Vietnam demands Chinese ship leave disputed waters as end of fishing ban threatens to inflame tensions
- Vietnam protests against ‘repeated Chinese violations’ from surveyors as fishing fleets head for contested waters around the Paracel Islands and the Scarborough Shoal
- Presence of survey vessel in oil-rich waters has already triggered a month-long stand-off between the two sides
Vietnam repeated its demand that a Chinese survey ship and its escorts leave contested waters in the South China Sea as Beijing’s lifting of a ban on fishing in the area threatened to raise tensions further.
The presence of Haiyang Dizhi 8 (which means Marine Geology 8) and a coast guard escort in the Vietnamese-controlled waters over the past month has already caused the most protracted standoff between the two countries in five years.
Its return to the waters around Vanguard bank on Thursday – following a brief departure for Chinese controlled waters – had already risked inflaming the situation.
“Vietnam has made contact with China to protest its repeated violations and demanded that China withdraw the vessel group from Vietnamese waters,” Le Thi Thu Hang, a spokeswoman for the country’s foreign ministry, said on Friday.
The decision on Friday to lift the annual fishing ban in parts of the South China Sea – which means hundreds of fishing vessels from southern China are likely to head for the Gulf of Tonkin and contested waters around the Paracel Islands and Scarborough Shoal – increases the risk of further confrontation .
The fishing ban had been in place since May and ended at noon on Friday, prompting grand ceremonies along the coast of southern China to mark the departure of the fleets.