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Did China Block Vietnam Offshore Oil Contract?

Ralph Jennings

   TAIPEI, TAIWAN - The sudden cancellation of an offshore drilling
   project commissioned by Vietnam is raising fears that the Chinese
   government pressured it to stop, part of Beijing's ongoing maritime
   sovereignty spat with Hanoi.

   London-based drilling contractor Noble Corp. said July 9 its Noble
   Clyde Boudreaux semi-submersible had cancelled a previously announced
   project with Vietnam. News reports placed the drilling site off
   Vietnam's east coast in a zone watched by Chinese survey vessels.

   It's unclear whether officials from Beijing forced the cancelation, but
   they have pressured other Vietnamese seabed oil drilling contracts in
   the past. The two countries contest nearby tracts of the broader South
   China Sea.

   "They're playing some kind of cat and mouse with China," said Oh Ei
   Sun, senior fellow with the Singapore Institute of International
   Affairs. If, he said, "they're doing drilling here and the Chinese
   vessel came, they might stop it for a few days or months and then
   resume it, and so on."

   Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also claim all or parts of
   the 3.5 million-square-kilometer waterway, which is prized for
   fisheries as well as fossil fuel reserves. China says about 90% of the
   sea should come under its flag. Beijing has taken a military lead over
   other countries over the past decade.

   Radio Free Asia reported July 13 that Vietnam had cancelled the
   contract as the Chinese government squeezes Southeast Asian nations
   that try to exploit South China Sea resources with foreign partners. A
   Chinese coast guard vessel is "patrolling" now near another Vietnamese
   oil rig, the report says.

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