Tensions in troubled waters see more and more attacks and the undermining of precarious livelihoods.
In early March, 59-year-old Trần Sinh and his crew were retrieving fishing nets when a Chinese coast guard boat steamed rapidly toward his boat.
When very near to his wooden craft, Sinh later told a journalist, men in the much larger steel-hulled vessel shouted something in Chinese, which he didn’t understand. Then, in stilted Vietnamese, a Chinese sailor screamed: “these waters belong to China; you and all Vietnamese boats must leave immediately.”
As Sinh and his crew accelerated their efforts to bring in their nets, Chinese sailors opened fired, riddling his vessel with bullets and injuring one of his men. Sinh then throttled his boat’s engine to leave as speedily as possible. Hours later, he and his crew reached port in his badly damaged boat.
Sinh, like thousands of other Vietnamese fishermen, is fighting for his livelihood against China, which claims waters that he and his village have fished for generations. This tragic fight is not well known beyond Vietnam.
Sinh’s boat was within Vietnam’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the distance allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. According to over 200 Vietnamese newspaper articles and other reports I have read about the fishermen’s plight, virtually all Vietnamese fishing boats attacked by Chinese since 2001 were within this zone; often they were less than 50 nautical miles from Vietnam’s shoreline. China’s government, however, claims exclusive rights to the whole area, about 80 per cent of the South China Sea. Ignoring the EEZs of Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations, Beijing officials insist China’s claim is indisputable.
“It is totally absurd,” exclaimed fisherman Tiêu Việt Là, “to say that we Vietnamese are violating Chinese territorial waters. We are fishing in waters belonging to Vietnam, captured and occupied by Chinese!” He said this to a reporter in July 2010, a few months after Chinese had abducted him and his boat for the fourth time since 2007, each instance costing him dearly before being released.
“Even though Chinese boats pounce on us, causing much hardship,” fisherman Phạm Văn Dũng of Phu Yến province told another journalist in May 2011, “I won’t abandon those fishing areas. The waters [near Paracel Islands] belong to my country, and I must make a living.”
Mại Phụng Lưu, a fisherman in Quảng Ngãi province, recounted that Chinese had seized him and his boat and crew “in Vietnam’s waters, waters where my grandfather fished, my father fished, and now I fish. Those waters are our history and our territory.”
As Vietnamese fishermen struggle to protect their livelihoods, their fishing grounds, and their country’s territory, Chinese steal their equipment, damage or sink their boats, abduct them, extort money, and beat them. Chinese have even killed several Vietnamese fishermen. In January 2005, Chinese vessels rained bullets on two fishing boats less than 20 nautical miles from Vietnam’s coastline, killing nine and gravely wounding seven Vietnamese. The attackers then held the survivors and the two boats until the fishermen’s families paid substantial sums of money
According to Vietnamese government figures, 7,045 fishermen on 1,186 boats were attacked by foreigners, mostly Chinese, between 2006 and March 2010. Comparable figures for years since are unavailable but are likely larger. Since 2010, China’s government has intensified efforts to enforce its claims. Between November 2015 and early April 2016, for instance, Chinese assaulted one-third of the fishing boats from just one village in Thừa Thiên Huế province. During 2015, Chinese attacked 20 per cent of the fishing boats in Lý Sơn, a community in Quảng Ngãi province.
Often the attackers are in Chinese coast guard and military vessels. Some attackers are in unmarked boats, which Vietnamese fishermen say are usually Chinese. In late November 2015, for instance, two unmarked boats with eight armed men, came close to a Vietnamese fishing boat near the Spratly Islands and started shooting, killing on the spot 42-year-old fisherman Trương Đình Bảy. The two vessels and the method of attack used, said the surviving fishermen, were like others employed by Chinese against Vietnamese.
Until about 2011, Chinese frequently abducted Vietnamese boats and crew, taking anything of value and beating and starving the fishermen until their relatives paid money far beyond their means, forcing families to sell their homes and resort to other drastic measures. More common recently, armed Chinese board fishermen’s boats; rob crew members; strip or destroy the boat’s navigational instruments and other equipment; take or dump its catch; and confiscate much of its petrol and fresh water, leaving only enough for the crew and boats to limp back to port. Sometimes Chinese vessels ram, even sink, Vietnamese fishing boats leaving the fishermen floundering in the ocean.
