OLD COMMUNIST ALLIES SET TO SQUARE OFF

Two old communist allies, China and Vietnam could be heading for more than just a diplomatic collision in 2008 over competing rights to massive oil and gas reserves under parts of the China Sea.
In 2007, the leaders of both countries exchanged heated words and for the first time, the Vietnamese authorities permitted hundreds of students in the country’s capital, Hanoi to stage protests outside the Chinese embassy with banners condemning Chinese aggression and calling for Vietnam to stand up to the Chinese bully. There was a similar demonstration outside the Chinese delegation offices in Ho Chi Minh City.
The dispute over natural resources in the South China has been ongoing for two decades but has rarely made headlines in the West even though the Chinese navy has fired on Vietnamese vessels and detained Vietnamese fishermen. The most serious clashes were in 1998 when Chinese naval vessels opened fire on a Vietnamese gunboat landing soldiers on a reef in a disputed area called the Spratly Islands. And, in April 2007, a Chinese frigate fired on a Vietnamese fishing craft, killing one of the crew and injuring others. April, tensions have remained high and with China’s desperate need for oil and gas, there could well be a dangerous escalation of the dispute in the coming year.
China needs as much oil and gas as it can get to maintain the staggering growth of its infrastructure and to achieve its aim of becoming a super power. It has not only threatened Vietnam on the high seas but also Japan over islands it claims the rights to in the same region – islands that are sitting atop oil and gas fields. But the dispute with Vietnam pits China against a former ally that will be taking up a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council in 2008. And, unlike the past when Vietnam was politically isolated, China is now looking at a country that has good relations with East and West. It is supported by Russia and has normalized its relations with the US. It has also established diplomatic ties to Brazil and the EU. It acquired a place on the World Trade Organization with the backing of the US and Russia, giving it a respectability on the international stage.
The areas at the heart of the China-Vietnam “conflict” are in the South China Sea, in a region Vietnam likes to call the East Sea and which it claims has been legally defined as Vietnamese territory. China declared the area part of the Chinese province of Hainan and set up a military-diplomatic outpost on a small island. To further project its claim to ownership, China held naval exercises in the disputed zone. To Vietnam it was a typical example of Chinese belligerence but the Vietnamese avoided a major confrontation, preferring to ask ASEAN – the Association of South East Asia Nations – to persuade the Chinese to back off.
Appeals by ASEAN to Beijing led to a meeting of Chinese and Vietnamese diplomats but little was achieved and the Chinese navy has continued to patrol the area in dispute. BP has suspended a costly exploration survey that was commissioned by Vietnam It was being conducted off the Vietnamese coastline in yet another area, known as block 5.2 that China claims it owns. A similar project by India’s state-owned energy company was also abandoned after China warned the Indian government it was operating in Chinese territorial waters. The project which was costing upwards of $125 million was in what Vietnam had defined as blocks 127/128 directly opposite the country’s central coastline.
Vietnam is not intimidated by China and that is why there is potential for a serious conflict. The two countries squared off in 1979 over China’s support for the Khmer Rouge that killed millions of civilians in Cambodia in a campaign often referred to as The Killing Fields. The blood thirsty Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot, was not only supported by China but fled there when the Vietnamese ended his reign. He later died in exile in Beijing. China responded to the Vietnamese overthrow of the Khmer Rouge by starting a border war with Vietnam. The Chinese sent upwards of 90,000 troops into Vietnam suffered large casualties. There are varying figures for the number io dead but China later admitted to 7,000 dead and 15,000 injured. The invasion was short-lived and China withdrew declaring victory. Vietnam, on the other hand, felt it had given China a bloody nose to serve as a warning that it would not be bullied. That was decades ago and in the intervening years China has spent billions expanding its army, navy and air force. Any future conflict between the two nations could result in a death toll that would make their last border war resemble a skirmish. Japan will be closely watching what happens because it too could find itself having to stand up to China’s tendency to threaten rather than seek compromise.