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White House Says China’s Oil-Rig Deployment ‘Provocative,’ Dangerous

WASHINGTON—The White House on Friday stepped up criticism of China’s deployment of an , saying the move had complicated relations in the region and made peaceful resolution of territorial disputes more difficult. "This is a provocative act, and it raises tensions in the region," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. China and Vietnam are locked in a dispute over contested waters that both claim as part of their territory. The standoff, which escalated after a state-run Chinese oil company positioned an oil rig in the area, has sparked and raised fears of a military conflict. The U.S. hasn’t taken a position on the nations’ competing sovereignty claims in the region, Mr. Carney said, but said no country should resort to intimidation and threats. "We’re very concerned about dangerous conduct and intimidation by government-controlled assets operating in this area, and we call on all parties to conduct themselves in a […]

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Anti-Chinese Violence Turns Deadly and Spreads in Vietnam

Violence against foreign-owned factories spread elsewhere in Vietnam and took a deadly turn, with officials saying Thursday that one Chinese worker had been killed and scores more injured when hundreds of protesting Vietnamese went on a rampage in a factory in the central part of the country. The explosion of violence — initially centered outside the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City — reflected growing animosity in the region as China works to solidify its claims over vast parts of two seas that other nations have long considered their own. In Ha Tinh Province, in the northern part of central Vietnam, hundreds of protesting Vietnamese workers entered the Formosa Plastics Group steel plant on Wednesday afternoon, attacking Chinese nationals contracted to work there, the Taiwan-based company said Thursday. One Chinese worker was killed and 90 were injured in the violence, according to the […]

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More than 20 dead, doctor says, as anti-China riots spread in Vietnam

More than 20 people were killed in Vietnam and a huge foreign steel project set ablaze as anti-China riots spread to the centre of the country a day after arson and looting in the south, a doctor and company officials said on Thursday. A doctor at a hospital in central Ha Tinh province said five Vietnamese workers and 16 other people described as Chinese were killed on Wednesday night in rioting, one of the worst breakdowns in Sino-Vietnamese relations since the neighbors fought a brief border war in 1979. "There were about a hundred people sent to the hospital last night. Many were Chinese. More are being sent to the hospital this morning," the doctor at Ha Tinh General Hospital told Reuters by phone. Local media has, however, said only person was killed. Formosa Plastics Group, Taiwan’s biggest investor in Vietnam, said its upcoming steel plant […]

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Factories torched in anti-China protest in Vietnam

Mobs of rioters in Vietnam torched at least 15 foreign-owned factories and trashed or looted many more following a large protest by workers against China’s recent placement of an oil rig in disputed Southeast Asian waters, officials said Wednesday. The unrest at industrial parks close to Ho Chi Minh City built to attract foreign investors is the most serious outbreak of public disorder in the tightly controlled country in years. It points to the dangers for the government as it manages public anger at China while also protesting itself against the Chinese actions in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam. The unrest late Tuesday at a Singapore-run industrial park and others nearby in Binh Duong province followed protests by up to 20,000 workers. Smaller groups attacked factories they believed were Chinese-run, but many were Taiwanese or South Korean, the provincial government […]

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Rig Off Vietnam Crowns Push to Develop Energy Reserves Without Foreign Partners

China spent years working with or buying companies that had mastered deep-water technology, honing skills it is now deploying on its own in disputed waters near Vietnam. China also spent heavily on developing its own sophisticated offshore equipment, of which the rig at the heart of the China-Vietnam standoff is a crown jewel, illustrating how the country can now largely go it alone—developing oil or gas reserves far underwater without relying heavily on foreign partners. The fact that it no longer needs foreign assistance raises the specter of future maritime conflict with not just Vietnam, but also Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines, all of which claim sovereignty over parts of the waters that China also claims. Chinese ships clashed with Vietnam’s coast guard over the rig Wednesday, the same day a crew of Chinese fishermen were detained by the Philippines near the disputed Spratly Islands. Philippine authorities on […]

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China defends oil rig position in disputed waters

