Posted on 01/15/2006 2:49:36 PM PST by Lessismore
SPRATLY ISLANDS--Flying westward about an hour off Palawan Island in the Philippines, you come to a large, rusting ship lying grounded on a sandbank in the South China Sea.
The ship is derelict, but Filipino soldiers stand guard, making a public show that this part of the hotly disputed Spratly Islands is Philippine territory.
Ten minutes later, on another sandbank, white-walled, red-roofed buildings appear. This time the structures are Chinese, and a Chinese warship is stationed nearby.
"Previously, an armed helicopter was on the warship," said the pilot of a Philippine air force plane that took journalists over the territory. "But we have't seen it recently."
Just 20 minutes farther, and the plane is over islands controlled by Vietnam.
The Spratly Islands, also known as Nansha Islands, have been called the powder keg of Southeast Asia. In addition to the Philippines, China and Vietnam, three others stake a claim to the area--Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
The area is thought to be one of the world's greatest potential sources of oil, but so far, no real exploration has been carried out.
In 1988, more than 100 troops were killed when China and Vietnam clashed over who would control the islands. Since then, skirmishes have taken place intermittently.
However, things appear to be looking up for the territory.
On Nov. 19, officials gathered to celebrate the arrival of a Chinese research ship at a port in Batangas, south of Manila. The ceremony marked the first joint exploration of the Spratlys carried out by China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
The 931-ton sea-bed geology research ship Nanhai 502, operated by the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), had navigated a total of about 10,000 kilometers around the islands, spending three months to check reserves of oil and natural gas there.
The data gathered by the ship was processed in Vietnam and analyzed in the Philippines. Researchers from all three countries joined the voyage.
"The South China Sea has changed to a sea for peace, cooperation and prosperity," said CNOOC Vice President Zhu Weilin, who traveled from Beijing to attend the ceremony. His remark received the biggest applause of the day.
The joint exploration project was prompted by the rising price of crude oil and increasing demand for the commodity. The sea around the Spratly Islands is believed to offer a potential solution to East Asia's dependence on the Middle East for oil. However, until now, conflict between the countries staking claims to the area has stalled full-scale exploration.
The three countries taking part in the Nanhai 502's voyage have only put their territorial concerns to one side for the moment. They have not yet agreed on how to split the oil--if they should find any.
But Eduardo Manalac, president and CEO of the Philippine National Oil Co., is optimistic. Manalac helped bring about the joint exploration by convincing the three countries to participate.
"At present, it is important to find how much oil is there. If we find that there is oil and we can become richer with it, we will be able to solve our conflicts," he said.
Far away from the Spratlys, in thick jungle about a one-hour drive west of Kanchanaburi in western Thailand, work to expand a relay station for natural gas pipelines is now underway. The pipelines link a gas field off the coast of Myanmar with Thailand. It was finished in 1998, and now supplies about 20 percent of gas consumed in Thailand.
Thailand depends on its neighbors not only for natural gas but also for electricity. A hydroelectric power plant in Laos now supplies the country with electricity, and similar projects are planned in Myanmar and Cambodia. If the projects go ahead, the three countries will provide about a third of all Thailand's electricity.
"It is unnerving for us to depend on neighboring countries for natural resources," said Songpope Polachan, executive director of the Thai Energy Ministry's Policy and Strategy Coordination Office.
"But it will be better than the current situation, in which we depend on the Middle East for most of our resources for crude oil.
"We (Thailand and its neighboring countries) are all in the same boat."
Thailand and Myanmar have had border clashes almost every year, but the supply of natural gas continues, uninterrupted.
Japan and China, which are now at odds over the development of gas fields in the East China Sea, have a common problem--the so-called Asian Premium.
Oil-producing countries in the Middle East set higher prices for oil for their East Asian customers than for the United States and Europe. The Middle Eastern countries have learned to capitalize on the heavy dependence of East Asia, which does not have its own large oil reserves.
Asian countries paid an average of $1.02 more a barrel during the past 13 years, totaling as much as 900 billion yen a year.
The Asian Premium is a serious issue, especially for Japan, which is the largest oil importer in Asia, and for China, which is forecast to outpace Japan in oil imports in the near future.
"In order to abolish the premium, Asian countries have to band together in negotiations with producing countries on prices," said Yoshiki Ogawa, professor of energy economy at Toyo University.
"The Asian countries should cooperate to secure new oil suppliers and alternative resources. There will be no other way, except using cooperation as a trump card."
We should impeach the President...
We could've invaded a group of barely populated islands half way the other way around the world for oil. Plus, no nasty terrorists.
How could he have overlooked this? /sarcasm
Funny.
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