Vietnam and Indonesia agreed to delimit their respective Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) on 22 December 2022 after 12 years of negotiations. The agreement provides hope for the strengthening of the region’s commitment to international maritime norms and principles encapsulated in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
TTCT – Dù là đồng minh có hiệp ước của nhau và vừa thắt chặt thêm tình hữu nghị về quân sự, quan hệ Mỹ – Philippines thật ra không phải lúc nào cũng bằng phẳng.
Khi tôi đến thăm Subic Bay năm 1998, khu chế xuất vừa hoạt động và hãng xưởng còn lưa thưa. Đây là khu miễn thuế, ra vào phải qua kiểm soát hải quan, chỗ mua sắm chỉ có vài hàng quán mới mở và loãng khách với một khu phức hợp và ba rạp phim.
Cả khu còn do quân đội Philippines quản lý, hoang vắng với những nhà kho tiền chế và bungalow quân đội Mỹ bỏ lại nằm bắt bụi từ 1992.
Lễ hạ cờ Mỹ và thượng cờ Philippines ở căn cứ Subic Bay ngày 24-11-1992. Ảnh: Wikipedia
China’s coast guard presence in the South China Sea is more robust than ever. An analysis of automatic identification system (AIS) data from commercial provider MarineTraffic shows that the China Coast Guard (CCG) maintained near-daily patrols at key features across the South China Sea in 2022. Together with the ubiquitous presence of its maritime militia, China’s constant coast guard patrols show Beijing’s determination to assert control over the vast maritime zone within its claimed nine-dash line.
China Coast Guard Patrols in the South China Sea 2022
AMTI analyzed AIS data from the year 2022 across the five features most frequented by Chinese patrols: Second Thomas Shoal, Luconia Shoals, Scarborough Shoal, Vanguard Bank, and Thitu Island. Comparison with data from 2020 shows that the number of calendar days that a CCG vessel patrolled near these features increased across the board.
The number of days the CCG patrolled at Vanguard Bank, a major site of Vietnamese oil and gas development that has seen standoffs between Chinese and Vietnamese law enforcement in years past, more than doubled, increasing from 142 days in 2020 to 310 days in 2022. Days patrolled at Second Thomas Shoal, where the Philippines maintains a precarious garrison aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, increased from 232 days to 279; those at Luconia Shoals, near important Malaysian oil and gas operations, from 279 to 316; and at Scarborough Shoal, traditionally fished and administered by the Philippines, from 287 to 344. Data on the reefs surrounding Philippine-held Thitu Island was not collected in previous analyses, but CCG vessels were on site 208 days over the past year. At some features, especially Scarborough Shoal, multiple CCG vessels were present simultaneously. Observed patrols across all five features amounted to 1,703 ship-days in total.
China now is attempting to expand its control to the southernmost extent of its nine-dash-line claim in the South China Sea, in waters ever closer to Indonesian and Malaysian shores. This area of the South China Sea, spanning from Indonesia’s Natuna Islands to the South Luconia Shoals, has greater strategic importance than the Spratly or Paracel Island chains farther to the north. Whereas the Spratlys have for centuries been regarded as “dangerous ground” and commercial mariners have avoided them, the vital sea lines of communication (SLOCs) connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans flow through this part of the southern South China Sea. Therefore, these areas are far more vital to international commerce and navigation than the dangerous grounds closer to China’s Spratly Islands outposts.
ISBN
978-1-935352-80-8
Publication Date
2023
Publisher
Naval War College Press
City
Newport, Rhode Island
Keywords
China Maritime Studies, China, South China Sea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Expansion
Recommended Citation
Bentley, Scott, “The Maritime Fulcrum of the Indo-Pacific: Indonesia and Malaysia Respond to China’s Creeping Expansion in the South China Sea” (2023). CMSI Red Books, Study No. 17.
Nghiên cứu của Tổ chức Sáng kiến minh bạch hàng hải châu Á gần đây cho thấy, chỉ trong năm 2022, Việt Nam đã bồi lấp mở rộng 9 điểm đảo ở quần đảo Trường Sa với tổng diện tích tăng thêm lên đến 170 hecta, gấp gần 4 lần diện tích đóng quân trong cả thập kỷ trước.
Filipino soldiers march in Philippine occupied Thitu island in disputed South China Sea, April 21, 2017. REUTERS/Erik De Castro
MANILA, Dec 22 (Reuters) – The Philippines’ defence ministry on Thursday ordered the military to strengthen its presence in the South China Sea after monitoring “Chinese activities” in disputed waters close to a strategic Philippine-held island.
The ministry did not specify what activities those were and its statement follows a report this week of Chinese construction on four uninhabited features in the disputed Spratly islands, news that Beijing has dismissed as “unfounded”.
Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Head of the Permanent Delegation of Vietnam to the United Nations (centre) at the event. (Photo: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam, in coordination with Greece, Egypt and Senegal, on December 8 hosted a workshop on achievements and challenges since the adoption of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 40 years ago.
Main topics at the event were the outcomes of the convention, sea level rise and the relationship between UNCLOS and Sustainable Development Goal 14, which is to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Vietnam’s President Nguyen Xuan Phuc will make a historic visit to Indonesia, a G20 member and de facto leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), from Dec. 21–23, 2022, to reshape strategic ties between the two countries. President Phuc will be accompanied by First Lady Tran Nguyet Thin, several senior officials, and a business delegation.
This will be Phuc’s first visit to Indonesia ever since becoming Vietnam’s president on April 5, 2021. His state visit marks a new milestone in the 67 years of bilateral relations between Vietnam and Indonesia.
A Taiwanese patrol boat fires a ship-to-ship missile during a military drill in 2006. Vietnam slammed Taiwan’s recent live-fire exercises near Taiping Island as “illegal”. Photo: AFP
Vietnam was quick to voice its displeasure this month at Taiwanese military drills near a South China Sea island that both claim, but analysts say the incident speaks more to Taipei’s anxiety for its outlying islands’ continued security than the state of its relations with Hanoi.
Over the past year, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative and the Center for Advanced Defense Studies conducted a study of China’s maritime militia using remote sensing data and open-source Chinese language research. The resulting report, Pulling Back the Curtain on China’s Maritime Militia, features the most comprehensive study to-date of the structure, subsidies, and ownership networks of China’s maritime militia in the South China Sea, as well as a methodology for identifying Chinese maritime militia vessels and a list of over 120 militia vessels thus identified.
Since completing the construction of its artificial island outposts in the Spratly Islands in 2016, China has shifted its focus toward asserting control over peacetime activity across the South China Sea. A key component of this shift has been the expansion of China’s maritime militia—a force of vessels ostensibly engaged in commercial fishing but which in fact operate alongside Chinese law enforcement and military to achieve Chinese political objectives in disputed waters.
Điều gì đẩy các ngư dân đến nỗi tuyệt vọng đằng sau cánh cửa nhà giam của những nước láng giềng? Và tại sao dù biết kết cục cay đắng đó, nhiều người dân vẫn liên tiếp dấn tàu vào khu vực đánh bắt cá trái phép? Và lí do gì khiến nỗ lực gỡ thẻ vàng của Việt Nam vẫn chưa thể thành công?
Đánh bắt thủy hải sản trên vùng biển đảo Phú Quốc. Ảnh: Thuyền trưởng Nguyễn Văn Thành.
Trong căn buồng giam ở Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia, ngư phủ Việt Nam tên Nguyễn Văn Tư, 64 tuổi, một mình vật lộn với những cơn đau nhức ở cẳng chân. Mùa hè hai năm trước, tàu cá ông làm việc bị bắt quả tang đang thả lưới trái phép trong vùng biển Indonesia. Theo luật pháp nước này, những ngư dân làm thuê sẽ không bị phạt tù. Tuy nhiên, Tư đã không đủ tiền mua vé máy bay về nước sau phiên tòa nên bị giữ lại suốt 20 tháng qua.
Hàng trăm ngư dân Việt Nam giống Tư đang đợi chờ ngày về từ các nhà giam kham khổ của Indonesia nhưng có lẽ tình cảnh của Tư bi đát hơn cả. Ông bị tách ra khỏi đồng hương và bị giam riêng biệt do bị nghi mắc bệnh phong.
Thực trạng ngư dân Việt Nam xâm phạm vùng biển nước khác phổ biến đến mức, năm 2017, Việt Nam đã bị Ủy ban châu Âu (EC) rút thẻ vàng cảnh cáo hoạt động khai thác thủy sản. Theo số liệu thống kê của lực lượng Cảnh sát biển Việt Nam, hàng ngàn ngư dân trên hơn 1.000 tàu cá bị lực lượng chức năng các nước bắt giữ trong ba năm 2017-2020.
Lượng tàu cá Việt Nam tăng gần gấp bốn lần trong 20 năm qua. Tàu cá từ biển miền Trung và vùng Đồng bằng sông Cửu Long chiếm lần lượt 50% và 25% tàu cá toàn bộ đất nước. Biểu đồ: Thibi.co
Communist Party of Vietnam leader Nguyen Phu Trong, left, meets with China’s Communist Party leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in 2015. | Xinhua
HANOI—The Socialist Republic of Vietnam will not be coerced into joining the United States-led effort aimed at isolating China and provoking conflict as part of its Cold War 2.0 foreign policy.
That’s a major message expected to come out of the upcoming visit to China by Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Trong will travel to China to pay an official visit to the newly re-elected Communist Party of China leader Xi Jinping. Trong will be one of the first world leaders to visit China since the closing the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, earlier this month.
CVD 
