China moves controversial oil rig closer to Vietnam coast in disputed South China Sea
Controversial drilling platform now located where the two states' exclusive zones overlap
China has moved an oil rig at the centre of last year's violent dispute with Vietnam closer to the latter's coast in the disputed South China Sea, weeks ahead of the first visit by a top Vietnamese leader to the United States.
The move came after Beijing said it was close to setting up new outposts in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia as it nears the completion of its land reclamation in the South China Sea.
China claims most of the sea, through which US$5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes each year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
Beijing's deployment of the rig last year in what Vietnam called its exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf, about 120 nautical miles off its coast, led to the worst breakdown in relations since a brief border war in 1979.
Vietnam's people remain embittered over a perceived history of Chinese bullying and territorial claims in the South China Sea, although China has said the rig was operating within its waters.
The rig is now in an area where Vietnam's and China's exclusive economic zones overlap, but further away than last year, said Le Hong Hiep, a visiting fellow at Singapore's Institute of South East Asian Studies.
China's Maritime Safety Administration on Thursday said the "Haiyang Shiyou 981" rig would carry out "ocean drilling operations" 75 nautical miles south of Sanya on Hainan island.
Experts estimate the drilling site is about 167km east of the Vietnam coast. The US$1 billion rig would remain there until August 20, the administration said.
Vietnam's maritime authorities were monitoring the rig's placement, the state-controlled newspaper reported.
The movement comes weeks before Vietnam's top leader Nguyen Phu Trong is expected to visit Washington - the first such trip by a general secretary of the nation's Communist Party.
Le Hong Hiep believed Hanoi would not protest against the rig movement as strongly as it did last year if Beijing said the rig was placed within an exclusive economic zone claimed from Hainan rather than one from the disputed Paracel Islands.
Vietnam and China agreed on an equal split of the maritime boundary of the Gulf of Tonkin in 2000 but have yet to agree on demarcating waters further south, near the rig's present site.