Fishermen want the Vietnamese coast guard and navy to protect them against the Chinese, but officials say they lack sufficient ships and other resources. Government offices frequently assist fishermen after Chinese have attacked and released them. And Vietnamese authorities regularly object to their Chinese counterparts and reiterate that the fishermen are using waters belonging to Vietnam, not China.
Chinese authorities, however, continue to disagree and to attack Vietnamese fishing boats and crews.
Benedict J Tria Kerkvliet is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University and Graduate Faculty Member at the University of Hawai’i.
Thank you so much for raising world consciousness about this ongoing plight of the Vietnamese fishermen, their families and communities, based on your well researched and concrete evidence. I do hope some worldwide grassroots collective efforts will take place to assist and empower these poor fishermen to deal with Chinese aggressive practices as demonstrated.
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I can’t believe an academic can be this careless and even carefree about facts and nuances in reporting:
First:
“…Sinh’s boat was within Vietnam’s 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the distance allowed by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea…”
But Mr. Kerkvliet leaves out the fact that this area is also within China’s EEZ based on its possession of the Paracel.
China took Paracel back by force from Vietnam because VN’s claim of the Paracel is based on its successor claim from its French colonial master who took it from China during the Qing era. But the French have never granted the Paracel to VN.
Second, and this is MOST important, when the People’s Republic of China issued in a statement of claims with a detailed listing of the islands and atolls including the Paracels and the Spratlys, Vietnam’s then Prime Minister Pham Van Dong issued a letter of support of China’s claims on behalf of the Vietnamese government. And until today the Vietnamese government has never denied it. This letter is widely available in the public sphere.
Third, Vietnamese students have never been taught that the Paracels and the Spratlys belong to Vietnam until very recently (a few years ago).
And Vietnamese textbooks in the old days specifically identified the Paracels and the Spratlys are Chinese territories. I went through the Vietnamese school system for 16 years from K to BA and not once I have been taught that the Paracels and the Spratlys belong to VN.
At the end of the day, I believe it’s the unintended consequences of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) that has encouraged countries in the SCS to abandon their histories and to focus ONLY on the part of the UNCLOS (and not the entire UNCLOS) that help to maximize their national interests.
My understanding is that NO COUNTRY in the SCS disputes has any moral high ground whatsoever. They should all sit down and negotiate a settlement without regard to UNCLOS. UNCLOS is a barrier to settling what is essentially a geopolitical issue and not a legal issue.
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Nguoi Phan Bien’s response would be more credible if Vietnam was the only country having trouble with China’s actions in the South China Sea. The fact that they all are suggests China is in the wrong.
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@ nguoi phan bien
“..this area is also within China’s EEZ based on its possession of the Paracel…”: It’s still doubtful if any feature of Paracels is entitled for an EEZ (even the largest, Woody, has no potable water: http://www.shtong.gov.cn/node2/node70393/node83885/node83891/node83899/node83901/userobject1ai121797.html, no arable land: http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/LineWithNineDashes_Dyer.htm..)
“China took Paracel [back] by force from Vietnam because VN’s claim of the Paracel is based on its successor claim from its French colonial master who took it from China during the Qing era. But the French have never granted the Paracel to VN”: Paracels never belong to China, it just came there as a state in 1909. Vietnam actively administered Paracels at least since 17 century (a lot of historical documents, maps can easily accessed now). The word ‘back’ has no meaning here. Furthermore, French claimed Paracels on behalf of Annam (can be checked easily) and it ceded to Vietnam after the first Vietnam war (“On 8th June [1956]….The French Chargé d’Affair called on the Department of Foreign Affair…. maintained that the Francd had ceded Paracels ….. to Vietnam…”http://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/SearchNRetrieve/Interface/ViewImage.aspx?B=553110)
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@p.phan bien
Your own quoted Australian archive in fact proves that you are wrong. The document explicitly states (p.3 on sovereignty) that “the French maintain that these islands were not transferred to Vietnam and that sovereignty still remains with France” In fact, the document specifically states that the French denied the Vietnamese claim about the transfer.
