Vietnam has accused a Chinese oil-surveying vessel and its coast guard escorts of territorial breaches by widening their activities after entering its exclusive economic zone and operating within offshore blocks for three months.
As of Friday last week, the Haiyang Dizhi 8 has made several passes through the foreign-owned blocks off the coast of central Vietnam after departing from Chinese-controlled Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑島) on Sept. 28, Marine Traffic satellite tracking data showed.
At least two Chinese Coast Guard ships further south maneuvered around a Singaporean-flagged support vessel in an oil block operated by Russia’s Rosneft Oil Co, the data showed.
“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 at a briefing in Hanoi yesterday.
Tensions between China and Vietnam have been on the rise since July, when the Chinese state-owned surveyor first began studying the seabed of the southern block in the disputed South China Sea operated by Rosneft.
China has warned Vietnam to abandon exploration projects with foreign companies that it says threaten its sovereignty.
State-owned Vietnam Oil & Gas Group last year ordered Spain’s Repsol to halt work on a project off Vietnam’s southern coast, costing the company and its partners as much as US$200 million.
Vietnam has become increasingly isolated in its efforts to push back against China, which is nearing a deal with the Philippines for joint energy exploration in a contested area of the sea and has just set up one-on-one talks with Malaysia to settle disputes.
“Once again, Vietnam demands that China immediately cease its serious violations, withdraw all of its vessels from Vietnam’s maritime zones and desist from repeating similar violations,” Hang said.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
IMPASSE: US President Donald Trump pressed to end the filibuster in a sign that he is unlikely to compromise despite Democrat offers for a delayed healthcare vote The US government shutdown stretched into its 40th day yesterday even as senators stayed in Washington for a grueling weekend session hoping to find an end to the funding fight that has disrupted flights nationwide, threatened food assistance for millions of Americans and left federal workers without pay. The US Senate has so far shown few signs of progress over a weekend that could be crucial for the shutdown fight. Republican leaders are hoping to hold votes on a new package of bills that would reopen the government into January while also approving full-year funding for several parts of government, but
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS