JAKARTA, May 1 — Indonesia's Parliament is set to agree next week to ratify an agreement made with Vietnam that sets the boundaries of their exclusive economic zones in the contested South China Sea, a lawmaker said today.
The South China Sea is a strategic waterway that has been a source of tension between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours, disrupting fishing and energy exploration in the area.
Nico Siahaan, a lawmaker in the Parliamentary commission overseeing the agreement, told Reuters that the Parliament and the government would formally agree to ratify it on Monday (May 5), with the actual ratification set for that week or the following week.
The agreement, signed in 2022 after over a decade of negotiations, determines the coordinates of the two nations' EEZs at sea. The Vietnamese Parliament also needs to ratify the deal.
Indonesia hopes it can reduce encroachments by Vietnamese fishermen in its waters, a frequent source of tension.
Hikmahanto Juwana, an Indonesian international law expert who was consulted by the Parliament last week, told Reuters today that the agreement means the two countries are ignoring China's claims in the sea.
China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including parts of the exclusive economic zones of Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and waters off Indonesia's Natuna Islands.
In 2016, an international arbitral tribunal ruled that China's claims have no basis under international law. China does not recognise the ruling, and insists it operates lawfully in its territory.
Yesterday, Indonesia's Deputy Foreign Minister Arif Havas Oegroseno told Reuters that the agreement would provide legal boundaries for fishermen and clearly define relations between the two countries at sea.
"To Indonesia, as an archipelago with a lot of neighbours, ideally, sea borders are done. So we have a legal certainty: where we can make patrols, drill oil," he said.
Indonesia's signing of a maritime deal with China last year sparked controversy, with analysts saying it could be interpreted as a change in Jakarta's long-held stance as a non-claimant state in the South China Sea.
Indonesia's Foreign Ministry has repeatedly said the country is a non-claimant state in the South China Sea and has no overlapping jurisdiction with China.
— Reuters
