KUALA LAMPUR, 13 Oct. - (ANA) - Malaysia says it has stopped six Chinese fishing vessels in Malaysian territorial waters. 

 

The maritime authorities say 60 Chinese nationals were detained off the eastern coast of Johor, the southern Malaysian state that borders Singapore. 

 

Malaysia has reported 89 intrusions by Chinese coastguard and navy ships between 2016 and 2019 as Beijing increases its claims throughout the South China Sea.

 

The South China Sea, fractions of which are claimed by a multitude of countries, is fast becoming the epicentre of diplomatic disputes - either directly or indirectly - between China and the rest of the world.

 

Control over it, according to the US and China, is vital. Each year around $3 trillion (£2.33 trillion) of shipborne trade passes through the waterway, which is also home to large fishing grounds and possible reserves of oil and natural gas.

 

 

 

 

The South China Sea is bordered by Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, says Sydney-based think tank the Lowy Institute. Economic growth in the region in recent years has led to a significant increase in the amount of commercial merchant shipping passing through the channel, which is also an important route for importing goods to countries including Japan and South Korea.

 

Following rising tensions between these various parties in the 1980s, the United Nations drafted a Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which came into force in 1994.

 

The deal was intended to balance the economic and security interests of the countries involved by dividing the sea into Exclusive Economic Zones - 200-nautical-mile stretches of water extending out from the coastline of each border nation - and making the rest international waters.

 

To enforce this, third-party nations conduct “freedom of navigation” military operations in the waterway.

 

Although China is a signatory to UNCLOS, the government believes it has a historic right to a vast swathe of the sea marked by what Beijing calls the “nine-dash line”.

 

No other country recognises the nine-dash line, and in 2013 an arbitration tribunal ruled in favour of the Philippines after it claimed that China had violated its sovereignty by intruding into nine-dash territory within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone. 

 

Tensions are particularly high over a series of uninhabited islands in the middle of the sea that possess rich natural resources and fishing areas, which are claimed by multiple countries.

 

The Spratly Islands, near the Philippines, are the most contentious. The Japan Times reports that Beijing “has already set up an interconnected array of radar, electronic-attack facilities, missile batteries and airfields” on the archipelago.

 

China has also created 3,200 acres of new land in the islands since 2013 using reclamation methods, according to the US-based Council on Foreign Relations.

 

“China’s strategy poses a serious challenge to its neighbours, which face a deepening dilemma over how to deal with its creeping aggression,” The Japan Times adds.

 

The Chinese are thought to have found an ally in Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly sanctioned joint naval exercises between the two countries. Russia has also offered rhetorical support for China's position on its sovereignty claims.

 

Bonded by a common rivalry with the US, Moscow and Beijing have forged what they describe as a “strategic partnership”, expressing their shared opposition to the “unipolar” world - “a term they use to describe perceived US global dominance”.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/13 October 2020 - - -