On January 16, 1974, the Republic of Vietnam Navy (RVN) discovered
the presence of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the
Crescent Group in the western Paracel Islands, which was held by South
Vietnam. This was an unexpected development, because notwithstanding the
reduced U.S. military assistance to Saigon after the signing of the
Paris Peace Accords in 1973, and subsequent reduction of South
Vietnamese garrisons on the islands, the Chinese had not taken
unilateral actions to subvert the status quo – by which the Amphitrite
Group in the eastern Paracels and the Crescent Group were respectively
under Chinese and South Vietnamese control.
Over the next two days, the opposing naval forces jostled with one
another in close-proximity maneuvers off the islands, before a firefight
erupted as the South Vietnamese troops attempted to recapture Duncan
Island. The skirmish subsequently escalated with overwhelming Chinese
reinforcements deployed to the clash zone, including close air support
staged from nearby Hainan Island and missile-armed Hainan-class
patrol vessels. Shorn of American naval support, given that the U.S.
Navy Seventh Fleet was then scaling down its presence in the South China
Sea following the peace accords of 1973, the RVN was utterly defeated.
Beijing swiftly exploited the naval victory with an amphibious landing
in force to complete its control of all the Paracel Islands.
The Battle of the Paracel Islands has since gone down history as the
first Sino-Vietnamese naval skirmish in the quest for control over the
South China Sea isles. The Sino-Vietnamese naval skirmish in the nearby
Spratly Islands in 1988 was the second and final such instance. Since
then, tensions have eased. There have been continued exchanges at the
ruling party level and between the countries’ militaries (including the
hosting of a PLA Navy South Sea Fleet delegation to a Vietnamese naval
base). Beijing and Hanoi have also recently inaugurated mutual
consultations on joint marine resource development in the South China
Sea.
However, the Battle of Paracel Islands in 1974 yields some useful and
enduring lessons for Hanoi and its ongoing naval modernization in the
South China Sea, particularly in the face of geopolitical developments.
Enduring Lesson #1: Diplomacy is the First Recourse… But Not the Sole Recourse
No international and regional treaties constitute perfect safeguards
against unilateral action, including threat or use of force. The
landmark Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea
inked in 2002 between China and the Southeast Asian claimants has not
been entirely successful. In fact, unilateral actions aimed at
subverting the status quo in the South China Sea by threat or use of
force has continued to dominate. Recent video footage revealed by
China’s CCTV in January 2014 showed a standoff between Chinese and
Vietnamese law enforcement ships off the Paracel Islands back in 2007.
More recent, recurring incidents included the harassment of Vietnamese
survey ships by Chinese vessels, the Sino-Philippine maritime standoff
in the Scarborough Shoal in April 2012 and, later, the show of force by
Chinese surveillance ships and naval frigates off the Philippine-held
Second Thomas Shoal. These episodes bear an eerie resemblance to the
sort of naval jostling that led to the skirmish back in 1974.
Even as the South China Sea claimants engaged in consultations on a Code of Conduct,
upon unilaterally declaring an air defense identification zone (ADIZ)
over the East China Sea in December 2013, Beijing declared indisputable
rights to create ADIZs in other areas if it so desired. An ADIZ over the South China Sea,
if ever established, would undoubtedly strengthen Beijing’s hand over
the disputed waters, augmenting regular unilateral fishing bans, an
earlier expanded maritime law enforcement authority for the Hainan
authorities as well as the latest Chinese fisheries law
requiring foreign fishing vessels to seek permission from Beijing to
operate in much of the South China Sea. These developments, if they
continue unabated, will only heighten the risk of accidental or
premeditated clashes in the disputed waters.
