China sent a survey vessel through waters claimed by its maritime sovereignty rival Vietnam this month to warn Hanoi against starting new energy exploration projects and filing any motions in an international court, observers say.

Tracking tools showed China’s 105-meter-long, 58-person survey ship Haiyang Dizhi 4 moving toward Vietnamese waters on June 14, Radio Free Asia reported. The vessel passed three days later within 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers) of Vietnam’s coast – a country’s normal exclusive economic zone – the report said.

Related: Chinese ship hits and sinks Vietnamese fishing boat in East Sea, detains crew

That movement follows the passage of another Chinese vessel near Vietnam in April and a standoff at sea last year.

Chinese Ship Returns Near Vietnam Border
Ship could escalate tensions while both nations are dealing with COVID-19

The Chinese government, the most powerful entity in a six-way South China Sea (East Sea of Vietnam) sovereignty dispute that includes Vietnam, hopes its ships discourage Vietnamese leaders from filing for world court arbitration as the Philippines did in 2013, analysts believe.

At the same time, China is warning Vietnam against any new undersea oil or gas exploration projects near a nine-dash line that Beijing uses to demarcate its maritime claims, analysts say.

“What I would see as recent moves, including the most recent one, I think is meant to signal to Vietnam to think twice before resorting to all sorts of these means to undermine Chinese interests, and that includes striking up new deals with other energy partners and all that,” said Collin Koh, a maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

In November a deputy Vietnamese foreign minister cited arbitration and litigation as two possible measures against China.

Three years after Manila sued, a Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled against the legal basis for China’s nine-dash line. China dismissed the ruling but used aid and investment on its own to strengthen relations with rival maritime claimants. Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also claim all or parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea.

Vietnam and China clashed at sea in 1974, 1988 and 2014, setting Hanoi apart from other sea claimants that seldom spark conflict. The first two incidents were deadly. In 2014 Vietnam charged China with ramming a Vietnamese fishing boat. That incident along with upset over the placement of a Chinese oil rig sparked anti-Chinese rioting in Vietnam.

China, backed by the world’s third strongest military, claims about 90% of the South China Sea (East Sea of Vietnam), prized for fish, energy and shipping lanes.

China cites historical records to support its drilling, surveillance and island construction within the nine-dash line.

Vietnam and China are both looking for fossil fuel reserves under the seabed. China withdrew its vessels in October last year after four months of patrol near a gas-and-oil tract 352 kilometers southeast of Vietnam.

Other oil explorers should take note of China’s survey vessel movement, suggested Euan Graham, senior fellow with the Singapore-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines actively seek undersea fuel, sometimes contracting projects to foreign drillers.

“I think it’s a part of an underlying strategy, which is to intimidate and harass all Southeast Asian exploration activity within the nine-dash line and to a point where it becomes economically unviable for foreign companies and even local companies to exploit, aware that China is going to make life that difficult with them,” Graham said.

China may hope to nudge other claimants toward joint energy exploration, he added.

Drilling contractors expect Vietnam to provide security during any projects, Koh said. They could ask Vietnam for a higher contract fee if they fear harassment, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, director of the Center for International Studies director at University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.

Vietnam had no rigs at an exploration tract along the Chinese boat’s reported mid-June route, Nguyen added. The country hopes to stay low-key for now as the ruling Communist Party prepares for its 2021 national congress, he said. An upset at sea would derail the event agenda.

“Vietnam is making a compromise that it doesn’t want to confront China for the time being,” Nguyen said. “In the next year, the Vietnamese Communist Party congress will be convened, so anything that’s happening in the East Sea of Vietnam may have a big impact, so that’s the reason why the Vietnamese government wants to put out the tension in the East Sea of Vietnam.”

By Ralph Jennings @ VOANews

Tensions are expected to rise in the South China Sea after Beijing’s annual summer ban on fishing in the disputed waters drew protests from rival claimants.

Related: Taiwan on alert as China steps up operations in the sea and skies around the island

China said it would prohibit fishing activities in the waters Beijing has claimed above the 12th parallel – including areas near the Scarborough Shoal, the Paracel Islands, and the Gulf of Tonkin – to conserve stocks.

The ban, which came into effect from noon on May 1 runs until August 16 and China’s coastguard has promised to take the “strictest measures” to stop any “illegal fishing activities”.

Fishing communities in Vietnam and the Philippines have urged their governments to take a strong stance and on Friday Vietnamese foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said Hanoi rejected the “unilateral decision”.

“Vietnam asks China not to further complicate the situation in the South China Sea,” she said in a statement.

