Chinese Cruise to Disputed Paracel Islands Angers Vietnam

BEIJING â€" To many Chinese, the voyage of the Coconut Fragrance Princess, the first cruise ship touring the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea as Chinese media reported, is about tourism: enjoying the azure water, sun and seafood of “China’s Maldives,” the announcers on Liaoning Satellite TV put it.

To many Vietnamese, who also claim the islands, the cruise isn’t about tourism but something more like imperialism: “China’s sending the cruise ship to the Paracels was the latest in a series of unilaterally provocative actions in the area,” the Thanh Nien News wrote last Saturday. (The newspaper is the flagship publication of the Vietnam National Youth Federation.)

China and Vietnam both claim the Paracels, which China has occupied since a brief war with South Vietnam in 1974. (Taiwan also claims the islands.) They are part of a larger territorial dispute in Southeast Asia, where China claims about 80 percent of the South China Sea and disputes ownership with half a dozen Asian nations, who also have some disputes among themselves. In recent years China has moved to reinforce its claims strongly calling its sovereignty over the area “indisputable,” as my colleague Jane Perlez has reported, angering its Asian neighbors who are responding with counter-claims.

All that makes the cruise, which departed Sunday, sensitive stuff. And it doesn’t appear to be an entirely ordinary voyage: for one, only Chinese citizens are allowed, Chinese media reported. Chinese citizens from the non-mainland China territories of Hong Kong and Macau, and Taiwanese, overseas Chinese and “foreign passport holders” were “politely refused” for the 4-day, 3-night cruise that cost between 6,000 and 10,000 renminbi ($1,000-1,600), the Chutianjin newspaper reported Tuesday, without offering an explanation. The report was also carried by Sina, a major news portal.

Then, of the 300-or-so passengers on board the Coconut Fragrance Princess, only about 100 were “ordinary tourists,” mostly company bosses, Chutianjin reported, from Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Shandong, Shanxi, Liaoning and Jiangsu provinces, and Beijing and Chongqing. About 200 were officials, mostly from Hainan Island, the province nearest to the Paracels. But everyone had to fill in a “People’s Republic of China Xisha Islands Tourism Application Form” (the Paracels are known as Xisha in Chinese, and Paracels or Hoang Sa in Vietnamese.) Two of the travelers were students, one from Peking University and one from the Capital Normal University, the report said.

Some other details about the voyage: only people who are not too fat, have normal mobility and are aged 18-60 could take part, Chinese media reported, without saying why.

If that excludes at least some elderly people, often prime cruise customers, they could perhaps take comfort from the fact that media reports didn’t make the ship sound too comfortable.

“Rooms sleep two to eight people, either with or without portholes, and all toilets are communal,” the china.com.cn Web site wrote. The ship is due to return to Hainan on Wednesday.

It’s not stopping at the administrative center of the islands on Yongxing Island (Woody Island in English,) according to reports in the Chinese media, but at two other isles: Yagong and Quanfu. Yagong Island is inhabited by fishermen and the travelers will be able to disembark and chat with them, while Quanfu Island is uninhabited, Chinese media reported. Calling at Yongxing Island “will have to wait until the Xisha Islands are increasingly opened up,” Chutianjin reported. (China has recently developed Yongxing Island quite extensively, and it has a landing strip for aircraft.)

How often will the cruises take place?

“Taking into consideration the Xisha’s natural environment, industry sources said cruises would be limited to two a month,” the Chutianjin wrote. “Not counting ship workers, about 400 people monthly from across China will be able to view the scenery of the Xisha. Taking into account that the wind blows in the winter and the waves are bigger then, the cruises might have to stop in October and resume again in January,” the report said.

Meanwhile, this is how Vietnam’s Thanh Nien News sees the Chinese presence in the Paracels and its cruises: “In 1974, taking advantage of the withdrawal of the American troops from the Vietnam War, China invaded the Paracel Islands. A brief but bloody naval battle with the forces of the then U.S.-backed Republic of Vietnam ensued. Vietnam’s behemoth northern neighbor has illegally occupied the islands ever since.”

“On April 5, Vietnam’s National Border Committee under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protested China’s plans to sail the cruise ship, saying that Vietnam has “incontestable” sovereignty over the Paracels and Spratlys (Truong Sa) islands,” it said.

“The cruise ship plans are against the spirit of the talks in which Beijing committed to fully follow the Declaration on the Conduct of the Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), the committee said in a statement. It demanded that China cancel such plans.”