Beijing has much to do to clarify its boundary claims

Michael Richardson

CHINA recently established a special agency in its Foreign Ministry to handle land and sea border disputes with neighbouring countries. This is an overdue measure since the disputes, previously dealt with by several departments, are a source of tension and potential conflict with other Asian states, especially South-east Asian nations, India and Japan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said the new Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs would develop policies on land and maritime boundaries, guide and coordinate work concerning oceans and seas, manage land boundary demarcation with neighbouring countries, and engage in diplomatic negotiations on maritime delimitation and joint development.

This mandate, with its emphasis on negotiation and cooperation, sounds promising. But recent developments suggest that China is becoming more assertive in advancing its claims as its ability to enforce them increases, and the strategic and economic value of the assets claimed rises.

To be fair, China has since 1998 settled at least eleven boundary disputes with its neighbours, among them Russia, Vietnam and Tajikistan. The most recent was the completion of the land border delimitation treaty with Vietnam last December. But the biggest and most complex land and sea claims remain unresolved. All relate to the maintenance or recovery of territory China says was taken by colonial powers when it was weak.

China is the world's fourth-largest country in terms of land area after Russia, Canada and the United States. It has nearly 9,330,000 sq km of land and a land boundary of 22,000km with 14 countries.

Its most intractable land dispute is with Asia's other major rising power, India. China insists that around 90,000 sq km of territory in India's mountainous north-east, covering virtually the whole of the state of Arunachal Pradesh, is part of China.

The entire Sino-Indian border, which stretches for more than 3,300km, is disputed and militarised. India also rejects Chinese rule over 38,000 sq km of Kashmir land ceded by Pakistan to China in 1964.

Beijing is currently blocking an Indian request for a US $2.9 billion (S $4.3 billion) loan from the Asian Development Bank. Indian officials say it is doing so because part of the loan is marked for a watershed development project in Arunachal Pradesh.

This is just the latest example of Beijing using its growing power to advance its national interests. Of course, all big powers engage in muscle-flexing and arm-twisting. But China is a different player in Asia from the United States, which has no territorial disputes in the region. Beijing has made securing maritime rights a top priority. The US Central Intelligence Agency's latest World Factbook says that China's total water area is just over 270,000 sq km, less than half that of the US.

However, China claims maritime territory of 3 million sq km. Most of it is in two areas - the South China Sea, where Beijing's claims overlap with those of several South-east Asia countries, and the East China Sea, where its claims are contested by Japan.

Beijing underscored its position last week as a deadline expired for filing claims to a United Nations (UN) body over oil, gas and minerals on the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles (370km) out to a maximum of 350 nautical miles from land. China made a preliminary submission for part of the East China Sea and said it reserved its right to make submissions in other offshore areas.

In response to a joint submission by Malaysia and Vietnam in the southern part of the South China Sea, Beijing wrote to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying that its rights had been seriously infringed.

The letter stated that 'China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters, and enjoys sovereign rights and jurisdiction over the relevant waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof'. In the southern part of the South China Sea alone, there are over 100 widely scattered islets, atolls and reefs in the disputed Spratly archipelago.

China appears to be claiming national sovereignty over the maritime heart of South-east Asia. It attached a map to the letter showing the approximate extent of the Chinese U-shaped claim, which covers about 80 per cent of the South China Sea and stretches southwards to close to the Malaysian state of Sarawak and Indonesia's Natuna Islands. Some analysts thought China had abandoned this claim, which dates back many years and does not conform with the UN Law of the Sea Treaty which Beijing has ratified.

Does it mean that Beijing is asserting sovereignty over all the waters within the lines drawn on the map? Does Beijing regard them as internal waters or territorial seas, through which the ships of foreign nations would no longer have the right of free passage, potentially disrupting one of the world's most important maritime highways for both commercial and naval shipping?

The new Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs in the Chinese Foreign Ministry clearly has much work, and a lot of clarification, to do.

The writer is visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.