“Vietnamese fishermen have the complete rights to fish in waters under their sovereignty,” the Vietnam Fisheries’ Society said in a statement on its website early this week, adding that the ban violates international law and Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracel Islands.

In Manila, local fishery organisations also called on the Philippine government not to give in to “China’s bullying”.

“The Philippine government should not waste time and wait for Chinese maritime officers to arrest our fishermen,” said Fernando Hicap, chairman of the National Federation of Small Fisherfolk Organisations.

“They have no right and moral ascendancy to declare a fishing ban in the guise of conserving fish stocks in marine waters that they have no legal claim, and they have massively destroyed through reclamation activities.”

China’s claims are contested by several of its neighbours. Graphic: SCMP

Beijing claims 80 per cent of the South China Sea, which is contested by neighbouring countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
China first introduced a seasonal ban in the waters in 1999, saying it would help sustain fishing resources in one of the world’s biggest fishing grounds.

The waters provide food and jobs for millions of peoples in surrounding countries but overfishing and climate change threaten their sustainability.

This year’s ban comes at a time of rising tensions over fishing rights and observers warned that any missteps could raise the risks of confrontation.

Last month, a Vietnamese fishing boat sank after colliding with a Chinese coastguard vessel near the Paracel Islands, known in China as the Xisha Islands and in Vietnam as the Hoang Sa archipelago.

China accused the fishing boat of ramming the coastguard vessel, but Vietnam blamed the Chinese vessel and lodged an official protest.

Citing satellite images, the South China Sea Probing Initiative, a think tank affiliated with Peking University, said that at least 379 Vietnamese vessels had been engaged in “illegal activities” off the Gulf of Tonkin and Guangdong and Hainan provinces last month, while 511 had done so in March.

Kang Lin, a research fellow with Hainan University, said Vietnamese fishing boats posed “a direct challenge” to China’s ban.

“They are not only challenging China’s sovereignty over the reefs and islets but also the [right of] jurisdiction over the waters,” Kang said.

“According to current trends, it is likely that Vietnamese fishing boats will step up their activities in the coming few months posing a challenge to China’s fishing ban.”

Kang said fishermen from other claimants, including the Philippines, are expected to follow suit.

In a rare show of solidarity, the Philippine foreign ministry also expressed concerns over the clash between the Vietnamese boat and the Chinese coastguard vessel.

The statement referred to a similar collision last year, when 22 Filipino fishermen were left in the water near Reef Bank after their boat sank before being rescued by a Vietnamese fishing boat.

Reporting by Laura Zhou

Laura Zhou joined the Post’s Beijing bureau in 2010. She covers China’s diplomatic relations and has reported on topics such as Sino-US relations, China-India disputes, and reactions to the North Korea nuclear crisis, as well as other general news.

Vietnam has lodged an official protest with China following the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat it said had been rammed by a Chinese maritime surveillance vessel near islands in the disputed sea.

The Vietnamese fishing vessel, with eight fishermen onboard, was fishing near the Paracel Islands on Thursday when it was rammed and sunk by the Chinese vessel, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said in a statement posted on a government website on Saturday.

FILE – A Vietnamese sinking boat (L) which was rammed and then sunk by Chinese vessels near disputed Paracels Islands, is seen near a Marine Guard ship (R) at Ly Son island of Vietnam’s central Quang Ngai province.

All the fishermen were picked up by the Chinese vessel alive and were transferred to two other Vietnamese fishing vessels operating nearby, the Vietnam Fisheries Society said in a statement posted to its website.

Related: Chinese ship hits and sinks Vietnamese fishing boat in East Sea, detains crew

“The Chinese vessel committed an act that violated Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa archipelago and threatened the lives and damaged the property and legitimate interests of Vietnamese fishermen,” the foreign ministry said in its statement, referring to the Paracel Islands by its Vietnamese name.

Vietnam and China have for years been embroiled in a dispute over the potentially energy-rich stretch of water, called the East Sea by Vietnam.

The Vietnamese boat illegally entered the area to fish and refused to leave, the Chinese coast guard said late on Friday.

After making some dangerous maneuvers, the boat collided with a Chinese patrol vessel and sank, the Chinese coast guard said in a statement on its social media account.

The Chinese coast guard also said it had made solemn representations with the Vietnamese side.

The incident marks the second time in less than a year a Vietnamese fishing vessel has been reportedly sunk by a Chinese vessel near the China-controlled Paracels.

A Chinese oil survey vessel conducted operations in Vietnamese-controlled waters for more than three months last year, causing a tense standoff between vessels from the two countries.

@ Reuters