BEIJING (AP) — China’s newest city is a remote island in
the South China Sea barely large enough to host a single airstrip. It has a
post office, bank, supermarket and a hospital, but little else. Fresh water
comes by freighter on a 13-hour journey from China’s southernmost province.
Welcome to Sansha, China’s
expanding toehold in the world’s most disputed waters, portions of which are
also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and other neighbors. On Tuesday, as
blustery island winds buffeted palm trees, a new mayor declared Sansha to be
China’s newest municipality.
Beijing has created the city
administration to oversee not only the rugged outpost with a population of just
1,000 but also hundreds of thousands of square kilometers (miles) of water
where it wants to strengthen its control over disputed — and potentially
oil-rich — islands.
The Philippines said it does not
recognize the city or its jurisdiction, and Vietnam said China’s actions
violated international law. The United States also voiced its concern over
“unilateral moves” in the South China Sea where it says collective diplomacy is
needed to resolve competing claims.
The city administration is on
tiny Yongxing island, 350 kilometers (220 miles) southeast from China’s
tropical Hainan Island. The Cabinet approved Sansha last month to “consolidate
administration” over the Paracel and Spratly island chains and the Macclesfield
Bank, a large, completely submerged atoll that boasts rich fishing grounds that
is also claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines.
Vietnam and China both claim the
Paracels, of which Yongxing, little more than half the size of Manhattan’s
Central Park, is part. The two countries along with the Philippines, Malaysia,
Brunei and Taiwan also claim all or parts of the Spratlys.
China claims virtually the entire
South China Sea and its island groups, and its disputes occasionally erupt into
open confrontation. The islands, many of them occupied by garrisons from the
various claimants, sit amid some of the world’s busiest commercial sea lanes,
along with rich fishing grounds and potential oil and gas deposits. China has
approved the formal establishment of a military garrison for Sansha, though
specific details have yet to be released.
Official broadcaster China
Central Television aired Tuesday morning’s formal establishment ceremony live
from Sansha, with speeches from the new mayor and other officials.
The Chinese flag was raised and
national anthem played before plaques for the Sansha Municipal Government and
the Sansha Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China were unveiled on
a white-columned government building.
Mayor Xiao Jie trumpeted Sansha’s
important role in protecting China’s sovereignty. He said the designation of
Sansha as a new city was “a wise decision made by the party and the government
of China to protect the sovereign rights of China, and to strengthen the
protection and the development of natural resources.”
The official Xinhua News Agency
reported earlier that Sansha’s jurisdiction covers just 13 square kilometers (5
square miles) of land, including other islands and atolls in the South China
Sea around Yongxing, but 2 million square kilometers (770,000 square miles) of
surrounding waters.
Sansha means “three sandbanks” in
Mandarin and appears to refer to the Chinese names for the disputed island
chains and atoll, known in Chinese as the West, South and Middle Banks, or Xisha,
Nansha and Zhongsha.
A description from a former
People’s Liberation Army officer who was among the officials overseeing the
island before Sansha was established paints a picture of a harsh and isolated
post where officials rotate staffing for a month at a time. Though, he said
fishermen live there all year round.
“The living conditions are pretty
simple,” Tan Xiankun, director of the office in Hainan overseeing Xisha and
other South China Sea territories, told The Associated Press in 2010. “It’s
very humid and hot, more than 30 degrees, and there’s salt everywhere. There’s
no fresh water, except for what’s shipped in and what’s collected from rain
water.”
Philippines Department of Foreign
Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said Manila has expressed its concern and
registered a strong protest with Beijing over the decision to set up a military
garrison on Sansha.
“The Philippines does not
recognize the Sansha city and the extent of its jurisdiction and considers
recent measures taken by China as unacceptable,” Hernandez told a news
conference.
Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry
spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said that Vietnam had protested to the Chinese
foreign ministry.
“China’s establishment of the
so-called ‘Sansha City’ … violated international law, seriously violating
Vietnam sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly archipelagoes,” the statement
said.
Asked about the establishment of
the city, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news
briefing Tuesday: “We remain concerned should there be any unilateral moves of
this kind that would seem to prejudge an issue that we have said repeatedly can
only be solved by negotiations, by dialogue and by a collaborative diplomatic
process among all the claimants.”
The United States says it does
not take a position on the competing sovereignty claims over land features in
the South China Sea but has a national interest in freedom of navigation in its
busy sea lanes and in maintenance of peace and stability.
A report released Tuesday by the
International Crisis Group think tank said that although China’s large claim to
the South China Sea and its assertive approach has rattled other claimants,
Beijing is “not stoking tensions on its own.”
“South East Asian claimants, with
Vietnam and the Philippines in the forefront, are now more forcefully defending
their claims — and enlisting outside allies — with considerable energy,” it
said, a reference to Washington’s move to influence the Asian balance of power
by supporting China’s neighbors.
The report also warned that the
risk of escalation was high and urged claimants to find ways to jointly manage
energy resources and fishing areas while also agreeing on a mechanism for
handling incidents.
“In the absence of such a
mechanism, tensions in the South China Sea could all too easily be driven to
irreversible levels,” it said.
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