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@ nguoi phan bien
My own quote is about Paracels which are being discussed here, not about Spratlys (can also be discussed somewhere if needed) as you quoted, possibly by mistake or …
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@R.N.England.
Your PERCEPTION of the issue is understandable. Although I fully understand that in politics, perception is reality. But perception is NOT fact.
In the case of the Paracels, ONLY China and Vietnam are in dispute. In the case of Spratlys, China, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei are in dispute but Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Brunei are also in disputes among themselves.
And this is another FACT that VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOW; that Vietnam’s claims of the Paracels and the Spratlys, if succeeded, would amount to roughly the same as China’s current claims. Vietnam has been exceedingly skillful and successful in playing its “small country” and “being bullied by China” sympathy card to conceal its humongous appetite for its territorial ambitions as far as public opinion campaigns are concerned.
Again in politics, perception is reality. But perception is NOT fact.
My belief remains unchanged; that NO COUNTRY in the SCS disputes has any moral high ground whatsoever. They should all sit down and negotiate a settlement without regard to UNCLOS. UNCLOS is a barrier to settling what is essentially a geopolitical issue and not a legal issue.
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Nguoi Phan Bien,
You are right that until recently Vietnam, The Philippines, etc. treated territorial disputes between each other in terms of “might is right”. Now that China has trumped them at that game, they have, of course, changed strategy and will appeal to international law. International law enables small powers to unite in disputes with large ones, just as laws within a country can enable citizens to unite against a lawless central power and form their own lawful government. Just how effective domestic and international laws are, is a matter of politics and geopolitics. My assessment of the South China Sea dispute is that it is a testing ground of international law as a defence against imperialism. (Imperialism on the international scale being equivalent to absolutism within a country). The small powers may emerge with overwhelming world support. The outcome is not clear, just as the rule of law within a particular country may or may not (as in the case of Thailand) have developed into an adequate defence against absolutism. It is a mistake at this stage to back imperialism against international law, because the outcome is yet to be decided. It is also an indication of cynicism.
A victory for International law in the South China Sea could be the cause celèbre that unites all of the world’s small powers against imperialism, whether it be American, Chinese, Russian, British (English?), or European.
Conflict in the South China Sea between China and the United States would probably end in a sad victory for one or other brand of imperialism.
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Interesting article but I think Vietnamese fisher-folk (I refer to folk rather than men because in the value chain women are also actively involved) face as much threat from companies such as the Taiwanese owned Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation that has invested over US$22 billion in SE Asia’s largest rolling steel mill and the scene of anti-Chinese “riots” in 2014). This company was responsible for the temporary decimation of close off-shore fishing stocks in Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue Provinces and significantly impacted upon the livelihoods of fisher-folk in each of these provinces (I know because I was working in all four provinces at the time). Initially the Government supported the company and said it was not at fault but more recently it found it was and the company offered to pay US$500 million in compensation although it blamed its “contractors” not itself. This company has a wonderful sense of corporate social responsibility and during the project design and implementation phase with the “connivance” of the Ha Tinh Provincial People’s Committee rode roughshod over the rights of locally affected people.
Vietnam of course wants to attract foreign investors and promoting investment in the non-agricultural sector is the quickest way to improve the local population’s economic living standards (the social and environmental impacts are another issue). However, large companies such as Formosa (and issue is not just in Ha Tinh) have used their economic muscle to circumvent Vietnam’s own laws and policies. But what this company managed in Ha Tinh along an undisputed coastline has probably a greater impact upon Vietnam than the shenanigans in the Bien Dong (East Sea) or Nan Hai (South Sea) although no doubt most Vietnamese are more concerned with what occurs in the Bien Dong.
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Nguoi Phan Bien is a communist from Vietnam communist party which governs Vietnam by guns. Don’t waste your time.
