Honorable Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary General
United Nations Security Council
First Avenue at 46th Street
New York, NY 10017 – USA  

By Tony Le
Vietwill.org
17 January 2009


January 19, 2009 marks 35 years since the Paracel Islands were violently seized from Vietnam by the Chinese navy, an act that served as the beginning of more violence to come in the South China Sea as Beijing undertook concrete and aggressive actions to put this important body of water and the islands in the region under Chinese control. (Photo: Chinese soldiers guarding the Paracel Islands)

In the years after, the world saw China violently seizing a number of islands in the Spratly archipelago from Vietnam and from the Philippines. China also claimed that it had sovereignty over the entire Paracel and Spratly Islands and demanded that Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) be granted to these islands, reefs, and rocks, virtually all of which are tiny, uninhabitable and not economically self-sufficient.

30 December 2008

Washington, D.C. - On December 28, VietWill took the information campaign to the U.S. capital in order to raise awareness of Chinese Navy assertiveness.  China's willingness to send warship to join India, Russia, NATO and the U.S. to fight pirates in the Gulf of Aden near Somalia reflects the growing confidence of its military strength and its intention to be a blue-water power.  While China's action may be construed as good will in the West, to many of its Asian neighbors, this signals a growing threat as China flexes its military muscles in the region and beyond. 

"For Japan and some in South Korea, this is another step in the unwelcome growth of the Chinese navy as a capable blue-water force, which has only downsides for Tokyo and Seoul," said Denny Roy, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.  Roy, who is an expert in Chinese military, suggests that China needs to protect its increasing global interests, and Beijing still believes it needs to enter the field.  However, Roy said, that leaves open the possibility of a China-U.S. naval rivalry in the future.

China has been in territorial water disputes with Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan.  The dispute in South China Sea has been a concern for the stability of the region, and it should be settled by peaceful means.  Yet, up till now, China has been using its military strength in conjunction with economic advantage to exercise its illegal claims.  Chinese navy built a military base on Mischief Reef which it forcefully seized from the Philippines in 1995, to this country's unsuccessful protest.  Beijing has also branded Vietnamese fishermen robbers and pirates to justify intentional acts of attacking them on waters which China claims as its own historic sea.  Innocent Vietnamese fishermen have often been shot, killed, or captured and fined by Chinese navy on the  South China Sea.  Chinese navy boats have at numberous times been reported to intrude into Vietnamese water, sometimes, as close as 40km offshore. 

Although Roy said that most Southeast Asian countries may see China's involvement in the anti-piracy campaign to mean that "China was using its greater military might for constructive purposes, rather than challenging the current international order", we are still skeptical about its intention due to Chinese navy's history of hostile actions in the South China Sea. 

VietWill's demonstration in Washington D.C., however, was not meant to protest China's involvement in the anti-piracy effort in the Gulf of Aden, but rather to raise awareness about implications observed from past and present actions carried out by the Chinese navy, especially in regards to the South China Sea.  Building a powerful navy in order to exercise rightful defense of one's national borders and to collaborate in international peace keeping efforts is certainly justified and laudable. However, it is a completely different matter when that same is navy is deployed to infringe on territorial integrity of other countries and at times ordered to harm innocent lives.  We still have to wait and see how else China's navy will be put to use in the near and far future.

Along with members of the overseas Vietnamese community, VietWill members made it out to San Francisco on Friday, 5 December 2008 to protest against China's aggression in the South China Sea.

VietWill's demonstration was peaceful and educational to both those who participated in the demonstration and passers-by, as these photos would indicate.

 
 
 







 















Members of the overseas community protesting in front of the Chinese consulate in San Francisco