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.