Beijing’s decision to send its largest coastguard vessels to patrol Indonesia’s Natuna Islands is a bid to “send a signal” to the region as it becomes increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, said regional maritime experts.
Last week, reports citing ship tracking data said the Chinese coastguard’s leading ship had been sailing the waters around the Natunas, located north of Indonesia’s province of Riau Islands.
The CCG 5901, the world’s largest coastguard vessel, reportedly left China’s Sanya port in Hainan Island on December 16 and arrived in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on December 30, according to BenarNews and Radio Free Asia citing ship tracker Marine Traffic.
In September, a patrol boat operated by the CCG was also detected intruding in the Natuna waters and had allegedly intimidated Indonesian fishermen. While the incident made headlines in local media, Jakarta did not file a diplomatic protest to Beijing, with a Foreign Ministry spokesperson telling reporters at that time that “foreign vessels are allowed to pass” on a coastal country’s EEZ.
In 2017, Indonesia renamed the northern reaches of its EEZ in the South China Sea as the North Natuna Sea, as part of pushback against Beijing’s maritime territorial ambitions.
China has not claimed the Natunas but said it has fishing rights within its self-proclaimed “nine-dash line”, which was in 2016 ruled unlawful under international law by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, a ruling that Beijing has refused to recognise.