By JEREMY PAGE
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
Sansha, a city China set up in July on an island in the disputed Paracel chain. (Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)
BEIJING—A Chinese official clarified new regulations allowing Chinese police to board foreign ships in parts of the disputed South China Sea that had raised fresh alarm among some of China’s neighbors.
Several experts on the region had said the rules, which have yet to be published in full, appeared to apply to waters around islands that China claims, although it was unclear how they would be enforced in practice.
The new regulations apply only to waters around islands for which China had announced “baselines,” said Wu Shichun, the director of the foreign affairs office of the southern Chinese province of Hainan, who is also president of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Tuesday following expressions of concern about the rules from several countries in the region, already on edge from other scuffles with China. He said their main purpose was to deal with Vietnamese fishing boats operating in the waters near Yongxing island in the Paracels, which China calls the Xisha islands.
He said the rules, which take effect Jan. 1, let police check and expel vessels that enter or conduct illegal activity within 12 nautical miles of the islands for which China has announced baselines—the low-water line along the coast from which countries measure their territorial waters under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.
China formally announced baselines for its mainland coast and the Paracel Islands—which are also claimed by Vietnam—in 1996, but hasn’t yet done so for other islands in the South China Sea, where the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have territorial claims.
“For islands whose territorial water baselines have not yet been announced, since there is no way to clearly define the width of their territorial sea, the aforementioned problem does not exist,” Mr. Wu said. “The outside world should not overreact to the revision of these rules, or read too much into them, nor should anyone give a one-sided or distorted explanation.”
Chinese state media’s report of the new rules last week had raised concern in the U.S. and several Asian countries that China had authorized its increasingly well-armed security forces to board foreign vessels anywhere in the South China Sea, a key shipping route that Beijing claims almost in its entirety.
It was the latest in a string of incidents in the contested and potentially resource-rich waters of the South China Sea.
Chinese state media’s report of the new rules last week had raised concern in the U.S. and several Asian countries that China had authorized its increasingly well-armed security forces to board foreign vessels anywhere in the South China Sea, a key shipping route that Beijing claims almost in its entirety.
It was the latest in a string of incidents in the contested and potentially resource-rich waters of the South China Sea.
The Philippine and U.S. governments asked China to clarify the regulations last week, while Singapore on Monday expressed concern over the development. India’s navy chief, Adm. D.K Joshi, said on Monday his country was prepared to send warships to the area to protect Indian interests if necessary.
Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said Tuesday that China’s new coastal-management rules seriously violate Vietnam’s sovereignty, as the rules cover Vietnamese islands.
China has had de facto control of the Paracels since seizing them from South Vietnam in a brief conflict in 1974. Beijing established a new city, called Sansha, with its own military garrison on Yongxing in July to administer the islands and waters that Beijing claims.
China Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Tuesday that the Chinese government was investigating an allegation from the state-run Vietnam Oil & Gas Group on Monday that two Chinese fishing vessels had cut cables of a Vietnamese ship doing seismic oil exploration work in the South China Sea.”To our initial knowledge, the incident took place in the overlapping areas claimed by China and Vietnam. China’s fishing boats were engaging in normal fishing activity in that part of the sea,” Mr. Hong said.
—Vu Trong Khanh in Hanoi contributed to this article
A version of this article appeared December 4, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: China Sheds LightOn New Sea Rules.
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