficit with China, which is the chief source of its machinery, computers, chemicals and textiles. Vietnams exports are mostly commodities. Many Vietnamese, who have centuries of resentment stashed up against the dominant culture, believe China has strangled local industry at birth.
Anger against the big, bad neighbour occasionally flares up. Most notably, in 2009, there was a fight over a multibillion dollar Sino-Vietnam development of bauxite reserves in Vietnams Central Highlands. No less a figure than Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero who fought alongside Ho Chi Minh, condemned the project as harmful to Vietnams environment, society and national defence. Gen Giap had been defence minister in 1979 when Vietnam and China fought a brief, but bloody, border war.
This asymmetrical relationship normally obliges Vietnam to be deferential, says Prof Womack. But that only works if China, in turn, respects Vietnams interests and autonomy. The relationship he describes resembles the tributary system by which kingdoms once paid obeisance to imperial China. By showing deference and admitting Chinas superiority, countries would be largely left alone.
The jostling with Vietnam appears to be an attempt to work out a similar modus operandi for the modern age. With the exception of India, and possibly Japan, all Asian nations have a similarly asymmetric relationship with China. Take the Philippines. It, too, has complained that Chinese ships hassled an oil-survey vessel off the Philippine coast. But, when I put the issue to Benigno Aquino III, the president, he told me there was little his country could do with a second-rate navy and an air force that boasted not a single fighter jet. If we were to engage in a boxing match, theres 15 of them for every one of us, he said.
In the short term, Chinas assertiveness appear to have backfired. Smaller nations are huddling together under the auspices of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. They are also moving closer to the US, which has restated its commitment to having a strong presence in the Pacific and annoyed China by calling the South China Sea an area of strategic interest.
Thanks to Vietnams protest, the South China Sea will dominate this weekends Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual regional defence forum held in Singapore. This year, both Liang Guanglie and Robert Gates, the defence chiefs of China and the US, will be attending. There could be some fireworks. But there will also be plenty of talk about the need for greater transparency between the two powers to ensure that maritime frictions dont get out of hand.
Everyone knows, though, that Chinas naval might is waxing. As it does, US regional influence will surely wane. When I asked Mr Aquino about turning to the US for protection, he didnt miss a beat. If they are around, he replied. Countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are happy for American support. But sooner or later, they know they are going to have to reach accommodation with China.
FT.com / Comment / Op-Ed Columnists - Asia
By David Pilling
Published: June 1 2011 22:36 | Last updated: June 1 2011 22:36
Last month, a man rode up to Chinas well-protected embassy in Hanoi, unfurled a bed-sheet-sized banner reading China has no right to ban fishing or take Vietnams Paracel islands and promptly set fire to his motorbike.
As the flames blazed skywards, the protester was marched away by a Vietnamese security official. Not a word about the incident, captured in an amateur video, has appeared in the Vietnamese press.
But this month, in the rhetorical equivalent of motorbike immolation, the Vietnamese government was itself protesting against China. At a hastily convened weekend press conference, the foreign ministry accused Beijing of committing a serious violation in the South China Sea, which Hanoi predictably calls something else the East Sea. Beijing was said to have used legally groundless claims to assert its ownership of the whole sea and turn it into its home pond.
The incident that provoked such kerosene-fuelled language took place last week, 120 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam in waters claimed by both Hanoi and Beijing. Vietnam said a Chinese patrol boat cut cables trailing from one of its survey ships. The cables were apparently 30m under water, implying the Chinese vessel was equipped with deepwater cutters.
Chinese coastguard vessels routinely detain Vietnamese fishing boats in disputed waters, capturing them and charging a ransom for their release. Clashes with oil survey ships are rarer, although Vietnam said this was not the first time Chinese vessels had cut cables.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, which also borders on the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam. These countries, sticking to the principle of where there is land, there are sea rights, have overlapping claims to waters off their coast. Hanoi ridicules the dotted line that China draws on maps to indicate its ownership of the entire sea as like a lolling bull tongue. There are also competing claims to the Paracel and Spratly islands.
Hanoi has what Brantly Womack, professor of politics at the University of Virginia, calls an asymmetric relationship with Beijing. Vietnam runs a $12bn trade deficit with China, which is the chief source of its machinery, computers, chemicals and textiles. Vietnams exports are mostly commodities. Many Vietnamese, who have centuries of resentment stashed up against the dominant culture, believe China has strangled local industry at birth.
Anger against the big, bad neighbour occasionally flares up. Most notably, in 2009, there was a fight over a multibillion dollar Sino-Vietnam development of bauxite reserves in Vietnams Central Highlands. No less a figure than Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero who fought alongside Ho Chi Minh, condemned the project as harmful to Vietnams environment, society and national defence. Gen Giap had been defence minister in 1979 when Vietnam and China fought a brief, but bloody, border war.
This asymmetrical relationship normally obliges Vietnam to be deferential, says Prof Womack. But that only works if China, in turn, respects Vietnams interests and autonomy. The relationship he describes resembles the tributary system by which kingdoms once paid obeisance to imperial China. By showing deference and admitting Chinas superiority, countries would be largely left alone.
The jostling with Vietnam appears to be an attempt to work out a similar modus operandi for the modern age. With the exception of India, and possibly Japan, all Asian nations have a similarly asymmetric relationship with China. Take the Philippines. It, too, has complained that Chinese ships hassled an oil-survey vessel off the Philippine coast. But, when I put the issue to Benigno Aquino III, the president, he told me there was little his country could do with a second-rate navy and an air force that boasted not a single fighter jet. If we were to engage in a boxing match, theres 15 of them for every one of us, he said.
In the short term, Chinas assertiveness appear to have backfired. Smaller nations are huddling together under the auspices of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. They are also moving closer to the US, which has restated its commitment to having a strong presence in the Pacific and annoyed China by calling the South China Sea an area of strategic interest.
Thanks to Vietnams protest, the South China Sea will dominate this weekends Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual regional defence forum held in Singapore. This year, both Liang Guanglie and Robert Gates, the defence chiefs of China and the US, will be attending. There could be some fireworks. But there will also be plenty of talk about the need for greater transparency between the two powers to ensure that maritime frictions dont get out of hand.
Everyone knows, though, that Chinas naval might is waxing. As it does, US regional influence will surely wane. When I asked Mr Aquino about turning to the US for protection, he didnt miss a beat. If they are around, he replied. Countries like Vietnam and the Philippines are happy for American support. But sooner or later, they know they are going to have to reach accommodation with China.
FT.com / Comment / Op-Ed Columnists - Asia
