China moved cautiously in backing its own claim to the Spratlys,
first consolidating the Paracels as a strong naval and air base. In the
early 1980s, China began a program of aerial surveys and naval patrols
of the Spratlys. Not until 1987 did China establish its first permanent
presence, on an artificial island constructed on a reef normally sub-
merged at high tide. Vietnam protested and sent more troops to occupy
other reefs and shoals. So too did the Philippines. In March 1988, an
armed clash occurred when a Vietnamese naval force attempted to
prevent Chinese troops from establishing a presence on Johnson Reef.
By the early 1990s China was in possession of nine islands, compared
to twenty-one for Vietnam. In February 1992, the PRC National
People’s Congress passed a law officially incorporating the entire archi-
pelago as Chinese territory. At the same time China accepted the
ASEAN position that force should not be used to resolve the sover-
eignty issue. There the matter rested until, in 1995, Filipino fishermen
discovered that China had erected structures on Mischief Reef in the
area claimed by Manila. The following year two shooting incidents
occurred between Chinese and Philippines vessels. Beijing also
alarmed Jakarta in 1995 by publishing a map showing Indonesia’s
Natuna gas field lying partly within China’s claimed South China Sea
territory. Indonesia was later reassured on this point, and in 1996
China ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (whose pro-
visions it agreed to accept as a basis for further negotiations).
China has been reluctant to pursue a multilateral solution to the
Spratlys problem, but the ASEAN countries have also failed to resolve
their own overlapping claims. Though China has taken part in a series
of multilateral workshops on the Spratlys, hosted by Indonesia, these
have made little progress. Beijing is clearly more comfortable dealing
with claimants bilaterally, and has proposed resource-sharing projects
on this basis. Joint scientific research has also been suggested.
ASEAN, by contrast, has preferred the security of numbers, and
has attempted to internationalise the issue by raising it at ASEAN
Ministerial Meetings and with Dialogue Partners.
Fresh beginnings