For Immediate Release: Contact: Will Jenkins – 202-224-4024

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Senator Webb:

China’s Military and Governmental Expansion into South China Sea

May Be a “Violation of International Law”

Calls on State Department to Clarify Situation

Washington, DC—Senator Jim Webb, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, today said China’s recent actions to unilaterally assert control of disputed territories in the South China Sea may be a violation of international law. He urged the U.S. State Department to clarify this situation with China and report back to Congress.

“With the resurgence of a certain faction of the Chinese tied to their military, China has become more and more aggressive,” said Senator Webb in a speech today on the Senate floor. “On the 21^st of June, China’s State Council approved the establishment of what they call the Sansha City prefectural zone. This is literally the unilateral creation from nowhere of a governmental body in an area that is claimed also by Vietnam. This city they are creating will administer more than 200 islets, sand banks, and reefs covering two million square kilometers of water. They have populated and garrisoned an island that is in contest in terms of sovereignty, and they have announced that this governing body will administer this entire area in the South China Sea.”

“China has refused to resolve these issues in a multilateral forum,” said Senator Webb, who was the original sponsor of a resolution, unanimously approved by the Senate in June 2011, deploring the use of force by China in the South China Sea and calling for a peaceful, multilateral resolution to maritime territorial disputes in Southeast Asia. “They claim that these issues will only be resolved bilaterally, one nation to another. Why? Because they can dominate any nation in this region. This is a violation, I think quite arguably, of international law. It is contrary to China’s own statements about their willingness to work with ASEAN to try to develop some sort of Code of Conduct. This is very troubling. I would urge the State Department to clarify this situation with China, and also with our body immediately.”

Senator Webb has expressed concerns over sovereignty issues in this region for more than 16 years. His first hearing upon assuming chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee was on maritime territorial disputes and sovereignty issues in Asia in July 2009. Senator Webb has worked and traveled throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia for more than four decades—as a Marine Corps Officer, a defense planner, a journalist, a novelist, a senior official in the Department of Defense, Secretary of the Navy, and as a business consultant.

A transcript of Senator Webb’s speech on the Senate floor follows:

For many years, since well before I came to the Senate, I have had the pleasure to work, travel inside East Asia in many different capacities--as a Marine in Okinawa and Vietnam, as a journalist, as a government official, as a guest of different governments, as a filmmaker, and as a business consultant.

What we have been able to do in the last five or six years in order to refocus our country’s interests on this vital part of the world I think is one of the great success stories of our foreign policy. At the same time, we have to always be mindful that the presence of the United States in East and Southeast Asia is the guarantor of stability in this region. If you look at the Korean Peninsula, you will see that for centuries there has been a cycle where power centers have shifted among Japan, Russia, and China. This is the only place in the world where the geographical and power interests of those three countries intersect, and they intersect with the Korean Peninsula right in the middle. We saw in the middle of last century what happened when Japan became too aggressive in this part of the world. The Japanese fought Russia in the early 1900s. They defeated them. This was when they moved into Korea, occupied Korea, and moved into China. This eventually resulted in our involvement in the Second World War, and since the Second World War, our presence has been the guarantor of stability. We’ve seen blow-ups – the Korean War, where we fought China in addition to North Korea, and the Vietnam War, in which I fought.

But generally, the long-term observers of this region--people like Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore--will say the presence of the United States in this region has allowed economic systems to grow and governmental systems to modernize. We have been the great guarantor of stability. The difficulty that we have been facing in the past 10 to 12 years has been how to deal with the economic and international growth of China in this region. Before China’s expansion, we had seen the reemergence of the Soviet Union. When I was in the Pentagon in the 1980s, Russia’s dream of having warm water ports in the Pacific had been realized. On any given day they would have about 20 to 25 ships in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, as the end result of the Vietnam War. But for the past 10 to 12 years, the challenge has been for us to develop the right sort of relationship with China so that we can acknowledge their growth as a nation, but maintain the stability that is so vital in this part of the world.

The last few years have been very troublesome. There have been a number of issues in the South China Sea that for a long time our military leaders assumed were simply tactical engagements--where Chinese naval vessels and fishing vessels would be involved in spats with the Philippines, off the coast of Vietnam and also in the Senkaku Islands near Japan--but it became very clear what we are seeing are sovereignty issues. People were talking for many years about solving the sovereignty issue in Taiwan, but it is clear--I was speaking about this for many years--that there are other sovereignty issues. Once Taiwan is resolved, there are the Senkaku Islands, which Japan and China both claim; the Paracels, which China and Vietnam both claim; the Spratlys, which are claimed by five different countries including China and the Philippines. So we started seeing a resurgence of incidents that became military confrontations just over the past couple of years. Our Secretary of State was very clear two years ago, almost to the day, that these situations were not simply Asian situations, they were in the vital interest of the United States to be resolved peacefully and multilaterally.

We have been struggling on the Foreign Relations Committee to try to pass the Law of the Sea Treaty to address these sorts of incidents, which by the way are more than security incidents, they involve potentially an enormous amount of wealth in this part of the world. We have had a very difficult time getting the Law of the Sea Treaty passed, where most of the countries around the world recognize the basic principles of how to resolve these international issues through multilateral involvement. In the absence of a Law of the Sea Treaty--and I think with the resurgence of a certain faction of the Chinese tied to their military--China has become more and more aggressive. This past month has been very troublesome. On the 21^st of June, China’s State Council approved the establishment of what they call the Sansha City prefectural zone. This is literally the unilateral creation from nowhere of a governmental body in an area that is claimed also by Vietnam.

On Friday, July 13^th, because of disagreements over how to characterize the South China Sea situation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEA), a 10-nation body which has been very forthcoming in trying to solve these problems, failed to issue a communiqué about a multilateral solution of the South China Sea issues.

On July 22^nd, the Central Military Commission of China announced the deployment of a garrison of soldiers to the islands in this area. The garrison command will likely be placed in the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by Vietnam and within the exclusive economic zone of Vietnam.

On July 23^rd, China officially began implementing this decision. It announced that 45 legislators are now to govern the approximately thousand people who are occupying these islands. They have elected a mayor and a vice mayor. They have announced that a 15-member Standing Committee will be running the prefecture. They have announced that this city they are creating will administer more than 200 islets, sand banks, and reefs covering two million square kilometers of water. In other words, they have created a governmental system out of nothing. They have populated and garrisoned an island that is in contest in terms of the sovereignty, and they have announced that this governing body will administer this entire area in the South China Sea.

China has refused to resolve these issues in a multilateral forum. They claim that these issues will only be resolved bilaterally, one nation to another. Why? Because they can dominate any nation in this region. This is a violation, I think quite arguably, of international law. It is contrary to China’s own statements about their willingness to work with ASEAN to try to develop some sort of code of conduct. This is very troubling. I would urge the State Department to clarify this situation with China, and also with our body immediately.

TNS Jim Webb lo ngại về Trung Quốc

Thượng nghị sĩ Jim Webb từng lo ngại về tình hình Biển Đông 16 năm trước

Thượng nghị sĩ Mỹ Jim Webb đề nghị chính phủ Hoa Kỳ “làm rõ với Trung Quốc” về tình hình ở Biển Đông và báo cáo lại với Quốc Hội trong phát biểu lo ngại về thái độ đơn phương của Bắc Kinh với Asean.

Ông cũng lên tiếng phê phán việc Trung Quốc cho lập ‘thành phố Tam Sa” với “ủy ban hành chính 15 người quản lý hai triệu km vuông biển”.

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Biển Đông

Trong thông cáo báo chí ra ngày 26/7 tại Washington D.C., ông Jim Webb, chủ tịch Tiểu Ủy ban Đối ngoại với Đông Á và Thái Bình Dương của Thượng viện Mỹ đã nói các hành động gần đây của Trung Quốc “nhằm tăng kiểm soát tại vùng lãnh thổ tranh chấp ở biển Nam Trung Hoa có thể đã vi phạm luật quốc tế”.
Trong văn bản được công bố cùng ngày, ông Jim Webb, một cựu thủy quân lục chiến Mỹ ở Okinawa và Nam Việt Nam trong thời gian Chiến tranh Việt Nam, đã nói về “một sự trỗi dậy của một phe nhóm có gắn bó với quân đội Trung Quốc”.
Theo đánh giá của ông, điều này khiến Trung Quốc “ngày càng trở nên hung hăng”.
'Đơn phương là phạm luật'
Nói về tranh chấp tại vùng biển Đông Nam Á, ông Webb nhắc lại rằng Trung Quốc “luôn bác bỏ giải pháp cho các vấn đề này tại một diễn đàn đa phương”, và đã đơn phương triển khai cách thức dùng vũ lực”.
Chỉ riêng cách ứng xử đơn phương này, theo Thượng nghị sĩ Webb, “nói theo một cách lập luận, đã là một sự vi phạm luật quốc tế”.
Ông cũng cho rằng Trung Quốc đã hành xử “trái với các tuyên bố trước đó của họ là họ mong muốn hợp tác với Asean để xây dựng Bộ quy tắc ứng xử COC” cho vùng biển này.

