evidence: South China Sea: Indonesia pledges to develop resource-rich Natuna Islands to secure maritime borders, boost unity - Indonesia sees developing the 27 islands as crucial to protecting its maritime borders in an area frequently visited by foreign vessels from China and Vietnam - Jakarta has sent two ministers to the islands to reassure their 81,000 residents and other Indonesian citizens that it is taking the matter seriously, despite a lack of action on the diplomatic front [...] Indonesia is to boost development in the resource-rich Natuna Islands in a bid to underline its sovereignty following visits by Chinese vessels to nearby waters. [...] Indonesia views itself as a non-claimant state in the South China Sea territorial disputes and the Natuna Islands themselves lie beyond the nine-dash line Beijing uses to claim more than 90 per cent of the sea. However, some of the waters to the north and northeast of the islands – in an area of Indonesia’s EEZ that Jakarta refers to as the North Natuna Sea – do fall within Beijing’s nine-dash line and are frequently visited by foreign vessels from both China and Vietnam.