A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics.
The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison.
The rigs not only typify China’s maritime “gray zone” operations aimed at eroding Taiwan’s jurisdiction by building in area where Taipei demands explicit permission, but could also host military infrastructure to facilitate operations against Pratas Island and even Taiwan proper.
Beijing has a long history of “gray zone” tactics to harass Taiwan and “normalize” its encroachments with the aim of “legalizing” its expansionist territorial claims. Accompanied by military aircraft intruding into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and across the Taiwan Strait median line, China has regularly deployed its non-military “shadow fleet,” including private fishing boats, cargo ships, sand dredgers and research ships, to disturb Taiwanese vessels and maritime administration.
China’s tactics have expanded to pressure other neighboring countries, such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam in Southeast Asia, as well as Japan and South Korea in East Asia. As a military invasion would be costly, Beijing opts to use non-military forces to carry out its strategic objectives. Chinese maritime vessels and militia have incessantly generated “gray zone” conflicts through attacks or harassment of other nations’ vessels.
The Chinese oil rigs near Pratas Island, which have been encroaching into the region since 2020, demonstrate Beijing’s expansion in the South China Sea. The moves violate the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea, seriously undermining regional security and the international order, as well as aggravating the complexity of overlapping territorial claims.
To deter China’s maritime encroachments, Jamestown Foundation president Peter Mattis (“Taiwan needs real-time awareness,” Sept. 9, page 8) wrote that “the most effective counter to China’s oil rigs was the combination of presence and publicity.” He urged Taiwan to invest more in collecting intelligence techniques, such as geospatial intelligence, synthetic aperture radar coverage or even build up its own satellite network to monitor in real-time the vast maritime area, and pinpoint the locations of China’s civil militia and possible military activities.
A Chinese ship was recently detained by the coast guard and its captain sentenced to three years in prison for cutting an undersea cable in Taiwan’s waters, marking a first such conviction amid a series of alleged cable-cutting incidents by Chinese vessels aimed at disrupting Taiwan’s digital infrastructure.
The government must further boost capacity for naval and coast guard ships to patrol outlying islands to deter “gray zone” tactics.
Facing the increasing disputes and tension driven by expansive and aggressive Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, Taiwan should cooperate with neighboring like-minded countries, such as the Philippines and Japan, to maintain regional stability, and protect maritime resources in Taiwan and other countries’ economic zones.
Taiwan and like-minded nations should file lawsuits in international courts to protest China’s illegal activities and highlight the case on a global stage.
As the Jamestown Foundation report warned, “failure to protest today would encourage further encroachment.” Taiwan must take more action to safeguard its sovereignty and jointly uphold the international order.
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