In 1832 the Emperor Minh-Mang sent labor and materials by state boats to build a pagoda on a rock called the Ban-Na Rock in the Archipelago. Near the pagoda was erected a stone column to commemorate its foundation.

It is not only the documents of the old court of Viet-Nam that attest to the sovereignty of Viet-Nam over the isles of the Paracels. Numerous writings by missionaries, explorers, and French sailors also bore witness to this sovereignty. In his work entitled, History and Description of the Religion, Customs, and Morals of all Peoples, published in 1838, Monseigneur Taberd wrote as follows: "We shall not embark on enumeraitng the main islands, dependencies of Cochinchina (the name given to the territory formed by the south and a part of the center of Viet-Nam at that time); we shall limit ourselves to remarking that for more than 34 years the archipelago of the Paracels, called by the Annamites (Vietnamese of Central Viet-Nam) 'Cat Vang' or 'Hoang-Sa' (yellow sand), a maze of little rocky islands and sandbanks, feared with good reason by navigators, has been occupied by the people of Cochinchina."

J. B. Chaigneau (1769-1825) in his Memoires sur la Cochinchine defines Cochinchina as the territory formed by Cochinchina proper .. and the archipelago of the Paracels, composed of uninhabited islands, reefs and rocks. The book also mentions the official annexation of the archipelago by Emperor Gia-Long in 1816.

During the French colonial period, the Governor General of Indochina by means of Decree No. 156/SC of June 15, 1932, established the Hoang-Sa Archipelago as an administrative unit within the province of Thua Thien, Central Viet-Nam. This was eventually confirmed by Emperor Bao Dai's Ordinance No. 10 of March 30, 1938.

On May 5, 1939, the Governor General of Indochina again delineated the administrative limits of the Hoang-Sa group, under what was known as the "Delegation Administrative du Croissant et Dependances”.

In 1939, the Japanese, who needed strategic bases in the Pacific with a view to an approaching onslaught, quite simply claimed the Paracels Islands and in fact occupied them at the time of their entry into the war on the side of the Axis powers. The Paracels thus remained under Japanese occupation until the end of the war in 1945.

Under Viet-Nam's first republic, the President of the Republic on July 13, 1961, issued Decree No. 174-NK making the Hoang-Sa Archipelago a part of the province of Quang Nam, instead of Thua Thien, and establishing the village of Dinh Hai as part of the district of Hao Vang, Central Viet-Nam.

Under Viet-Nam's second republic, the village of Dinh Hai was merged with the village of Hoa Long, of the same district of Hao Vang (province of Quang Nam) by virtue of Decree No. 709-BNV/HC of October 21, 1969, by the Prime Minister.

All these acts to assert and exercise Vietnamese sovereignty over the Paracels were not challenged by any country, including Communist China.

Under international law, the Chinese had already renounced their claim to these islands a long time ago.

In the late 1800's, there were a number of shipwrecks on the outlying reefs of the Paracels. The shipwrecks in question gave rise to a number of disputes which involved the problem of sovereignty over the Paracels Archipelago.

Two of the shipwrecked vessels, the Bellona (wrecked in 1895 on the north reef) and the Imezi Maru (wrecked in 1896 on the Amphitrite) were carrying cargoes of copper insured by British companies.

After a vain attempt to salvage the wrecks, they were abandoned. The insurance companies provoked an intervention by the British Consul in Hoi-Hao, who tried to hold the Chinese local authorities responsible for the shipwrecks. The Chinese authorities declined all responsibility, maintaining that the Paracels did not belong to China, and that the islands were not attached to any part of Hainan, thereby implicity throwing back the responsibility onto the Indochinese authorities.

Whereas the Chinese had renounced all claims to these islands, the Vietnamese, on the other hand, have repeatedly made it clear that these islands belong to Viet-Nam.

At the San Francisco Peace Conference of 1951, Viet-Nam again reaffirmed her rights over the Paracels. The head of the Vietnamese Delegation to the San Francisco Peace Conference, Mr. Tran-van-Huu, made the following statement which could hardly be more specific:

"And as we must frankly make use of any opportunity to stifle the germs of discord, we declare our rights over the Spratley and Paracels Islands, which from time immemorial have formed part of Viet-Nam."

The statement, made on September 7, 1951, raised no objections on the part of the delegations of the 51 powers attending the Peace Conference.

From the point of view of actual possession and administration, the Vietnamese authorities have consistently stationed troops and exercised administrative control over these archipelagos, and the Vietnamese navy has regularly patroled and supervised navigational security in the area.

Before the attack by the Communist Chinese forces, the Vietnamese had a meterological station and a company of regional forces on the island of Pattle and a platoon on Money and Roberts Islands.

In view of all the precise facts listed above, the sudden challenge by Communist China of the Republic of Viet-Nam's sovereignty over the Paracels Archipelago and its violation of the Republic of Viet-Nam's sovereignty are intolerable.

