China's paper invasion

The map in the new Chinese passport has sparked a torrent of complaints from neighbouring countries involved in territorial disputes with China.

A 'coalition of the willing' rises against Beijing's latest landgrab

With its new passport, China has sparked a torrent of diplomatic protests. The passport carries a map that shows China's territorial claims in the South China Sea and on its border with India.

China did not need to send in the People's Liberation Army to occupy the disputed territories, or fire a single shot to validate its claims to land. Instead the whole affair is a paper coup.

Three pages in the passport show China's "nine-dash line" map of the South China Sea (parts of which Filipinos know as the West Philippine Sea), first published in 1947. The dash lines extend hundreds of kilometres south from China's Hainan Island to the equatorial waters off the coast of Borneo, Vietnam and the Philippines.

The map includes the Spratly Island chain, the subject of overlapping claims by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines.

The Philippines, Vietnam, India and Taiwan have vehemently protested against the new passport, "which essentially forces neighbouring countries to validate China's position on contested regions".

The map "underscored China's increasing boldness in laying claim to the disputed territories", said East Asian studies professor Bruce Jacobs, of Monash University in Australia, adding that the country "lacked institutions such as a free media that could keep its foreign policy decisions in check".

The new passport has raised concerns in the US which, while maintaining an official neutral stance, has been supplying the Philippines with military weapons in a bid to ward off Chinese incursions in the sea claimed by the Philippines.

The US said the map on the new passport was "causing tension and anxiety" among claimant states in the South China Sea.

Washington said that while it had no territorial claim, it had an interest in the stability of a region vital to world trade and freedom of invitation in one of the world's strategic waterways in both military and economic terms.

China further heightened regional tensions last week by granting Hainan's border police power "to board, seize and expel foreign ships illegally entering the province's sea areas".

Alarmed by Beijing's plan to board and seize ships, even those belonging to claimant nations patrolling their own areas, Asean's secretary general Surin Pitsuwan warned that the plan was "a very serious turn of events".

What worries Asean is that such action taken against, say, a Philippines Navy ship patrolling the Spratlys or Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal could spark a war.

The Philippines and Vietnam have refused to give visa stamps for the new Chinese passports, instead offering a separate visa form, while Taiwan has objected to the maps' maritime borders.

India, angered that the map shows its state of Arunachal Pradesh and the Himalayan region of Aksai Chin as Chinese territory, is issuing Chinese citizens visas embossed with New Delhi's own version of the map.

In the wake of the revulsion at China's acceleration of its land-grabbing in the South China Sea, an ad hoc security alliance is emerging among Japan and the Asean claimants, including the Philippines and Vietnam, to block China's assertive interventions through diplomacy or possibly by other means. China's moves have compelled these states to close ranks.

The map on China's new passport does not include islands in the East China Sea that are claimed by both China and Japan. Tough negotiations by Japan with China seem to have paid off.

Japan is the only sea power in East Asia that can face off with the burgeoning naval might of the People's Liberation Army.

The International Herald Tribune reported recently that Japanese officials say Japan has been "building up ties with other nations that share worries about their imposing neighbour".

They acknowledge that "even building the capacity of other nations' coastguards is a way of strengthening those countries' ability to stand up to any Chinese threat."

The report quotes Yoshide Soeya, director of the Institute of East Asian Studies at Keio University in Tokyo, as saying: "We want to build our own 'coalition of the willing' in Asia to prevent China from just running over us."

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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/12/07/chinas-paper-invasion/