Beijing tests regional resolve in South China Sea amid Middle East conflict

Taipei, Taiwan — As the United States and other like-minded countries hold joint military exercises in the South China Sea, Chinese vessels have been aggressively asserting Beijing’s territorial claims in the hotly contested waterway, testing the resolve of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Last week on September 26, China used two missile boats and a high-intensity laser to disrupt an attempt by the Philippines to deliver supplies to local fishermen posted near the Half Moon Shoal, an atoll that lies within Manila’s Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.

On Sunday, Chinese law enforcement reportedly attacked Vietnamese fishermen with iron pipes, confiscating fishing equipment near the Paracel Islands.

And a new report by the Washington-based Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative released Tuesday highlighted how the Chinese coast guard vessels have been operating “like clockwork” this year in waters claimed by Malaysia as the resource-rich country tries to expand oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea.

On Thursday, The Washington Post also reported that Chinese vessels have been disrupting the repair and construction of subsea cables running under the South China Sea.

China emboldened

Analysts say these actions suggest Beijing is attempting to test regional countries’ resolves to safeguard their territorial claims at a time when the United States is fixated on the conflict in the Middle East.

“The serious crisis in the Middle East has emboldened China and allowed them to test the Americans further in the Indo-Pacific region,” said Collin Koh, a maritime security expert at the Singapore-based S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

He added that Beijing is using physical actions and lawfare to try to change the situation in the South China Sea “altogether.”

The Philippines has characterized Beijing’s harassment of its vessels as “irresponsible, dangerous, and provocative,” while Hanoi said the attack on the Vietnamese fishermen violated its sovereignty and international law.

China’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request from VOA regarding the harassment of Philippine vessels.

Commenting on the attack on the fishermen, Beijing claims Chinese law enforcement forces were stopping Vietnamese fishermen from illegally fishing near the Paracel Islands, which China calls Xisha. The islands are an equal distance from China and Vietnam, but Beijing has maintained de facto control of the islands since it seized them in 1974 after a clash with Vietnamese forces.

In recent years, Beijing has reclaimed land and established military installations in the Paracel Islands, including an airstrip and artificial harbor.

New front

Koh told VOA that the incident near Half Moon Shoal, which comes after Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels collided twice near the disputed Sabina Shoal since August, shows Beijing may be “opening a new front” against Manila.

“The Philippines wants to apply the provisional agreement that they have reached with China over Second Thomas Shoal in July to the other contested reefs in the South China Sea, but I don’t think the Chinese are keen to expand the agreement throughout the region,” he said in a phone interview.

While the United States and other countries, including Australia, Japan and New Zealand, have been conducting more joint patrols in the South China Sea to counter China’s aggression, experts say that appears to have done little to thwart Beijing's ability to challenge its neighbors in the region.

“There needs to be more concrete minilateral cooperation between regional countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, including joint military exercises, expansion of maritime domain awareness activities or search and rescue drills,” Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University in Japan, told VOA by phone.

In January, Vietnam and the Philippines signed an agreement aimed at boosting cooperation between their coast guard forces to prevent incidents in the South China Sea. Then in August, Manila and Hanoi held their first joint coast guard drill, focusing on firefighting, rescue and medical response in Manila Bay.

In addition to bilateral cooperation between the Philippines and Vietnam, some regional observers say all Southeast Asian countries that have competing territorial claims with China in the South China Sea should explore the possibility of establishing a regional alliance.

Such a mechanism “could potentially evolve into a coast guard alliance specifically designed to address China’s actions in the region, and such a coalition would present a more formidable deterrent and could more effectively safeguard the interests of these nations in the South China Sea,” Duan Dang, a Vietnam-based maritime security analyst, told VOA in a written response.

However, he said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations “appears too weak and divided” on issues related to the South China Sea to present a united front.

As the U.S. and Japan both gear up for major elections in the coming weeks, Nagy thinks China is also trying to use this “window of opportunity” to try to “lock in some strategic gains” in the South China Sea.