Vietnam accuses Chinese ships of ramping up South China Sea tensions
- Hanoi says Beijing’s survey and coastguard vessels are widening their activities in disputed, energy-rich waters
Vietnam accused a Chinese oil-surveying vessel and coastguard escorts of territorial violations by widening their activities after entering the country’s exclusive economic zone and operating within offshore blocks for three months.
At least two China Coast Guard ships further south meanwhile have in recent days manoeuvred around a Singaporean-flagged support vessel in an oil block operated by Russia’s state-owned Rosneft Oil, the data shows.
“The Chinese survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 and its escort vessels continue, and expand their operations within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf, thus seriously violating Vietnam’s sovereign rights,” Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said in Hanoi on Thursday.
Vietnam, which shares a long border with its fellow communist country, stands virtually alone in the region as it pushes back against Beijing amid territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a region containing unexploited hydrocarbons that the US says could be worth US$2.5 trillion.