As a small nation unjustly attacked by a big military power, the Republic of Viet-Nam appeals to all justice and peace-loving peoples of the world to resolutely condemn the brutal acts of war by Communist China against an independent and sovereign nation so as to compel Communist China to immediately desist from its dangerous course of action.

ARTICLE FROM THE PUBLICATION, "PROBLEMS OF COMMUNISM-", MAYJUNE 1973, ENTITLED, "WEST SIBERIA: THE QUEST FOR ENERGY," BY JOHN P. HARDT, SENIOR SPECIALIST IN SOVIET ECONOMICS AT THE CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE, U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Rapid development and qualitative improvement of fuel and energy resources are important requisites of the current and long-term development of the Soviet economy. In the USSR-as in the developed West-petroleum and natural gas have won favor as the preferred contemporary energy sources, having displaced coal, wood and peat, and not yet being seriously challenged by atomic power. In emphasizing exploitation of domestic oil and gas resources, the Soviet planners have accorded particular importance to development of the fields of West Siberia. The West Siberian complex-with related transmission, transportation and processing facilities-figures as one of the major capital investment efforts of the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75), although serious development of the region actually began during the previous plan period (1966-70). The Soviet government has publicly committed itself to this massive and-as we shall see-risky project in an attempt to create an important new regional industrial complex and to help meet expanding domestic and export requirements for oil and gas. Prospects for the ambitious undertaking depend not only on Soviet success in overcoming the very real risks involved but also on the favorable resolution of a series of critical political issues which affect the West Siberian venture in a major wayranging from resource-allocation priorities and regional planning techniques to attitudes toward the role of foreign trade and credits in Soviet development.

There is an apparent correlation between the performance of a modern industrial economy and the level of its energy supplies. Moreover, improvement in labor productivity and capital-output ratios such as the Soviet leaders seek to achieve requires increased availability and expenditure of energy. Finally, the decision to expand private ownership of motor vehicles in the USSR will have its desired incentive effect only if there is adequate fuel to run the new autos. The Soviet planners evidenced an awareness of these linkages in the 1971-75 Plan,2 which targets a 39-percent increase in national income to be fueled by an increase of 33.7 percent in annual energy output by 1975 (as compared to 1970). Petroleum and natural gas are to provide the lion's share of the additional energy for Soviet domestic and export needs, as can be seen from the accompanying diagram on page 26.

Beyond its immediate impact on Soviet domestic economic performance, oil and gas production also has important foreign-trade ramifications. First, these commodities are an important component of Soviet trade with the developed West, comprising 29 percent of exports in this direction during 1971. Future expansion of commercial relations, especially with the United States, depends on substantial increases in exports of petroleum and natural gas. Second, these commodities also figure importantly in economic relations between the USSR and Eastern Europe. In particular, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary have substantial requirements for Soviet oil and gas, and future demand is likely to increase exponentially. The USSR must meet these needs or run the risk of seeing its East European allies turn to Middle Eastern or other fuel sources, and of thereby losing an important level by which is can control the area.

1 For example, in 1971 Soviet gross national product (GNP) was 548.6 billion dollars and primary energy of the USSR was the equivalent of 1,291 million metric tons of coal, whereas GNP in the United States was 1,000.4 billion dollars and primary energy was the equivalent of 2,130 million metric tons of coal. See Peter G. Peterson, US-Soviet Commercial Relationships in a New Era, US Department of Commerce, Washington, DC, August 1972, Annex A. p. 35.

2 N. K. Baibakov, Ed., Gosudarstvennyi piatiletnii plan razvitiia narodnovo khoziaistva SSSR na 1971-1975 (State Five-Year Plan for the Development of the USSR National Economy in 1971-75), Moscow, Izdatelstvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1972, pp. 23 and 98. 3 Peterson, op. cit., Annex B, p. 14.

• For purposes of comparability, Soviet economists convert physical output of various energy sources into units of "conventional fuel" (uslovnoe toplivo), measured in metric tons containing 7,000 kilocalories.

SOURCE: N. K. Baibakov, Ed., Gosudarstvennyi piatiletnil plan razvitiia narodnovo khoziaistva SSSR na 1971-1975 gody (State Five-Year Plan for the Development of the USSR National Economy In 1971-1975), Moscow, Izdatelstvo politicheskol literatury, 1972, p. 98.