Enduring Lesson #2: Extra-regional Powers Neither Always Stay… Nor Always Help
There has been growing interest among extra-regional powers in the
South China Sea. Besides the U.S. Asia-Pacific rebalancing, Japan under
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has intensified its Southeast Asian diplomatic offensive,
one of the objectives being to promote Tokyo’s territorial stance in
the East China Sea. Vietnam has become one of the major beneficiaries of
this development. During the 4th U.S.-Vietnam Defense Policy Dialogue
held in Washington in late October 2013, an agreement was reached to
enhance maritime security cooperation. In the same month, Tokyo was
reportedly keen to supply patrol vessels as part of a plan to bolster
Vietnam’s maritime security capacity-building efforts. Also notable,
Hanoi is enjoying budding defense ties with New Delhi, having hosted
regular Indian Navy port visits in the past decade.
Still, none of the extra-regional powers has taken any side on the
South China Sea disputes, preferring to focus only on freedom of
navigation. This means that even though Washington or Tokyo have
legitimate reasons to intervene if vital sea lines of communications
through the South China Sea are threatened by the specter of armed
conflict, any extra-regional help is far from certain. For instance,
even if the U.S. Pacific Command is able to detect tell-tale signs of
unusual Chinese military movements in the South China Sea, it may not be
able to react in time. The U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet, as part of the
rebalancing strategy, has intensified maritime surveillance in the area:
the new Littoral Combat Ship U.S.S. Freedom is said to be
conducting more than mere training missions in the area while the U.S.
Navy was reported to have stepped up maritime aerial surveillance since
July 2012.
However, during the skirmish in 1974 Saigon sought assistance from
the U.S. Seventh Fleet, but it was under orders not to intervene in the
disputes and no help arrived for the RVN off the Paracels. Washington is
likely to adopt the same stance today, even if a renewed
Sino-Vietnamese naval clash were to erupt, especially in localized
contexts that do not necessarily impinge upon freedom of navigation by
other users. Moreover, the present and future PLA Navy South Sea Fleet
is no longer the same run-down, coastal-oriented force operating
Soviet-era small patrol and attack forces it used to be. With its steady
accumulation of force projection capabilities, including amphibious
assault, the PLA Navy is in a better position than back in 1974 to
deploy sizeable forces over sustained durations at greater distances to
assert sovereignty, and its overall combat power will be far more potent
if ever unleashed in the South China Sea.
Enduring Lesson #3: The Need for At Least Limited Sea Control Capabilities
There is no way for Vietnam to quantitatively match the PLA naval
capabilities in the South China Sea. Consistent with Hanoi’s policy
pronunciations, an arms race with China is not only impossible in the
first place, but is considered potentially detrimental to Vietnam’s
ongoing Renovation process. Vietnam’s post-Cold War naval modernization
has been predicated on filling capacity shortfalls after previous
decades of neglect. In recent years, the Vietnam People’s Navy had made
notable strides in acquiring new hardware to replace the ageing
Soviet-era equipment. However, the new, mostly Russian-supplied
capabilities, such as Gepard-3.9 light frigates, Kilo-class
submarines, Su-30MK2V Flanker multi-role fighters equipped for maritime
strike and Yakhont/Bastion coastal defense missile batteries,
Dutch-built SIGMA-class corvettes as well as locally-built
coastal patrol and attack craft all point to a force modernization
pathway based primarily on denying an adversary access to the disputed
zone. They do not suggest an ability to secure Vietnam’s own access.
Yet, the Battle of the Paracel Islands in 1974 highlighted the need
to not just deny an adversary from blockading the South China Sea
features but also to secure Vietnam’s own access to those exposed and
vulnerable garrisons. Only a shift from sea denial to sea control can
hope to attain that. Given the durable peace along the land borders with
her neighbors, Vietnam should logically emphasize air-sea warfighting
capabilities. For status quo-oriented Vietnam, much akin to what Saigon
was back in 1974, the foreseeable combat scenario in a renewed South
China Sea clash will encompass the need for Vietnamese forces to
recapture seized features, or at least reinforce existing garrisons in
the face of hostile attack. Under this scenario, Vietnam’s defense
predicament is perhaps no different from Japan’s with respect to the
East China Sea dispute. Tokyo has outlined in its recent new defense strategy
the need for robust, integrated mobile defense, which envisaged the
need for the Self-Defense Force to recapture the East China Sea isles in
times of hostilities. Certainly Vietnam cannot hope to muster the same
range of capabilities as Japan could, given economic constraints. To
build at least limited sea control capabilities, Hanoi ought to focus on
improving early warning and expanding amphibious sealift capacity.
