IT LOOKS like an oil rig, but it may really be a beachhead. A Chinese drilling platform out at sea, in an area also claimed by Vietnam, is the latest issue in a decades-long dispute over the South China Sea and its oil and gas resources.
On 1 May, China installed its Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig near the Paracel Islands, in the northern part of the South China Sea. Since then Vietnamese and Chinese ships have clashed in the area, and China has evacuated thousands of its citizens from Vietnam after violent anti-Chinese protests.
The US Energy Information Administration estimates that the South China Sea holds 11 billion barrels of oil and 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. "It's pretty plausible there's oil and gas in a lot of those areas," says Ben Clennell, an oil exploration expert at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, in Perth.
China lays claim to a swathe of the South China Sea. For its part, Vietnam says it has effectively ruled the Paracel Islands, and the Spratly Islands to the south, since the 17th century.
The dispute could be settled by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, but only if both China and Vietnam agree to participate.
This article will appear in print under the headline "Squabble at sea"
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