Efforts by Taiwan and others to persuade China to jointly develop oil and gas deposits under the East and South China seas are likely to fail, a new analysis by a former US government official says.
The conventional wisdom that energy is the motivating force behind Beijing’s claims to maritime territory is wrong, Harvard University fellow Holly Morrow says.
Rather, she argues in Foreign Policy this week, the disputes are a “fundamental conflict” over sovereignty in the region.
Morrow, a former US National Security Council director for Southeast Asia, argues that if energy resources were the primary issue in China’s territorial disputes, it would be easier to find solutions.
Taiwan pushed for the joint development of potential energy resources in August 2012, when President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) proposed the East China Sea Peace Initiative.
As part of a much-praised initiative, Ma called for Taiwan, China and Japan to pursue joint development of natural resources to pave the way for a peaceful resolution of their disputes.
“But China’s energy exploration efforts are about demonstrating sovereignty and control, not vice versa,” Morrow writes. “Energy resources are dividable and shareable; sovereignty is not.”
“Viewing the South and East China seas through the lens of sovereignty rather than energy makes these issues zero-sum and much more intractable,” she adds. “It also makes clear why efforts at joint development are likely to fail.”
Morrow writes that there have been an increasing number of conflicts in recent years over who has the right to exploit potential energy resources in the seabed under disputed waters.
And that China’s introduction of a deepwater drilling rig into contested waters around the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) has reinforced the idea that energy is “at the core of these disputes.”
She says that the words “vast” and “huge” are regularly applied to the hydrocarbon deposits of the South China Sea, but the truth is that nobody knows.
The contested areas around the Paracel and Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), which Taiwan also claims, are little-explored, and a US Energy and Information Agency (EIA) report contends that there is probably not much oil and gas.
Morrow says that there is likely no oil and less than 100 billion cubic feet (2.83 trillion liters) of gas — “a miniscule amount roughly equivalent to one week of China’s gas consumption.”
Morrow says that the East China Sea — where Taiwan, China and Japan spar over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkakus in Japan — “is even more negligible in terms of hydrocarbons.”
The EIA estimates that it contains 60 million to 100 million barrels of oil — about two weeks of oil for China — and between 1 trillion and 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, about six months’ worth of gas consumption in China.
“If energy were truly Beijing’s concern, its obstruction of other states’ development of their oil and gas resources — which prevents new supplies from coming online — is self-defeating,” she says.
Morrow writes that there are far easier ways to procure energy in the 21st century than occupying territory or starting conflicts with international neighbors.
Morrow’s analysis comes as Beijing’s China News Service reports that China plans to build lighthouses on five disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Two of the sites, in the Paracels, are also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to call for a voluntary freeze on island development when he attends a Southeast Asian foreign ministers conference in Myanmar this weekend.
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