Existing Vietnamese early warning capabilities are vested in a static
electronic surveillance network arrayed along the Vietnamese mainland
coast and in occupied South China Sea features, augmented only in recent
years by maritime patrol aircraft of the Vietnamese navy and
coastguard. These planes are mainly designed for surface surveillance,
yet are handicapped in endurance and lack adequate anti-submarine
warfare capabilities especially in view of the increasing PLA submarine
challenge. A high-endurance maritime patrol aircraft fitted with
longer-range sensors will be appropriate, and arguably more survivable
than static installations. The Vietnam Naval Infantry, which specializes
in amphibious assault and has been streamlined over the decades, has
become a leaner yet meaner force with the acquisition of better
equipment. Still, it remains short on amphibious sealift capacity, given
that the Soviet and ex-U.S. vintage landing ships were too old and
mostly no longer operational. Hanoi’s fledgling naval shipbuilders have
so far produced a small handful of new assault transports ostensibly to
fill this gap. However, more such vessels are required to enable the
Vietnam Naval Infantry to project more substantial forces with greater
rapidity in order to reinforce the South China Sea garrisons or to
recapture them from an adversary.
Final Thoughts
The Battle of the Paracel Islands might have happened a long forty
years ago. Still, even though the South China Sea has seen relative
peace, it pays for Hanoi to remain vigilant by sustaining the pace of
its naval modernization attempts. While diplomacy is the preferred
recourse and extra-regional powers have become more heavily involved in
the region, adequate military power in the form of defense self-help
remains necessary, especially when the area continues to be fraught with
uncertainty. Compared to the RVN, for now and in the foreseeable future
the Vietnam People’s Navy and Air Force faces a challenge far greater
than before in preserving the status quo in the South China Sea.
Ngo Minh Tri is Managing Editor of the Thanh Nien
newspaper, based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Koh Swee Lean Collin is
an associate research fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic
Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies at Nanyang Technological University based in Singapore. This
article reflects the personal viewpoints of the authors and not
representative of their respective organizations
*Article publicat a The Diplomat. El compartim per l'importància que té sempre la perspectiva històrica en els conflictes del present.
L'autor ha eliminat aquest comentari.
ResponEliminaHola. Sóc estudiant d'Història de la Universitat de Barcelona i un gran aficionat als vaixells i la història Nàutica. He arribat al seu Blog des de l'enllaç de la Viquipèdia. Me'n alegro Molt d'haver trobat aquest tipus de material en català. Estarem en contacte.
ResponEliminaCordials salutacions i enhorabona per la feina feta.
Ignoro la raó però el programari aquest publica els meus missatges amb greus errades semàntiques. Li asseguro que el redactat original és correcte. Que hi farem.
ResponEliminaCordials salutacions.
Moltes gràcies pels comentaris, en aquest dos anys de vida del bloc s'ha procurat anar generant un "rebost" d'informació d'interés general o específic. La periodicitat d'actualització varia en funció del temps disponible, però també segons si es disposa o no d'articles que aportin quelcom.
ResponEliminaNo es mereixen les gràcies. Malgrat ser aficionat a la escriptura, encara no he obert cap blog majorment per la manca de temps que tindria per a actualitzar-lo, a banda de la meva escassa soltesa amb les eines informàtiques. Conseqüentment, valoro profundament treballs com el de la pàgina@ present. No dubti de que seguiré el seu rumb.
ResponEliminaI ara prego al Déu Neptú que permeti plasmar aquest missatge correctament.
Bona proa.