Asean nations must deal collectively with China on fishing rights

PRESIDENT Xi Jinping's warning last week that China will protect its sovereignty "and related rights in the South China Sea" seems to mark a new policy in his southward push. It seems to go well beyond Beijing's self-declared nine-dash sea border in the South China Sea.

With China having established an overwhelming military presence in some of the Spratlys and Paracel Islands chains, Chinese fishing fleets, conspicuously protected by Chinese maritime border forces, now seem set on asserting a unique international "right" - to fish where they like. In the latest incident involving Indonesia, the Chinese foreign ministry asserted that the fishermen were working in their "traditional" fishing grounds. Presumably this means that they have the right to enter and grab resources in the territorial waters of its southern neighbours.

Yet China concedes that Indonesia's Natuna islands and nearby seas are not within its nine-dash border. So why did a Chinese coastguard ship intervene when Indonesia attempted to impound a trawler, the Kway Fey, that was fishing illegally in the Natuna Sea? According to an Indonesian spokesman, the Chinese vessel rammed the trawler, allowing it to break free and escape. In response to the incident, the Indonesian navy has decided to send larger and better armed ships to back up its fisheries patrol boats.