DFA ‘still checking’ China’s new restriction

Source: The Daily Tribune

A new Chinese government policy requiring foreign vessels to seek China’s permission before entering South China Sea where territorial claims including that of the Philippines overlap took effect this month but the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) appears oblivious of it.

The DFA said it is still checking on reports of the new Chinese regulation.
“We are verifying the news with our embassies in Beijing and Hanoi,” Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said.

The new regulation, which is likely to heighten tensions anew in the region, came after China announced an air defense zone over a group of islands it is disputing with Japan in the East Sea, which triggered protests from the United States, Japan and the Philippines.

In late November last year, Hainan province said its Coast Guard will intercept foreign ships in the South China Sea that raised concerns in the region and in Washington over the escalation of disputes between China and Southeast Asian countries which stake claims in the contested waters.

Hainan administers China’s South China Sea claims and the new rule was sanctioned by China’s National People’s Congress.

Wu Shicun, the director general of the foreign affairs office of Hainan Province, said that Chinese ships would be allowed to search and repel foreign ships only if they were engaged in undefined illegal activities and only if the ships were within the 12-nautical-mile zone surrounding islands that China claims.

The laws, passed by the provincial legislature, come less than a month after China named its new leader, Xi Jinping, and as the country remains embroiled in a serious dispute with Japan in the East China Sea over islands known in China as the Diaoyu and as the Senkaku in Japan.

Under the regulation, foreign vessels entering the waters, which was declared by China as part of Hainan’s administrative maritime zone, are required to seek approval from Chinese authorities.

Competing claims to the South China Sea, a strategic waterway believed to be sitting atop huge gas and oil deposits, have sparked occasional violence and now regarded as a potential regional flashpoint for armed conflict.

The Philippines has adopted the name West Philippine Sea for parts of the South China Sea that are within its exclusive economic zone.

China’s persistent incursions and massive claim to the waters has prompted the Philippines to challenge Beijing’s assertion before a United Nations-linked international tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
China has refused to join the arbitration, saying the Philippine case is groundless and carries unacceptable allegations.

The move, which took effect this month, comes on the heels of the late November announcement of a new air defense zone requiring foreign planes to notify Beijing of flights over a huge swath of the East China Sea, where China is locked in a bitter territorial dispute with Japan.

“These sort of assertions of sovereignty, or territorial claims, will continue. Xi believes he can’t afford to be seen as soft,” said City University of Hong Kong China politics expert Joseph Cheng.

The affected waters account for 2 million of the South China Sea’s 3.5 million square kilometers, a sweeping area encompassing island groups claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and others — and in some cases occupied by their armed forces.

The islands sit amid the world’s busiest commercial sea lanes, along with rich fishing grounds and potential oil and gas deposits.

Authorities in the provincial city of Sansha, on an island far south of Hainan, held a joint drill Jan. 1 involving 14 ships and 190 personnel from various border patrol and law enforcement agencies.

“Rampant infringement by foreign fishing vessels” was among the activities targeted in the practice scenarios, law enforcement official Wang Shizhen was quoted as saying by the official China News Service.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/headlines/dfa-still-checking-china-s-new-restriction