General Nguyen Quang Dam, commander of the Vietnam Coast Guard, confirmed that China started withdrawing its illegally-placed oil rig from Vietnamese waters at approximately 9pm on July 15.
According to Major Dam, the oil drill is being moved towards the Hainan Islands after 75 days of being placed on the Vietnamese continental shelf and within Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
Xinhua News Agency also quoted China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the dominant oil and gas producer in China, as saying that the oil rig has finished its exploration mission near the Paracel Islands in East Sea after finding signs of oil and gas.
The agency also added that the oil rig is being moved to what it called the “Hainan Lingshui project operations“. It gave no date or location for its next mission, although Lingshui is a region off the coast of China’s Hainan Island.
According to the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there was no question of that the oil rig had been within the exclusive economic zone and on the continental shelf of Vietnam, about 120 nautical miles from the Vietnamese coast and 18 nautical miles south of Tri Ton Island, part of the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.
Despite provocative actions on the part of China, Vietnam diligently stuck to peaceful measures of protest, continually requesting that China to remove the rig from Vietnamese waters.
Vietnam sent several diplomatic dispatches to the United Nations strongly opposing the violation by China and requesting that the rig be removed.
Professor Carl Thayer suggested that tensions between Vietnam and China might be eased with the approach of the rainy season. He added that this is the way for China wind down its provocations while saving face.
Đăng ký: VietNam News