A Chinese ship embroiled in a standoff with Vietnamese vessels last year has returned to waters near Vietnam, as the US accused China of pushing its presence in the South China Sea while other claimants are preoccupied with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vietnamese vessels last year spent months shadowing the Chinese Haiyang Dizhi 8 survey vessel in resource-rich waters that are a potential global flashpoint, as Washington challenges Beijing’s sweeping maritime claims.
The ship, which is used for offshore seismic surveys, yesterday appeared again 158km off Vietnam’s coast, within its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), flanked by at least one China Coast Guard vessel, according to data from Marine Traffic, a Web site that tracks shipping.
At least three Vietnamese vessels were moving with the Chinese ship, the data showed.
The presence of the Haiyang Dizhi 8 in Vietnam’s EEZ comes toward the scheduled end of a 15-day nationwide lockdown in Vietnam aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.
It also follows the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat near islands in the disputed waters this month, an act that drew a protest from Vietnam and accusations that China had violated its sovereignty and threatened the lives of its fishermen.
The US, which last month sent an aircraft carrier to the central Vietnamese port of Danang, said it was “seriously concerned” about China’s reported sinking of the vessel.
“We call on the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to remain focused on supporting international efforts to combat the global pandemic, and to stop exploiting the distraction or vulnerability of other states to expand its unlawful claims in the South China Sea,” the US Department of State said in a statement.
The Philippines, which also has disputed claims in the South China Sea, has raised its concerns too.
On Saturday, China’s Global Times, published by the official People’s Daily newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, said Vietnam had used the fishing boat incident to distract from its “ineptitude” in handling the coronavirus.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During the standoff last year, at least one China Coast Guard vessel spent weeks in waters close to an oil rig in a Vietnamese oil block, operated by Russia’s Rosneft, while the Haiyang Dizhi 8 conducted suspected oil exploration surveys in large expanses of Vietnam’s EEZ.
“The deployment of the vessel is Beijing’s move to once again baselessly assert its sovereignty in the South China Sea,” said Ha Hoang Hop, at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
“China is using the coronavirus distraction to increase its assertiveness in the South China Sea, at a time when the US and Europe are struggling to cope with the new coronavirus,” he said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS