plawolf
Lieutenant General
I think there is a thing as too many bases.
China does not want to be in a situation where it feels it needs to set up manned outposts on every one of those features, as that will be a massive, on-going resources drain.
China's SCS Strategy Thread
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
I think there is a thing as too many bases.
China does not want to be in a situation where it feels it needs to set up manned outposts on every one of those features, as that will be a massive, on-going resources drain.
Equation
Lieutenant General
I think there is a thing as too many bases.
China does not want to be in a situation where it feels it needs to set up manned outposts on every one of those features, as that will be a massive, on-going resources drain.
Combine them by bridging all the nearest smaller ones into one big reclamation island.
I'm not sure if the Washington Times may be reading a little too much into the Chinese statement -- although it would be nice if the Chinese statement did mean that there was no debate over the EEZ overlap of Natuna island with the nine dash line, because the phrasing of the statement only addresses the issue of the island's sovereignty itself rather than the waters around the islands.
I also think it's a bit confusing that they'd call such a move a "concession," even if the Chinese side did mean to say that they had no claim on the EEZ of Natuna island, because that assumes China was meaning to claim the entire nine dash line as part of its own waters, which is not quite true -- what China has done is to enforce strategic ambiguity regarding its position on the nine dash line. It is strange that clarification would be equated to "concession" in this case.
Well, the nine dash line is descended from the 1947 line drawn by the Nationalists, and Java wasn't within the line back then so why would it be so now? It isn't like the line has only existed in an arbitary way in recent years, so there's no reason for it to change.
Brumby
Major
We are on the same page on this. The fact is the EEZ of Natuna overlap's into the nine dash. If you read the Indonesian statements regarding this issue, the contention had always been about the surrounding waters and not Natuna island itself. The Indonesians had been pushing for the Chinese to affirm that there is no dispute with the waters. I don't believe this issue is resolved because the Chinese is purposely being silent on it.
IMHO the Indonesians need to force the issue by exercising jurisdiction within that EEZ. If China does not wish to concede it has to push back. It then effectively becomes a dispute. Until and unless there is a formal dispute, Indonesia cannot escalate this to the International Tribunal. China knows that and hence why it has been avoiding the issue entirely. I believe the only way to move forward this issue is to force China's hand on it.
Blackstone
Brigadier
You saw only what you wanted to see. I read the article as Beijing's attempt to assure a nervous Jakarta and avoid another front in its SCS sovereignty disputes other claimants.
Indonesia is in an awkward position where much of its EEZ is being constantly plundered by foreign fishermen, and a small proportion of those fishermen are Chinese but a larger fraction of those are actually Indonesia's closer neighbours including from the Philippines and Vietnam. Indonesia has actually made a big show of publicly blowing up confiscated fishing boats (with no one aboard of course) in the last few years.
[That btw, is an exercise of their jursdiction within their EEZ, and has ongoing for years now, not only against China]
How this relates to their relationship with China, is that I'm not sure how high on the scale of "importance" this ambiguity regarding the nine dash line and Natuna island EEZ is, for them, in a practical sense, and how much they would actually be interested in pushing for clarification on this small sized ambiguity.
Still, I would be interested in seeing how China responds if Indonesia does actually seek to clarify that the issue is surrounding the waters around Natuna island... so I am confused as to why Indonesia has not addressed it in such terms more publicly if it really is that important to them.
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Also, I'm not sure if it's correct to say China has been "avoiding the issue" as such, because it's not like they're explicitly claiming there isn't a dispute WRT the EEZ around Natuna, it is more that Indonesia seems to have yet to explicitly call out the issue to try and ascertain a Chinese response.
Overall China is just using the same doctrine of ambiguity regarding the nine dash line, not too different to how its policy in the rest of the regional dispute.