Beijing says oil ship near Vietnam in China waters (fwd)

[AnHai Doan <anhai@cs.washington.edu>]

Subject: Beijing says oil ship near Vietnam in China waters

  	  				 
	 BEIJING, March 17 (Reuter) - China said on Monday that an  
oil exploration ship operating near Vietnam was in Chinese 
waters and its activities were above reproach from Hanoi. 
	 ``The seas where the Chinese exploration vessel is carrying  
out its operation are...within the continental shelf and the 
exclusive economic zone of China,'' said a Chinese Foreign 
Ministry spokesman. 
	 ``The normal operations being carried out by the Chinese  
side in this area are above reproach,'' the spokesman told 
Reuters. 
	 The area is northwest of the potentially oil-rich Spratly  
Islands chain, of which China and Vietnam are among six regional 
claimants. 
	 Vietnam said on Sunday the rig had been drilling for oil off  
its central coast and had seriously violated Hanoi's sovereignty 
over an exclusive economic zone and continental shelf. 
	 The official Vietnam News Agency said the oil rig, tugboat  
and accompanying vessels moved on March 7 into a South China Sea 
area 64.5 nautical miles off Chan Nay Dong cape, halfway down 
the Vietnamese coast. 
	 Repeated warnings had been ignored and a letter of protest  
had been lodged with the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on March 10, 
the news agency said. 
	 ``Vietnam demands the Chinese side stop the operation of the  
Kan Tan III oil rig and withdraw it from the exclusive zone and 
the continental shelf of Vietnam,'' the agency said. 
	 A Chinese oil official confirmed that the seismic  
exploration ship Kan Tan III had been operating in seas near 
Vietnam, but said sovereignty over the area was ill-defined. 
	 ``The problem is the border has not been mutually agreed  
on,'' the official said. 
	 The protest has revived a festering dispute between the two  
nations over maritime sovereignty after several years of careful 
manoeuvring to settle the issue through peaceful negotiation. 
	 Warships from the two countries clashed briefly in the  
Spratlys in the late 1980s. 
	 But the two sides set up working groups to thrash out land  
and sea border disputes -- which include competing claims for 
the Paracel Islands archipelago -- after they normalised 
relations in 1991. 
	 The problem surfaced again last year when Hanoi granted an  
oil exploration and production contract near the Spratlys to the 
U.S. firm Conoco Inc, a unit of Dupont Co. 
	 A month later, China announced that it was expanding the  
area of sea under its jurisdiction by more than 2.5 million sq 
km (965,000 sq miles), and said the move ensured it abided by a 
United Nations convention on maritime law.