"Tôi khẩn thiết yêu cầu Bộ Ngoại giao làm sáng tỏ tình hình với Trung Quốc"

Ông nói: “Điều này thật là đáng lo ngại,”
“Tôi khẩn thiết yêu cầu Bộ Ngoại giao làm sáng tỏ tình hình với Trung Quốc.”
Với động thái gần đây nhất, hôm 23/7 của Trung Quốc cho lập 'thành phố cực nam Tam Sa', ông Webb tỏ thái độ đặc biệt mạnh mẽ.
Ông viết: "Họ công bố một ủy ban thường vụ 15 người để quản lý khu vực. Họ cũng công bố thành phố họ lập ra sẽ quản trị 200 đảo nhỏ, bãi cát, bãi san hô trong khoảng hai triệu kim vuông biển,"

Trung Quốc tưng bừng ra mắt trụ sở của TP Tam Sa

"Nói cách khác, họ lập ra cả một hệ thống hành chính từ chỗ không có gì. Họ đưa dân ra và lập doanh trại trên quần đảo vẫn còn đang tranh cãi về chủ quyền, và nay, họ tuyên bố cơ quan đó sẽ quản trị toàn bộ vùng biển Nam Trung Hoa."
Văn bản của ông Webb cũng nhắc Tam Sa được lập trên đảo mà Việt Nam cũng đang tuyên bố chủ quyền.
Ông Webb được báo chí Mỹ đánh giá là người “đã bày tỏ quan ngại về vấn đề chủ quyền tại Biển Đông” từ 16 năm trước.
Ông cũng có tiếng là người làm việc và thăm viếng khu vực Đông Á và Đông Nam Á trong suốt bốn thập niên qua, ở vị trí sĩ quan thủy quân lục chiến, nhà kế hoạch cho Hải quân, nhà báo, quan chức cao cấp của Bộ Quốc phòng, và Thứ trưởng Hải quân, theo báo chí Hoa Kỳ.
Là người có gắn bó nhiều và quan tâm tới miền Nam Việt Nam và sau 1975 là nước Việt Nam, ông Jim Webb từng nói với BBC quan điểm của ông về quan hệ Mỹ - Trung - Việt.
Trả lời BBC Tiếng Việt hồi tháng 4/2010, nhân một dịp kỷ niệm cuộc chiến Việt Nam kết thúc, ông đã nói về vấn đề biển đảo:
"Có những vấn đề tại Biển Đông, những vấn đề rất quan trọng về chủ quyền, liên quan tới việc Trung Quốc nhận chủ quyền một số hòn đảo mà Việt Nam cũng nhận chủ quyền,"
Ngoài ra, ông Webb còn nói về một lĩnh vực khác cho quan hệ Hoa Kỳ với Việt Nam:
"Rất nhiều nhà máy thủy điện được xây dựng tại Trung Quốc dọc sông Mekong và lượng nước chảy xuống Việt Nam là rất đáng quan ngại. Có khoảng 70 triệu người sẽ bị ảnh hưởng trước tình trạng này,"
"Việt Nam sẽ là nước phải chịu nguy cơ. Tự một mình Việt Nam không dám đối mặt với Trung Quốc về vấn đề này và Hoa Kỳ nên cùng các nước khác như Nhật Bản có thể tham gia, tìm cách để bảo đảm dòng sông Mekong được sử dụng công bằng." BBC

Hoàng Sa Paracel

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

China’s Military and Governmental Expansion into South China Sea May Be a “Violation of International Law”

TNS Jim Webb lo ngại về Trung Quốc

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