Indonesia Drives Out China Coast Guard Again in Disputed Sea

(Bloomberg) -- Indonesia’s Maritime Security Agency said it intercepted and drove out a China Coast Guard ship that entered the Southeast Asian country’s territory for the second time in a week. 

The agency, known as Bakamla, sent a patrol boat to make contact with the Chinese vessel, which did not respond, it said in a statement. The vessel went on instead to disrupt survey activities being carried out by a unit of Indonesia’s state-run oil and gas company PT Pertamina. 

An Indonesian warship joined the maritime agency to shadow the Chinese vessel before it left Indonesian territory, Bakamla said. The encounters happened in the resource-rich waters around Natuna Islands on the edge of the South China Sea, which Indonesia says is part of its exclusive economic zone that China also claims. 

The incursions will be an early test for new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto who wants to maintain a non-aligned stance in foreign policy, saying the country would be “friends with all” and put its interests first. Prabowo, a former defense minister, is expected to visit Beijing next month in what would be one of his first trips as president.

“China’s Coast Guard ships carry out routine patrols in waters under China’s jurisdiction in accordance with international law and domestic law,” a foreign ministry spokesperson said in a Thursday briefing in Beijing. “China is willing to strengthen communication and consultation with Indonesia through diplomatic channels to properly handle maritime issues between the two countries.” 

The South China Sea is a critical artery for global trade, including about 37% of the world’s maritime crude. Beijing has laid claim to a vast swath of the waters, based on a vague 1940s map that has broadly been rejected by other nations and a United Nations tribunal. 

To assert its expansive claims, China has utilized a maritime militia of fishing fleets and coast guard vessels to swarm resource-rich waters, effectively blocking other claimant nations like the Philippines and Vietnam from tapping the deposits beneath the surface. 

Thursday’s morning encounter is the second reported incursion in four days by the China Coast Guard ship in the North Natuna Sea — the name Indonesia uses for the waters it asserts sovereignty over. According to Bakamla, when its patrol tried to communicate via radio with the Chinese ship on Monday, the China Coast Guard insisted the area was part of Beijing’s jurisdiction.

Since then, Indonesia has intensified sea and air patrols in North Natuna waters, Bakamla Colonel Rudi Endratmoko said in a text message on Thursday. The Indonesian Navy is also using drones and unmanned aircraft, he added. 

(Updates with comment from China’s foreign ministry in fifth paragraph)

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