In East Asia, a dangerous territorial dispute coming to a head: Beijing accuses Vietnam of having rammed Chinese ships more than a thousand times. Vietnam feels provoked by a Chinese oil rig near its coast.

In the dispute over a Chinese oil platform off the coast of Vietnam to Beijing sees as victims of a deliberate crash by Vietnamese ships. “There were 63 Vietnamese ships in the area. They tried to break through the barrier and rammed Chinese government ships a total of 1416 times,” said the Foreign Ministry in Beijing with about an incident on Saturday. Hanoi’s action was illegal and set represents a deliberate provocation.

The oil platform Haiyang Shiyou 981 drilled between the Paracel Islands and the Vietnamese coast for oil. Vietnam has complained China’s oil rig was operating on the Vietnamese continental shelf and also located within the 200-mile zone in which a country enjoys exclusive economic rights. China, however, says the rig was in Chinese waters.
Already in the anchoring of the oil platform, there had been serious anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam in May, in which four Chinese were killed. The Chinese government had subsequently evacuate thousands compatriots from Vietnam.

By the end of May, a Chinese and a Vietnamese fishing boat near the claimed by both countries islands collided. After Vietnamese representation the Chinese ship rammed the Vietnamese fishing boat. It is set, the ten-man crew were saved.

China and Vietnam have been arguing for decades to islands in the South China Sea. China lays claim to almost the entire sea area, on the ground large resource deposits are suspected. But other Southeast Asian countries, especially the Philippines and Vietnam, make a claim. In the island conflict is about hurt national feelings to the safety of shipping lanes – and a lot of money. Who controls the Paracel and Spratly Islands, controls the important passage between the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

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