Beijing is increasing its pressure on the largest economy in Southeast Asia: China accuses the Indonesian government of violating its territorial waters in the South China Sea with test drilling for oil and gas.

Since the summer, the Indonesians have been exploring the seabed in their Exclusive Economic Zone near the Natuna Islands.

The concept of economic zones up to 200 nautical miles off the coast goes back to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) from 1982.

But here the Indonesian zone overlaps the southern tip of the huge sea area claimed by Beijing within its “nine dash line”, which is not internationally recognized.

Christoph Hein

Business correspondent for South Asia / Pacific based in Singapore.

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The shipping route to North Asia, through which around a third of world trade is carried out, leads along the remote islands. Indonesia had requested Noble Clyde Boudreaux from the American Noble Group to start drilling off Natuna at the end of July. China's first diplomatic protests were followed by the dispatch of ships by the Chinese coast guard. As a result, Chinese and Indonesian coastguard and naval vessels chased each other in the sea area. A detailed report by the Asia Maritime Security Initiative states: “Another Chinese ship was investigating the continental shelf of Malaysia at the same time, apparently in retaliation for new wells off Sabah.

Satellite imagery and commercial automatic identification system (AIS) data show several close encounters between the Chinese Coast Guard and the Indonesian Coast Guard and Navy, as well as a visit to a US aircraft carrier near the scene of the tug-of-war - but neither did not seem to have a major impact on the Chinese Coast Guard The American aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan passed the drilling site on its way from Singapore to the Philippines on September 25th at a distance of only seven nautical miles - a clear signal to Beijing as well as Jakarta.

Anyone who still drills for oil and gas

In June, the Russian Zarubezhneft had secured half of the Tuna gas field from British Premier Oil. The Russians are also drilling for oil and gas off Vietnam. The company is only interested in smaller deposits off the coast of Southeast Asia, said a spokesman: "Because there are political, economic and geopolitical risks, it is advisable to view every investment as a battle, to know exactly where we are and only then to move forward . “So far it is estimated that Tuna will offer around 100 million barrels (kegs) of gas. In the long term, Jakarta hopes to export the gas from here to Vietnam.

Despite the obvious disputes documented with satellite images, the government of the third largest democracy on earth does not officially want to speak of a conflict with the communists. In recent years Jakarta had tried to maintain a certain balance between the party dictatorship of China and the democracies of Japan and America. It is true that the Indonesians blew up Chinese fishing boats that deliberately penetrated their territorial waters to steal fish. At the same time, however, they were largely reluctant to openly criticize Beijing's conquest in the South China Sea in order not to mess with the major investor and most important trading partner. Among other things, China is building a railway line in Indonesia under the initiative of the New Silk Road and buying natural resources.

China has been increasing its activities around the Natuna Islands since 2019. They lie in the triangle formed by Malaysia and Singapore in the west, Brunei in the east and the Indonesian Java in the south. In May of last year, the Jakarta government wrote a letter to the United Nations against Beijing's unilateral territorial claims. The Indonesian government later rejected China's offer to negotiate. At the same time, Jakarta is expanding its military commitment to Natuna: a runway is being extended and a landing stage for submarines is to be built. Together with the American Navy, the Indonesians are also building a training center for the coast guard on one of the islands.

China is fighting several territorial conflicts around the South China Sea.

Brunei-Darussalam, Malaysia, Taiwan, especially Vietnam and the Philippines complain time and again about Beijing's advance.

“The procedure also confirms what many observers have long suspected: that the ongoing, but long stalled negotiations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on a code of conduct for the South China Sea are more of a diplomatic tool for Beijing to give time win as a real attempt to resolve the disputes fairly, ”criticizes Sebastian Strangio, who is responsible for Southeast Asia at The Diplomat analysis service.