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China says it is moving 2nd oil rig closer to Vietnam.....

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China says it is moving 2nd oil rig closer to Vietnam.....

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  • China says it is moving 2nd oil rig closer to Vietnam.....

    China says it is moving 2nd oil rig closer to Vietnam amid confrontation over 1st platform

    Source: "By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press - U.S. News & World Report


    Vientnamese protesters chant anti-China slogans in Hanoi, Vietnam Thursday June 19, 2014.
    China said Thursday it is moving a second oil rig closer to Vietnam's coast. Vietnamese authorities
    broke up a small protest against the Chinese move on Thursday. About a dozen people gathered
    at a park in central Hanoi. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh)

    BEIJING (AP) — China said Thursday it is moving a second oil rig closer to Vietnam's coast, showing its determination to press its territorial claims and continue searching for resources in disputed waters despite a tense confrontation with Vietnam over another oil rig to the south.

    The 600-meter (1,970-foot) -long rig is being towed southeast of its current position south of Hainan Island and will be in its new location closer to Vietnam by Friday, the Maritime Safety Administration said on its website. It asked vessels in the area to give it a wide berth.

    Vietnam's government isn't expected to react strongly to the placement of the second rig because it lies far to the north of the politically sensitive waters surrounding the Paracel Islands, where ships from the two countries have been ramming each other for more than 40 days near the first oil rig.

    A Vietnamese Foreign Ministry official who spoke on normal condition of anonymity said Hanoi believes that no country should take unilateral action in contested waters, but that China has explored the area previously without causing a crisis in relations.

    Vietnamese authorities broke up a small protest against the Chinese move on Thursday. About a dozen people gathered at a park in central Hanoi and chanted slogans such as "Down with Chinese aggression" for several minutes before being dispersed. At least two protesters were taken away.

    The shifting of the rig came as officials from both sides said they made no progress in talks Wednesday over the deployment of the other Chinese rig on May 1 that sparked the current standoff. Each country claims the Paracels as its territory and accuses the other of instigating the ship rammings around the rig.

    The first rig's deployment triggered anti-China demonstrations across Vietnam that led to attacks on hundreds of factories believed to employ Chinese workers, five of whom were killed and hundreds more injured. Many of the factories were built and run by investors from Taiwan, which has nothing to do with the current dispute.

    China's military expelled Vietnamese troops from two of the islands in the group in 1974, and in 1988 used force to kick Vietnam out of Johnson South reef in the Spratly Islands to the east.

    The border between China and Vietnam in the area of the second rig near the mouth of the Tonkin Gulf has never been properly demarcated, despite five rounds of talks on the matter.

    China claims virtually all of the South China Sea, which is rich in natural resources and crisscrossed by some of the world's busiest sea lanes. That has brought it into dispute with other neighbors, including the Philippines, a U.S. ally.
    Last edited by khongquan2; 06-19-2014, 03:43 PM.

  • #2
    US envoy nominee to Vietnam, Ted Osius, open to lifting arms ban

    US envoy nominee to Vietnam, Ted Osius, open to lifting arms ban
    Source: "Associated Press in Washington - Thursday, 19 June, 2014"


    Ted Osius

    US President Barack Obama's nominee to become his country's next ambassador to Vietnam said it may be time for Washington to consider lifting a ban on the sale and transfer of lethal weapons to the former American enemy.

    Ted Osius told his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that the United States had made clear to the nation's authoritarian government that the ban could not be lifted without significant progress on human rights.

    But he said there had been progress in three or four of the nine areas where the US was looking for improvements, including on labour rights, treatment of people with disabilities, allowing more space for civil society and for churches to operate.

    Osius said that "may mean it's time to begin exploring the possibility of lifting the ban", but at a pace with which the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Vietnam would be comfortable.

    Any such move would be likely to anger China, which is locked in a territorial standoff with Vietnam and eyes increased US engagement in Asia as an attempt to contain its rise. China recently deployed an oil rig in an offshore area also claimed by Vietnam in the South China Sea, a region of growing tension between Beijing and its neighbours.

    The US and Vietnam re-established diplomatic relations in 1995, two decades after the end of the Vietnam war, and ties have improved markedly in recent years. In 2007, the US opened the way for trade in non-lethal defence items and services on a case-by-case basis, but it is still prohibited under law from selling or transferring lethal items.

    Vietnamese leaders have asked the Obama administration to remove those restrictions, viewing it as a key step to fully normalising relations.

    This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as US envoy nominee open to ending arms ban
    Last edited by khongquan2; 06-19-2014, 06:08 PM.

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