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SatCong seems to have overlooked the fact that Ngoi Phan Ben is supporting the neo-capitalist (you can be a capitalist as long as you support us, probably with money) Chinese government against the government of his own country (which is not much different from that of the Chinese). There are no heroes or villains here, just the possibility that International Law may be strengthened by the outcome of this conflict of interest between one large power and several small ones.
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@Sat Cong
Your pen name “sat cong” literally means “kill communists” is indicative of your extremist view that is typical of some of the (likely older) Vietnamese diaspora; that anyone who is not in agreement with their view must be a communist and must be ….(people in the know know how to fill in the blanks)
As usual, extremists usually have no contributions to make to a debate but to name call their opponents.
@New Mandala’s forum moderator
I thought the role of a forum moderator is to ensure that the contents made by a contributor are in fact consisting of some relevant material to the debate and not just name calling. In other words, the focus must be on the message and not the messenger. Otherwise, why bother having a forum moderation process?
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@R.N.England
I do agree that “there are no heroes or villains here”, just the possibility that International Law may be used as one of the references for future political negotiations to settle this “conflict of interest between one large power and several small ones” whose appetite for territorial expansion is no less small than the large one.
My view is very simple. Whether a country is in the right or in the wrong has nothing to do with its size. Although I understand that human psychology tends to give the small guy some leeway.
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Nguoi Phan Bien,
The map in the original contribution above is an accurate guide to the appetites for territorial expansion of the various parties. That of China is vast compared to any of the others, and extends far from its own territory. I would say that you are one of the few people outside China who takes it seriously. There must be a large number of worldly Chinese, especially from earlier administrations, who are extremely embarrassed, even shameful about it.
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@R.N.England
Looking at the maps carefully, Vietnam’s claims are more than 4/5 of the Chinese claims. When combined with other smaller claims, the total will leave China with absolutely nothing. This poses not only economic but most importantly security threats to China that in realpolitik terms unacceptable to any and all countries under the sun.
More to the point, article 298 in UNCLOS allows its signatories to retain their historical claims not subject to UNCLOS.
My belief remains unchanged; that NO COUNTRY in the SCS disputes has any moral high ground whatsoever. They should all sit down and negotiate a settlement without regard to UNCLOS. UNCLOS is a barrier to settling what is essentially a geopolitical issue and not a legal issue.
I believe China will come around just like it has with land border negotiations with Vietnam and Russia in the recent past.
Ironically, my real concerns are that democracy, transparency and especially the prevalence of social media are the real barriers for countries to compromise and to settle disputes peacefully.
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The map in the article displays an incorrect line for Vietnnam’s EEZ claim. Vietnam’s EEZ claim and continental shelf claims are shown on page 5 of this submission to the UN
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/vnm37_09/vnm2009n_executivesummary.pdf
and on page 5 of this submission
http://www.un.org/depts/los/clcs_new/submissions_files/mysvnm33_09/mys_vnm2009excutivesummary.pdf
No country around the SCS has any maritime claim that is anywhere near as excessive as China’s so-called “Nine-dashed Line”.
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The Permanent Court of Arbitration has just ruled that China’s maritime claims along the 9 dash line are illegal.
If anyone says all the claimants are as bad as each other, China is no worse than anyone else, let them call on China to take the other countries to court.
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The United Nations clarified it on July 13 that the tribunal that ruled
against China’s historic claims over the disputed South China Sea is NOT a UN agency.
The statement came amid apparent public misunderstanding of the tribunal’s operations.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration rents space in the same building as the UN’s International Court of Justice, but the two organizations are not related.
The UN said the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which issued the decision on the case on Tuesday, operated out of the same building, the Peace Palace, as the UN’s primary justice branch, the International Court of Justice, but the two agencies were UNRELATED.
The PCA is a fee for service agency and since China did not participate so it has no representation in the case and paid no fees to the agency. The Philippines paid all fees and retained an all star American team of lawyers to represent it.
I’m busy reading the 500+ pages of ruling; so far I’m in agreement with some of the reasoning but vehemently disagree with others that seem quite idiotic.
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