Vietnam accuses Chinese ships
Two Chinese fishing vessels cut cables of a Vietnamese vessel doing seismic oil exploration work in the South China Sea, the state-run Vietnam Oil & Gas Group said on Monday amid mounting regional concern about new Chinese regulations that appear to authorize its police to board foreign ships around disputed islands in the area, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The Vietnamese ship, the Binh Minh 02 Ship, was conducting a seismic survey 43 miles southeast of Con Co Island off Vietnam's Quang Tri province when the Chinese vessels ran across its cables and cut them on Friday, according toPham Viet Dung, deputy head of the exploration division of the company, also known as PetroVietnam.
It was the latest in a string of incidents in the contested and potentially resource-rich waters of the South China Sea and the East China Sea that have heightened regional concerns about China's escalating military power, prompting the U.S. government to shore up defense ties with old allies and build closer military relations with new partners, including Vietnam.
"PetroVietnam strongly protests the violations of the Chinese fishing vessels and has requested the [Vietnamese] authorities to demand the Chinese side to educate their citizens to respect Vietnam's maritime sovereignty," Mr. Dung said in a statement posted on PetroVietnam's website.
The statement said PetroVietnam has repaired the cables and resumed seismic work on Saturday. In May last year, the Vietnamese government also accused Chinese vessels of harassing fishermen and cutting the cables of the Binh Minh 02 Ship while doing seismic oil exploration work offshore Vietnam.
Chinese officials denied any wrongdoing in that incident, and accused Vietnam of "seriously infringing" on China's sovereignty and maritime interests.
The territorial disputes in the South China Sea were a major issue at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia last month, where U.S. President Barack Obama backed an effort by many of the group's members to negotiate a regional agreement on the matter with China.
China has repeatedly warned the U.S. not to interfere in the territorial disputes, which Beijing says should be settled bilaterally between China and each of the other claimants—Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Some of China's neighbors were also angered last month by a map printed in new Chinese passports which appeared to depict as part of Chinese territory waters and islands also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as two inland areas also claimed by India.
The foreign ministries of China and Vietnam didn't respond to requests to comment on the latest incident Monday.
Earlier, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, declined to elaborate on reports in state media last week that authorities on the southern Chinese island of Hainan had authorized local police to board and search foreign vessels in what China sees as its territorial waters under new rules that come into effect on Jan. 1.
Mr. Hong referred to his remarks at a similar briefing last week when he said China's marine management complied with domestic and international law, adding: "The Chinese side attaches great importance to protecting freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. There is currently no problem in this respect."
The state-run Xinhua news agency said the new rules, approved by Hainan's local legislature last Tuesday, authorized police to board foreign vessels in circumstances that included stopping or anchoring in China's territorial waters, entering Chinese ports without approval, and illegally landing on islands administered by Hainan.
Singapore expressed concern over the reported regulations Monday and said it was closely monitoring the situation. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said, "We urge all parties to the territorial disputes in the South China Sea to refrain from provocative behavior, and to fully implement" the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea—a nonbinding deal reached in 2002 to prevent disputes over the sea from escalating. It called on countries to "respect the accepted principles of international law," including the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty that China has ratified.
The Philippines Foreign Ministry on Saturday asked China to clarify and the reported regulationssuggested that the new rules, as reported by Chinese state media, represented a violation of international law.
"If media reports are accurate, this planned action by China is illegal and will validate the continuous and repeated pronouncements by the Philippines that China's claim of indisputable sovereignty over virtually the entire South China Sea is not only an excessive claim but a threat to all countries," the statement said.
Analysts say the rules appear to apply only to the 12 nautical miles of territorial waters around every island China claims, but it is unclear what they will mean in practice. They see them as the latest in a series of recent measures designed to establish de facto control of the territory that China claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea.
