Vietnam and China: The Spratly and Paracel Islands Dispute – Nguyen Van Canh

Issue 2 | 20 April 2009

Dr. Nguyen Van Canh is the Director, Center for Vietnam Studies, San Jose, California and a former visiting scholar of the Hoover Institution on Peace, War and Revolution. He has written and presented critical analysis of Vietnam under socialism, Viet-US relations and China for over 30 years and has been a strong advocate against the religious persecution that has forced Vietnamese families to flee their country for decades. On Monday 20 April 2009 Dr Van Canh addressed The Sydney Institute on the Spratly Islands dispute between Vietnam and China.

VIETNAM AND CHINA: THE PARACELS & SPRATLYS DISPUTE

NGUYEN VAN CANH

Since very early times, the Eastern Sea (later called the South China Sea) has historically belonged to Vietnam. Now, it is bursting into the centre of a dispute for sovereignty between six countries in the region. The scope of this presentation is this dispute between Vietnam and China, with emphasis on China’s (hereafter, PRC) scheme of expansion which is a cause of instability and danger to peace in South East Asia and the world.

China’s expansionism and the Paracel Archipelago

In 1956, when the French withdrew from Vietnam, there was a vacuum of military power in the Eastern Sea. The PRC moved to take some islands on the eastern side of the Paracel Archipelago, called the Amphitrite Group, and has controlled them since then.

In 1974, when the American forces withdrew from Vietnam, the PRC again made another move with the intent to take all the other islands lying on the western side, called Crescent. A military conflict ensued between naval forces of the Republic of Vietnam and the PRC. Finally, the PRC took them all due to its superiority of firepower.

Since then, the entire archipelago has been under the PRC’s control. The PRC has built military installations there such as military headquarters/barracks on some islands for Chinese troops, gasoline depots, ammunition depots and potable water reservoirs. The airfield on Woody Island has now been extended from 1000m to 2600m for military jets. Ports for warships have been constructed on Woody and Triton Islands. Weapons depots (at least seven for missiles and two for laser weapons) have been seen on Rock Island. Radar and communication towers have been erected on Tree and Duncan Islands for military purposes. It is reported that several thousand troops are stationed there. This represents a large and advanced naval outpost for the PRC to move and control the southern part of the sea, which includes the Spratly Archipelago.

In 1988, knowing that the Soviet Union was preparing to give up its scheme to expand its influence in South East Asia and to cease supporting communist Vietnam, PRC sent its naval ships to take 6 islets in the Spratlys. In a struggle that took place in March 1988, some 74 Vietnamese naval troops were killed and two Vietnamese ships were sunk. In the following years, the PRC quietly occupied more islets and reefs further south. The number of such reefs now taken by the PRC is 16 on which more than 10 colossally large and fortified military structures have been erected from underneath the water. One of them has been identified as a missile launching pad to shoot down satellites; others as military supplies/logistics storage, headquarters and offices, etc.

In April 2008, the Jane Intelligence Review revealed that a secret naval submarine base has existed at Sanya on Hainan. The base is composed of two parts:

1) For submarines: it could host 20 094 type nuclear submarines, each armed with 12 long range (10,000 km) multi nuclear warhead missiles. It is reported that China is now in possession of five second generation 094 subs. The US Defense Department predicts that China will have five more in five years. The area in front of Hainan is an ideal place for the subs to operate because it is about 5000m deep. Currently the PRC has a number of Song S 20 subs, equipped with Yingjì-8 anti-aircraft carrier missiles which can destroy carriers operating on the surface of the water. The Song S 20 is equipped with a Dutch motor which runs quietly underwater and therefore it is difficult for satellites to detect its whereabouts.

2) For aircraft carriers: pictures released by the Jane Intelligence Review, show three piers for aircraft carriers. It is reported that one of them has been completed, being 800m long and the entire complex is constructed to host six carriers. Some reports say that by 2010 the first Chinese aircraft carrier will be commissioned. One report says that PRC builds it by converting a wrecked one bought previously from either Australia, Ukraine or Russia. The PRC has ambitions of activating three Blue Water fleets to operate in the South Sea.

Instability and danger for the region and the world

In October 1953, at the Military Central Commission of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Chairman Mao also stated, “We must conquer the world. This is our objective…”  Mao stated in a meeting of the Politburo’s CPC Central Committee in August 1965: “We must take over South East Asia, including Cambodia, South Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore…” (see the SRV’s White Paper entitled “Truth about relations between Vietnam and China during the last 30 years”, Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nha Xuat Ban Su That , 4 Oct 1979) In a book entitled Brief on History of New China, published in Beijing in 1954, a China Map is included with neighbouring countries: South East Asian countries and Eastern Sea region as part of China. The 1979 SRV White Paper explained the PRC’s expansionism saying, “Vietnam is a stepping point for China to invade South East Asia. It must be conquered by all means.”

