China warned to stop drilling near Spratlys
China warned to stop drilling near Spratlys
HANOI (Reuter): Vietnam has called on Beijing to stop drilling
for oil close to the disputed Spratly islands, and its
coast guards have sent repeated warnings to Chinese vessels
nearby, the official Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said yesterday.
In an unusual disclosure of tension between the two communist
countries, VNA published extracts from a sternly worded letter
lodged with the Chinese embassy in Hanoi on March 10.
"The operation of the Chinese oil rig has seriously violated
Vietnam's sovereignty over its exclusive economic zone and
continental shelf," the letter said.
"Vietnam demands the Chinese side stop the operation of the
Kan Tan III oil rig and withdraw it from the exclusive zone and
the continental shelf of Vietnam."
VNA said the oil rig, tugboat and accompanying vessels moved
on March 7 into a South China Sea area 64.5 nautical miles off
Chan Nay Dong cape, halfway down the Vietnamese coast.
The area is close to the potentially oil-rich Spratly Islands
chain, of which China and Vietnam are among six regional
claimants.
VNA said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs arranged hasty
meetings with Chinese officials after the rig started drilling
and coast guards made repeated warnings to accompanying vessels.
"But Chinese ships ignored the warning and kept on drilling
operations," it said.
The protest brings a festering dispute between the two
countries over maritime sovereignty out into the open after
several years of careful maneuvering to settle the issue through
peaceful negotiation.
Warships from the two countries clashed briefly in the
Spratlys in the late 1980s.
But the two sides set up working groups to thrash out
competing land and sea border disputes -- which include competing
claims for the Paracel Islands archipelago -- after they
normalized relations in 1991.
The problem bubbled to the surface again last year when Hanoi
granted an oil exploration and production contract near the
Spratlys to the U.S. firm Conoco Inc., a unit of Dupont Co.
A month later, China announced that it was expanding the area
of sea under its jurisdiction by more than 2.5 million square
kilometers, and said the move ensured it abided by a United
Nations convention on maritime law.
Vietnam and China, although ideological allies, have a long
history of mutual suspicion.
Hanoi gave a low-key reaction last month to the death of
China's paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, who launched a war to
"teach Vietnam a lesson" for its 1978 invasion of Cambodia.
That conflict sparked a period of border hostilities lasting
through much of the next decade.