Cancellation of trip to Vietnam due to anti-Chinese riots; How should the South China Sea dispute be resolved?

The headline news on today’s front page of the Straits Times is about the ongoing anti-chinese riot in Vietnam, in which some Singapore factories were targeted by mistake by the protestors. I am actually scheduled for a flight to Vietnam next week, but I guess given the unpredictable situation in Vietnam at the moment, it is best to call off the trip. I had arranged with a friend on a holiday trip to Vietnam way back in February. I am not sure whether he would still be going though, but he still seemed keen to make the trip if situation does not get out of hand. For me, my parents are firmly against taking any such risks, in case the situation escalates any further.

I haven’t been to Vietnam before, and frankly speaking, I am not sure what to look forward in my expedition there. I was thinking it was going to be more or less like Thailand, a little less developed than Singapore, and a lot more chaotic. But I was thinking of going with an open mind, and hoped to enjoy the food and the culture. I do have Vietnamese friends who graciously introduced to me the various places that I should visit when I get to Vietnam, and they were quick to alert me on the ongoing situation that is in Vietnam and warn me of safety concerns. I wonder whether it would really have been a problem for me though. For one, even though I am officially recognized as Chinese for my ethnicity in my identity card, I look somewhat different racially. People have said that I look Malay, Indonesian, or even Indian. I was thinking that if I was caught in the midst of anti-Chinese protestors in Vietnam, all I have to do is pretend that I am a Filipinos or something. I can easily concoct up a Filipino-sounding English accent that I believe is not easily distinguishable by others save the Filipinos themselves. I once made a politically incorrect joke with a friend that if Singapore was ever invaded by Japan again, and they were conducting an ethnic massacre of Singaporean Chinese, I would dress up and pretend that I am a Malay. My more mature and geopolitically knowledgeable friend told me that a Japanese invasion of Singapore is very unlikely given the different inward nationalistic policies that they now hold. By the way, I don’t hold the Japanese today to the war atrocities committed by those in their countries’ past. Moreover, I love Japanese culture, and I think well of Japanese people.

What do I think of the tension in the region around the South China Sea by regional powers over the Spratly and Paracel islands? It is clear-cut example of why most wars break out amongst civilizations – Over resource. In this case, the interests at stake are the possibility of energy resources like oil and hydrocarbon hidden in the seabed around the South China Sea. I have attended classes for international maritime law before, and the module involved examining the issues surrounding the South China Sea dispute. As far as I know, there has been no discovery of any actual oil resource in the region. The law professor suggested that one solution to mediate the tension is to form a joint committee amongst the regional powers that would promise to regulate the sharing of resources discovered from the South China Sea. There were talks in the class about how disputes could be brought to an international court of justice for resolution. Of course, the strongest military power of the region, China, would be apprehensive of allowing an international court to settle its territorial dispute interests. And it would be a question at the international court how normative rights of countries over territories ought to be conceived. Should it be based on historical claims of ownership, in whatever form such ownership takes, like fishing rights in the region? Should it be decided upon a convention like the United Nation Convention on Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulating different rights based on varying proximity to individual countries’ land borders? I think these principles make sense to me, although they can conflict on how these respective land rights should be determined. The point is that any of such subscription to a common understanding of resolution of land dispute would be a more peaceful way of resolving them over war. But I guess that any such consensus would be difficult to develop, and military resort is ultimately the last but most straightforward resort.

I wonder whether there can be peace in the world if the people who are in leadership are simply just more reasonable. It would be good if each and every country own at least one or more resource which it can use to trade for another resource which it does not have. Otherwise, it would be good if resource were distributed in an equitable fashion to meet the needs and wants of individual countries. I just think that the world would be a better place if people learn to care not just about their own interest, but of the interests of others as well. The more difficult problem would be that involving scarce resources such as oil. Every country wants it, but there is only so much that can go around. I am sure I am not the first one to think of this, but I believe that the best way to resolve this issue is to find ways to make our economies less dependent on oil, and rely on other forms of energy sources. Not that this is the silver pill though. Alternative energy resources may be scarce themselves, or result in their own problems, such as pollution or risk of permanent damage to the land around it as in nuclear. Is there a point to be made for population control? Such policies are controversial as well. I wonder whether the world would be a more peaceful place if humanity were to find a cheap to produce and plentiful source for energy, like in air or water. Well, there are more reasons for people to fight wars other than just over resources, some probably for quite inane reasons like religion or race. But I think it would certainly help to resolve the issues pertaining to resource scarcity.