In November 2007, the PRC Congress established the Sanya Local Government Agency in the Province of Hainan to manage Paracels and Spratlys. The two archipelagoes now are officially considered as a part of China.

As a result, in early December 2007, thousands of Vietnamese students in Hanoi Universities gathered to protest against the PRC’s move, raising their voices saying that the Paracels and Spratlys belonged to Vietnam, that the Vietnamese were called upon to rise up to defend their country.

The demonstration hurt the Chinese leadership. On 12 December 2007, a secretary of Hu Jintao, Secretary General of the CPC from Beijing, called attention to the CPV Secretary General Nong duc Manh in Hanoi about the demonstration, saying that Hu was furious about the fact that the CPV did not take any action to prevent the students from protesting.

Nong duc Manh answered that for the sake of the long lasting relationship with China, the CPV leadership would manage to “do all what it can” for China. Moreover, Qin Gang, spokesman of the PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a press conference in Beijing on 11 December 2007, demanded that the students’ protests be stopped. In compliance with the demand, on 21 December 2007, the SVR Minister of Education issued an urgent official written note directing all agencies under his command, at all levels, to apply all necessary measures to prevent all such possible protests.

Another official note issued on 7 December 2007 from the President of the Hanoi Industrial and Technical University required all department heads at all levels to exercise strict control over students and contain their activities. In addition, a top secret note, dated 9 September 2008, from the Minister of Education mapped out strategies in cooperation with all branches of the government and of the communist party as how to deal with this matter.

PRC expansion activities

With the Sanya base on Hainan and military naval installations built on the Paracels and Spratlys, the PRC has clearly shown that China wants to control the South China Sea. This is what General Zhang Xusan, Deputy to the Commander-in-Chief was reported as saying in the China Daily, 7 April 1992: “Our naval forces are to back up economic development in the region comprising all the disputed islands of the Spratlys chain.” Vice Admiral Zhang Lianzhong, Commander of the Chinese naval forces, at the same time made it known on the China News Services that:

… the Communist Party of China Military Council has put out an order that their naval forces be ready to protect the territorial waters and neighbouring areas; as a consequence, with the economic exploitation of the deep sea, the conflict would become more complicated and the struggle to control the sea would become more severe.”

Thus, the PRC is ready to control the South China Sea militarily, including the sea lanes going through Malacca Straight.

In order to implement these intentions, China declared that the Eastern Sea is the “Sea of China”. In 1992, China promulgated a law stipulating that any scientific ship (ie oil research ship) or any foreign military ship that wanted to pass through there, must secure a permit issued by the government of the People’s Republic of China or it would be sunk. In June 2006, China redrew and publicised a new map of the “Sea of China”, the boundary of which gets close to the coast of Vietnam. If we look at the boundary of the new map, it would be 40 or 50 nautical miles away from the coast. In this situation, China doesn’t care about the 1982 Law of the Sea regarding Vietnam’s Self Continent and Exclusive Economic Zones.

Together with their aggressive scheme of invasion of the Eastern Sea inside the territorial waters of Vietnam, the statements of Chinese generals have confirmed their ambitions of dominance over the region. And through China’s intention, openly stated by its leaders, the PRC intends to take Vietnam and some South East Asian countries as starting points from which to conquer Australia and America in order to solve its surplus population problem. Their stated reason for this is that China’s land is large enough for only 500 million people.

In April 2005, Tri Hsao Dien, Chinese Defence Minister, publicly mapped out a strategy to defeat America with new biochemical weapons to be developed under order of Den Xiao Peng at the end of 1990s for this purpose. Chinese leaders call these “clean nuclear weapons”.

So what is Vietnam’s position in face of these problems? Vietnam appears to be instrumental to China’s move on the Paracel and Spratly archipelago. At any Chinese sign of aggression, Vietnam uses hollow voices against them. These are mere tacit agreements as to what PRC has done. If Chinese occupation of Vietnam’s entire Eastern Sea becomes a reality without any check, it would be a disaster to the stability and peace of the world.

Endnotes

Nguyen van Canh, Ho So Hoang Sa & Truong Sa va Chu Quyen Dan Toc, Center for Vietnam Studies, 2009, p.8.

Scanned pictures of the notes included in Ho So Hoang Sa & Truong Sa, above cited, (pp. 112-114).