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How Vietnam, Philippines Will Get around China's Fishing Ban in Disputed Sea

by Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI --

   Beijing has declared a moratorium on fishing in about half the heavily
   disputed South China Sea every year since 1995. And every year other
   countries with competing sovereignty claims keep letting their own
   fishing fleets do as they wish.

   The Chinese coast guard says the ban that took effect May 1 this year
   will be enforced, but people who follow the South China Sea politics
   expect the authorities to catch only Chinese-registered boats that
   violate the ban.

   China would go easier on boats from the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam
   because it wants to build relations in Asia and avoid a stronger U.S.
   role in the maritime dispute, those analysts believe. U.S. allies
   Taiwan and the Philippines call all or some of the moratorium tract
   their own. Vietnam makes a similar claim and has grown closer to
   Washington since 2016.

   China is telling other countries about the three-month moratorium
   largely to remind them of its sovereignty claim, analysts say.

   "To date, we haven't really seen serious enforcement on their part,
   especially against other countries," said Jay Batongbacal,
   international maritime affairs professor at University of the
   Philippines. "The minimum, I think, is to create a record of supposed
   exercises of jurisdiction over the entire South China Sea."

   Annual moratorium

   South China Sea waters above the 12th parallel north of the equator,
   along with other waterways under Chinese control, will be monitored 24
   hours a day and "any violation will be dealt with in time," China's
   official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the national coast guard.

   Xinhua says the summer fishing ban will help "promote sustainable
   marine fishery development and improve marine ecology." The sea is
   considered heavily overfished, especially by vessels that can process
   and refrigerate their catches before reaching land, said Termsak
   Chalermpalanupap, Southeast Asia-specialized fellow with the ISEAS
   Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

   The 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea stretching from the island of
   Borneo north to Hong Kong yields 16.6 million tons of fish every year
   and the fishing industry employs about 3.7 million people across
   nationalities, according to National Geographic data. Claimant
   countries prize the sea as well for its marine shipping lanes and
   undersea reserves of gas and oil.

   Harmonizing with China's fishing bans

   Other countries are accustomed to China's annual moratoriums. In years
   past some have quietly told their own fishing fleets how to work the
   sea without upsetting China -- though without renouncing sovereignty
   claims. That trend is expected to continue this year despite the threat
   of tough enforcement.

   Taiwan notified its own vessels about the Chinese moratorium this year,
   said Shih Chin-yi, division chief under the Fisheries Agency. The
   agency cares about the regeneration of fisheries near its coastlines,
   including the South China Sea to its southwest, Shih said.

   "We've also made notifications in the past to let fishermen know that
   during this period mainland China bans fishing as long it's north of
   the 12th parallel into the Yellow Sea and Bohai Bay," Shih said.

   China also claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan, making any
   territorial dispute extra-sensitive. Each side normally observes sea
   boundaries set by the other, and Taiwan has its own moratorium zones.

   Vietnam, the country most outspoken about China's activity in the
   disputed sea, protested the moratorium on Sunday. A foreign ministry
   spokeswoman in Hanoi said the ban violates Vietnam's sovereignty over
   the sea's Paracel Islands and goes against United Nations maritime
   convention, according to the news website Hanoi Times.

   The Philippines generally gives no formal advice to its fishing boats
   to avoid either inflaming China or conceding that China has a right to
   call a ban, political scholars in the country have said. The two
   countries have gotten along since 2016, with China reportedly
   accommodating some Filipino boats in disputed waters.

   "I think they just live and let live and just hope they won't be rammed
   or arrested," said Chalermpalanupap, referring to ships from any
   country.

   Neighbor relations, US role

   Brunei and Malaysia also claim parts of the sea, but south of 12th
   parallel. All militarily weaker than Beijing, the Southeast Asian
   claimants resent China's maritime landfill work and follow-up
   militarization since 2010. Island-building facilitates construction of
   aircraft hangars and radar systems as well as support for fishing and
   oil exploration.

   Their resentment prompts the U.S. Navy to send ships regularly into the
   South China Sea, upsetting China. Washington claims no part of the sea.
   Beijing hopes to build relations with Asian governments to counter U.S.
   influence, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate with the
   Stimson Center think tank in Washington, D.C.

   To build those ties, Beijing is talking now with the Association of
   Southeast Asian Nations, which includes four claimant states, about
   signing a South China Sea code of conduct as early as 2020 to help head
   off mishaps between ships.