China, Vietnam engage in new maritime dispute

China, Vietnam engage in new maritime dispute

HANOI (AFP): Vietnam has protested to China after Beijing
granted a U.S. oil company exploration rights in waters which
Hanoi claims as its exclusive economic zone, an official said
yesterday.

The Oct. 20 decision to grant Atlantic Richfield Corp (Arco)
oil and gas exploration rights could renew tensions between the
two countries.

Vietnam has sent a firm message to Beijing through "diplomatic
channels" protesting at the contract which allows Arco and state-
owned China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) to develop a
gasfield which partly overlaps Vietnamese territory, the official
said.

"We have to remind them: 'You can do whatever you want, but
only in your own waters'," said an official from the National
Border Committee and the Continental Shelf Committee of the
Marine Affairs Department.

He said the Arco concession extends 4.6 kilometers into
Vietnamese waters based on a median line calculated from the two
countries' baselines.

The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry has so far declined to issue
any official comment.

Eight months ago China sparked a diplomatic incident when it
set up an exploration platform in waters claimed by Vietnam. That
dispute, in which Vietnam's Association of Southeast Asian
Nations partners joined, ended when Beijing agreed to remove the
platform from the Kantan 3 gas field.

Both Kantan and the Arco fields lie in waters between China's
Hainan island and coastal Vietnam, which are not covered by
existing treaties or negotiations between the two countries.

"Pending negotiations we would like to see both sides pay due
respect to the median line in this area," the official said.

The disputed concession in the Ledong natural gasfield lies
close to the gas rich Yacheng field, where Arco and CNOOC are
building an offshore pipeline to feed energy-hungry China.

Earlier this week official Vietnamese newspapers accused China
of rewriting history to justify its maritime claims.

The Spratly islands, which the Vietnamese call Truong Sa, have
long been a simmering focus of dispute between China and Vietnam.

The islands in the South China Sea are also claimed wholly or
in part by Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

Vietnam and China have held regular ministerial-level talks on
the sovereignty question since 1993 but little progress has been
made.

Vietnam and China clashed twice over the Spratly islands, in
1988 and 1992. Although it is believed they sit on top of vast
reserves of oil and gas, their commercial potential has never
been confirmed.