China may convert more navy ships into patrol vessels. -- PHOTO: AFP
BEIJING - CHINA may convert more navy ships into patrol vessels, state media said on Thursday, as it seeks to extend its reach over disputed South China Sea islands that straddle key Asian shipping lanes.
The report comes less than two weeks after Chinese boats jostled with a US naval ocean surveillance vessel that Beijing said was conducting an illegal survey in its waters.
SPRATLY ISLANDS DISPUTE
The Spratlys are claimed by China, as well as in full or in part by Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
Several of them have moved to bolster their own claims recently.
The shortest route between the Pacific and Indian oceans, the South China Sea has some of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Over half the globe's oil tanker traffic passes through the sea, which is also said to hold valuable fishing grounds, and as-yet unexploited oil and natural gas fields.
The United States assigned an escort to its naval survey vessel Impeccable, which was harassed by five Chinese boats earlier this month in waters that China claims as its exclusive economic zone.
'China will make the best use of its (retired) naval ships and may also build more fishery patrol ships, depending on the need,' Wu Zhuang, director of the Administration of Fishery and Fishing Harbour Supervision of the South China Sea, told the China Daily. It did not say if the boats would be armed.
Beijing's military build-up has contributed to a sense of unease in parts of Asia, especially Taiwan, a self-ruled island China claims as its own and which it has vowed to bring under mainland control, by force if necessary.
Control of the South China Sea and access to the Straits of Malacca is crucial to China's plans should war ever break out with Taiwan.
China, in the middle of an ambitious naval modernisation plan, earlier this week sent its largest fishery patrol ship, the Yuzheng 311, to the waters around the Spratly Islands, a cluster of islets and atolls that lie north of Borneo island, an area rich in fishing and with significant oil and gas deposits.
'Faced with a growing amount of illegal fishing and other countries' unfounded territorial claims of islands in China's exclusive economic zone, it has become necessary to step up the fishery administration's patrols to protect China's rights and interests,' the China Daily quoted Mr Wu as saying. -- REUTERS
