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SOUTH CHINA SEA: China Opposes Oil Exploration After India And Vietnam Sign Pact
Today China warned that it will firmly oppose any exploration activity in South China Sea if it undermines its “sovereignty and interests”, hours after India signed a pact with Vietnam for exploration in two additional oil and gas blocks in the the resource-rich area. Beijing was reacting to reports of India accepting Vietnam’s offer of additional blocks for oil exploration during the current visit by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to New Delhi. “China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha islands. Any lawful and justifiable oil exploration activity in the South China Sea is fine by us. But if such activity undermines sovereignty and interests of China we are firmly opposed to this.”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.
Things can became very tense in the near future after India annonced that it will soon be supplying naval vessels to Vietnam, the first significant military transfer to Hanoi at a time when it is embroiled in a territorial dispute with China. Both India and Vietnam have territorial disputes with China – India in the Himalayas and Vietnam in the South China Sea.
The announcement came after Modi held talks with his visiting Vietnamese counterpart, Nguyen Tan Dung, during which the two sides agreed to modernize the Vietnamese military as well as raise Indian involvement in Vietnam’s energy sector.
The oil exploration in the South China Sea is a sensitive issue as China’s efforts to explore oil in May this year resulted in massive showdown between China and Vietnam with their ships colliding with each other for days. Some Chinese were killed and over a hundred injured in anti-China riots in Vietnam. After that, the two sides are now trying to rebuild their relations.
Sources:
http://www.irrawaddy.org/asia/india-supply-vietnam-naval-vessels-amid-china-disputes.html?
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/india-vietnam-idINKBN0IH0L020141028
