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Chinese Ship Involved in Standoff Returns to Waters Off Vietnam

Chinese Ship Involved in Standoff Returns to Vietnamese Waters

(Bloomberg) -- A Chinese vessel at the center of a months-long standoff with Vietnamese ships last year when it entered the Southeast Asian nation’s exclusive economic zone has returned to the disputed waters.

The incident last year involving a vessel called the Haiyang Dizhi 8 drew criticism from the U.S. and the European Union after undertaking a seismic survey of oil-and-gas blocks near Beijing’s disputed “nine-dash line” for about four months starting in July. That spurred Vietnamese authorities to dispatch its own ships to resist the vessel and several coast guard escorts.

As of early Wednesday morning, the ship had returned to the area, anchoring some 167 nautical miles from the coast of Vietnam, according to data from ship tracking service Marine Traffic. On Tuesday, Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said authorities were monitoring developments in the sea and called on countries to maintain peace in the region.

“Vietnam requests countries to comply with the related provisions of the United Nations’ 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea,” Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang wrote in an emailed statement.

China has persistently rejected Vietnam’s territorial claims in the waters.

“Vietnam’s claim of the islands in the South China Sea is against international laws, including the UN charter and UNCLOS -- it is invalid,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on Tuesday during a regular briefing in which he referred to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He was responding to a claim Vietnam made last month at the United Nations.

Vietnam Ambitions

The ship’s return comes after Vietnam accused a Chinese marine surveillance ship of sinking one of its fishing boats near the contested Paracel Islands earlier this month. Shortly after the incident, Vietnam said it was seeking “proper” compensation from China. The incident drew condemnation from the U.S. State Department, with spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus saying it was “appalling that the PRC is exploiting the world’s focus on addressing this global pandemic to assert its unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea.”

The incidents mark a renewed concern over Vietnam’s oil and gas ambitions in the South China Sea after the Haiyang Dizhi 8 last year surveyed part of an energy block operated by Russia’s state-owned Rosneft Oil Co PJSC. In 2018, Vietnam Oil and Gas Group, known as PetroVietnam, ordered Spain’s Repsol SA to halt work on a project off Vietnam’s southern coast, costing the company and its partners as much as $200 million.

As of Wednesday morning, the Chinese ship did not appear to be anchored in an active block.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.