Asia Security
Monitor
No. 95, September 10, 2004 Russia locked between China and Japan in energy disputes;
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August 26: International maritime watchdogs have raised a piracy alert for shipping in South-east Asian waters after armed raiders stormed two vessels near the island of Borneo in the South China Sea, reports the Straits Times. In both incidents, seven armed pirates took crew members as hostages and stole cash, equipment, and personal belongings. August 27: Naval officials have stated that the three-nation patrols from Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore of the piracy-prone Malacca Straits have reduced crime, amid reports that Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militants had plotted attacks in the Straits in the recent past, reports Channel News Asia. Captured operatives of the al-Qaeda offshoot Jemaah Islamiah had confessed to targeting the Malacca Straits - a crucial seaway, where half of the world’s oil supplies traverse and a third of global trade is carried. “Should a supertanker along the strait be sabotaged, especially near territorial waters, the economic and ecological fallout would be enormous,” Indonesian Vice Admiral Didik Herupurnomo stated. Attacks have been reduced from an average of nine a month to four, due to the three-nation patrol involving 17 warships. East Timor and Australia may be resolving a dispute over a seabed boundary that could be worth over $20 billion in oil, reports The Washington Times. Australia has refused to move the seabed border from the 15-year old boundary, which was drawn long before East Timor was a country. The existing line gives the bulk of the seabed to Australia, even though most of the oil fields are closer to East Timor. Yet if the line were to be drawn halfway between the two countries, 90% of the oil would be owned by East Timor, which could make a difference of $8 billion in revenues for the poor country. Now, after a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries, Australia is offering billions of dollars more in extra revenue for the gas extracted from the joint development zone in return for a commitment from East Timor not to challenge the existing boundary. East Timorese officials seem open to the compromise, although no dollar amount has been set. “By taking a hard line, Australia is in danger of creating a state that will be strategically and politically a risk and could well post security problems by becoming a base for international crime,” said George Quinn, the head of the South East Asian Center at Australian National University. September 1: Russia’s membership to the economic bloc of the Central Asian Cooperation Organization (CACO) has recently been approved by the four-member states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, reports the Asia Times. Prior to this decision, the CACO members made a deal with Japan to boost political and economic contacts under a new Central Asia-Japan agenda, that would give Tokyo a counter to Chinese and Russian clout in Eurasia. Moscow has recently favored building a Siberian oil pipeline to the Pacific part of Nakhodka, Japan. The decision to side with the Tokyo-backed route, instead of forging ahead with their original plans for a pipeline into China, was based on promises from Japan of up to $22 billion in investments. The pipeline to Japan would also allow for wider oil exportation, which would include various Asian countries, and the U.S. Choosing the Japanese pipeline could be viewed as a breach of trust in Beijing, as the construction of the pipeline that runs to China has been in discussion for years and was to be commissioned next year. |
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Copyright
© 2004, American Foreign Policy Council.
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