Supersized Deep Sea Dredger Will Strain China's Testy Relations With Vietnam - Forbes

Supersized Deep Sea Dredger Will Strain China's Testy Relations With Vietnam

Ralph Jennings , CONTRIBUTOR

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

An activist shouts anti-China slogans during a rally marking the 42nd anniversary of the 1974 naval battle between China and then-South Vietnamese troops over the Paracel Islands, in Hanoi on Jan. 19, 2017. (HOANG DINH NAM/AFP/Getty Images)

Chinese President Xi Jinping is due to meet this week with Vietnam’s top three leaders, including the Southeast Asian side’s vaunted Communist Party chief. Xinhua News Agency, a voice of the Chinese government, heralds the encounters as new chances for cooperation with other countries. That makes sense as relations between the two Asian neighbors have seesawed over the years because of territorial disputes.

Then on Saturday Chinese state media announced tests of Asia’s largest vessel for dredging land from under the sea. It could easily be used in the disputed South China Sea for construction of artificial islands. Vietnam happens to be the most outspoken Chinese rival in the dispute over that 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea stretching from China's south coast to the island of Borneo.

Super-sized land reclamation vessel

The 140-meter-long, made-in-China Tian Kun Huo dredger, which the state-run China Daily news website says can crank out 6,000 cubic meters of land per hour up to 35 meters under the seabed, will probably get towed first to the Paracel Islands, experts believe. China has recently built out islets elsewhere in the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. The Paracels are a South China Sea archipelago of some 130 tiny natural features controlled by Beijing but vigorously contested by Hanoi since the 1970s.

More on Forbes: Why China Never Draws A Boundary Line Around Its Claim To The South China Sea

The dredging vessel "may be a major source of concern for Vietnam" because it's the only country that actively contests that island chain with China, says Le Hong Hiep, research fellow with ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “If China builds more islands in the Paracels, Vietnam will be in a more difficult position to rally international support to oppose China’s move because this dispute has no other claimant state,” Le said.

More artificial islands?

Accelerated creation of artificial islands would help the Beijing government expand control of the South China Sea where most natural features, such as reefs and sandbars, are too small for development. Control means special rights of way for fishing boats or oil rigs. It might someday lead to blockage of foreign vessels in a sea where about one-third of the world’s marine shipping traffic passes.

China claims about 90% of the sea that's rich in fisheries and fossil fuel reserves. The claims overlap the maritime economic zones of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. Vietnam is the second-most aggressive claimant after China, and the two sides have jousted for decades over disputes on land as well as at sea.

This aerial view of the city of Sansha on an island in the disputed Paracel chain, which China now considers part of Hainan province on July 27, 2012. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

More on Forbes: Making Sense Of The South China Sea Dispute

Beijing's landfilled islets in the sea’s Spratly chain are ready for military installations, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative under American think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. Vietnam contests the Spratly chain, as well.

Other coastal states lack the expertise or funds to build a super-sized dredging vessel.

Talks may be strained but will still happen

Leaders from China and Vietnam probably have the experience to brush off whatever ill will news of the dredging vessel may spark when Xi meets Vietnamese counterparts at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit, which is happening this week in Vietnam. The vessel is just being tested now, making it hard to protest just yet. But the knowledge that it's out there, along with other Chinese maritime technology that Vietnam doesn't have, is likely to give a cold hollow ring to any Chinese pledges of cooperation with the Vietnamese.

China has shown it probably won't discuss the Paracel dispute with Vietnam at the senior leadership level, said Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chih Minh University of Social Sciences and Humanities.

“It will be a problem for Vietnam and it’s increasingly difficult for Vietnam to counter against Chinese behavior in the South China Sea and reclamation work when they possess such high technology,” Nguyen said. “Up till now, I’m very pessimistic.”