Washington Post asserts Chinese aggression challenges world order

Following are excerpts from the article:

“With a US$1 billion oil rig the size of a football field, China has literally laid down a new marker in its ambition to dominate the East Sea — and challenged President Obama’s “rebalancing” policy in Asia, only weeks after the president’s tour of the region.

The rig is about 130 miles off the coast of Vietnam, in waters that Vietnam claims as an exclusive economic zone under international law. China’s claim is more tenuous, but it is backed up with a flotilla of some 80 ships that for a week have engaged in a dangerous contest of ramming and water-hosing Vietnamese vessels.

An oil drilling rig of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) (Photo: Reuters)

The message of the deployment is as simple as it is provocative: The regime of Xi Jinping intends to unilaterally assert China’s sovereignty over almost all of the East Sea without regard for the competing claims of five other countries. The rigis a fundamental challenge to the international order the United States has tried to preserve since the end of the Cold War.

China’s ambitions are described by an audacious map, dating from the pre-Communist erathat claims some 80 percent of the East Sea and a number of island chains. For years Beijing has talked with those countries and others in Southeast Asia about establishing a code of conduct for the sea, and it discussed the possibility of joint development of oil and gas with Vietnam a few months ago.

The move of the oil rig appears to reflect a calculation that a more aggressive policy will not meet meaningful resistance from China’s neighbors or the United States. The target of the initiative is Vietnam.

The Vietnamese leadership has responded rather vigorously: In addition to the several dozen ships that are sparring with China’s near the rig, and Vietnam’s Prime Minister condemned China at a summit of Southeast Asian nations.  

Vietnam could bring a case against China at an international tribunal under the Law of the Sea treaty. But Beijing is likely to shrug off that form of pressure. Most likely it will continue to act unilaterally in the region until it meets concerted resistance, whether diplomatic or military.”