The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

warned against Vietnam’s planned acquisition of 12
Su-30 MK2 aircraft and six Kilo-class submarines from
Russia, complaining they threaten the Malacca Strait
SLOC. 55 Thus no resolution to South China Sea disputes
appears probable in the near-term. No doubt the
Southeast Asian states welcome China’s participation
in the various ASEAN forums, the several bilateral
“Defense and Security Conferences” it has arranged
with Southeast Asian countries, and the professional
exchanges generated by the PLA’s military diplomacy.
Thus far, however, these have made little or no contribution
to resolving the South China Sea territorial and
resource disputes that disturb the region.
Beijing’s most contentious issues in the East China
Sea are with Tokyo over seabed resources and competing
claims to some small uninhabited islands and
reefs known to China as the Diaoyu Islands but administered
by Japan as the Senkaku Islands. The connection
between these issues is the delimitation of Exclusive
Economic Zones (EEZ) and continental shelf
declarations by China and Japan.
Chinese and Japanese claims 56 to the Diaoyu/Senkakus
are indicated by their inclusion in their respective
1996 EEZ and continental shelf declarations. China
claims a continental shelf that extends to the Okinawa
trough based on the prolongation of its land territory,
thereby encompassing the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
Japan claims an EEZ that extends to the median line
dissecting the East China Sea, thus encompassing the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. China does not recognize
the Japanese median line. Because both delimitation
methods are recognized under the UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), it does not provide any
resolution to this disagreement.
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