32-484 O-74-20

THE WAGER ON WEST SIBERIA

The Soviet stake in rapid development of domestic oil and gas production is thus high, and the central role of the West Siberian project in these plans is readily apparent. Two-thirds of the increase in Soviet petroleum output during 1971-75 is scheduled to come from the West Siberian fields, and the USSR Minister of Petroleum Industry, V. D. Shashin, expects the region to account for 75 to 80 percent of incremental output for the 1970's as a whole." Siberian natural gas deposits have a similar pivotal role in Soviet plans for that energy source. West Siberian gas output, which amounted to 318 billion cubic feet in 1970, is expected to rise to 4.6 trillion cubic feet per year by 1975. In that year, Tyumen Province in West Siberia is expected to be the leading producer of both oil and gas among all Soviet provinces.

In attempting to assess the prospects for West Siberian development, one must begin with a clear understanding of the risks involved-risks which have prompted one observer, Robert Campbell, to term the whole undertaking a "desperate gamble." Elsewhere, Campbell noted:

The important issue is how costly it will be to keep oil and gas output in the new areas of Western Siberia growing. On the surface there is complete official optimism on this score, but one can't help having doubts because of the difficult conditions and the fact that the Ministry officials seem always to have been much less enthusiastic about the potential of the region than is the party.

8

A number of factors highlight this uncertainty. In the first place, Soviet claims of "proven" or "explored" reserves of these resources in West Siberia must be carefully scrutinized. While there seems to be little question of the existence of abundant reserves of natural gas, confusion over the definition of "proven" or "explored" resources complicates planning and investment decision. The extent of oil reserves is still more problematic. An apparent shift in the definition of "proven" reserves to include those which are only "probable" by Western standards (and, for that matter, by former Soviet usage) has an ominous ring to those familiar with Soviet statistical legerdemain. To paraphrase Khrushchev (from his criticism of bloated agricultural statistics), the USSR cannot fire its diesels with statistics. Some Soviet geologists appear to buttress their claims concerning Siberian reserves with new, unproven geological theories evocative of Trofim Lysenko's ill-founded "solution of the grain problem." "1

10

When reading Soviet estimates of West Siberian reserves, one should also recall that in 1970 the Japanese were apparently discouraged from participating in the exploitation of natural gas in Northern Sakhalin when the USSR revised downward earlier optimistic estimates of "proven" reserves on the island.1 An ironic sequel to this episode occurred in November 1972 when a Soviet proposal for Japanese participation in the exploitation of gas deposits in the Viliuiskoe oil field near Yakutsk-offered as a substitute for the Sakhalin project-floun

Balbakov, op. cit., p. 258.

5 Oil and Gas Journal (Tulsa, Oklahoma), Aug. 24, 1970, p. 128.

For Soviet predictions concerning West Siberia and Tyumen Province, see Ekonomicheskaia gazeta (Moscow), No. 8, February 1973, p. 2; Pravda (Moscow), July 11, 1971; Sovetskaia Rossiia (Moscow). Dec. 9, 1971; Gazovoe delo (Moscow), No. 12, 1972, p. 4: and Planovoe khoziaistvo (Moscow), No. 4, 1973. Already in 1973, Tyumen Province is expected to become the leading producer of petroleum (see Ekonimicheskaia gazeta [Moscow], No. 5, January 1973, p. 1).

7 See his contribution to Changing National Priorities, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Economic Priorities of the Joint Economic Committee. US Congress, June 1970, Part 2, Washington, DC. US Government Printing Office. It was noted that the Middle Ob fields are noncommercial by standards on the Alaskan North Slope. The best Tyumen wells reportedly produce only 300 tons or 2,190 barrels a day; a marginal North Slope well will produce about 2,600 barrels a day, and an average well is expected to flow 10,000 to 15,000 barrels daily.

8 ASTE Bulletin (Washington), Fall 1970, p. 11.

Neftianoe khoziaistvo (Moscow), No. 3, 1971, pp. 1-62 and N. S. Lvov, Resursi prirodnovo gaza SSSR (Resources of Natural Gas in the USSR), Moscow, Nedra, 1969, pp. 33. 36.

10 For different Soviet views on this matter, see M. M. Brenner, "On Proportions in the Petroleum Extraction Industry and the Method for Their Determination," Geologiia nefti i gaza (Moscow), No. 11. 1968; and F. F. Dunaev, et al., Problema opredeleniia ratsionalnykh sootnoshenii mezhdu zapasami i dobychei nefti (The Problem of Determining the Efficient Correlations Between Oil Reserves and Output), Moscow. VNIIOENG, 1967.

11 See for example Academician A. Sidorenko of the USSR Ministry of Geology. "Oil Riches In the Service of the Economy," Pravda Feb. 25, 1971. Cf. F. G. Gurari, "Oil and Gas in West Siberia: Prospects. Problems," Priroda (Moscow). No. 1, 1971, pp. 16–23. 12 Kyodo News Service from Tokyo. Feb. 18, 1970: Oil and Gas Journal, March 1970, p. 26; and Kiichi Saeki, "Toward Japanese Cooperation in Siberian Development," Problems of Communism (Washington), May-June 1972, pp. 8-9.