BEIJING, May 9 (UPI) –Chinese drilling operations near the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea are normal and within Beijing’s territorial waters, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said. Yi Xianliang, deputy director-general of ocean affairs at the Chinese Foreign Ministry, challenged claims from Vietnam that a drilling rig was operating in Vietnamese waters. PetroVietnam, the country’s state-owned energy company, said last weekend drilling rig HD-981, deployed by the China National Offshore Oil Corp. about 120 miles off the coast of Vietnam, was encroaching on its sovereignty . The Vietnamese government said it would take "all the proper and necessary measures" to protect its interests. Yi said Thursday said the Chinese government, however, was "deeply surprised" by Vietnam’s reaction. The rig, he said, was operating completely within Chinese territorial waters. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said during her regular press briefing Thursday the Chinese side was taking "provocative" actions […]

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Vietnam Demands China Withdraw Oil Rig From Disputed Waters

Vietnam said it would take all measures necessary to protect its legitimate interests in the South China Sea after a Chinese state-run oil company . Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh, in a telephone call to Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi Tuesday, said the deployment of the oil rig by China National Offshore Oil Corp. and the presence of several Chinese vessels in the area violated international laws and Vietnam’s sovereignty, according to a government statement late Tuesday. On Saturday, China’s Maritime Safety Administration disclosed the location of the oil rig. Vietnam says the rig is 138 miles (220 kilometers) from its shore and "totally within its exclusive economic zone." At a press briefing on Monday, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the rig was in Chinese waters. "As we understand it, the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration issued a shipping notice on May 3 regarding […]

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Chinese and Vietnamese Ships Collide Amid Oil Rig Dispute

Tensions in the South China Sea intensified Wednesday as Vietnamese naval vessels collided with Chinese ships amid a heated standoff over an oil rig that China had placed off Vietnam’s coast. Officials said that no shots were fired during the incident, and further details about the collision, which was confirmed by a Vietnamese official to The Associated Press, were not available. But the collision highlighted the hair-trigger tensions in the region as East Asian nations try to contain China’s more aggressive posture in pursuing maritime claims in the South China Sea. The collision occurred just days after the Chinese state oil company Cnooc stationed the rig 120 nautical miles off the coast of Vietnam, in waters claimed by China and Vietnam. The placement of the rig led to protests and demands by Vietnam that it be withdrawn, and the deployment of a Vietnamese naval flotilla to […]

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Cnooc Oil Rig Fuels Vietnam-China Tensions

Vietnam accused a Chinese energy company of operating in its waters illegally, potentially ratcheting up tensions further between the two countries. On Saturday, China’s Maritime Safety Administration disclosed the location of China National Offshore Oil Corp.’s HD-981 oil rig. The area is in part of the South China Sea that Vietnam claims as its "exclusive economic zone," said Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh. "All activities by a foreign entity in Vietnamese waters without Vietnam’s consent are illegal and invalid, and Vietnam strongly protests [such activities]," Mr. Binh said in a statement posted on the government’s website late Sunday. The area the Cnooc rig is operating in is "only 120 nautical miles from Vietnam’s shore," the statement added. At a daily press briefing on Monday, China Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the rig was in Chinese waters. "As we understand it, the Chinese Maritime Safety Administration issued […]

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Petrovietnam Suspends Venezuela Oil Production

Vietnam Oil & Gas Group, or Petrovietnam, has suspended production of crude oil at a block in Venezuela, citing a tough economic conditions. "Basically, we are just slowing things down, and we haven’t decided to withdraw from the project yet," said Pham Ngoc Khue, head of the investment and development division of PVEP, the Petrovietnam unit that jointly operates the Junin-2 block in Venezuela’s Orinoco belt with Petróleos de Venezuela SA. "The investment environment there is not suitable for us right now—and even for several other foreign investors," Mr. Khue said Tuesday. PVEP previously said the project started producing oil in October 2012, with an initial target of 200,000 barrels of crude a day by 2016. The block is Petrovietnam’s only operation in Venezuela. A Petrovietnam official said on condition of anonymity that skyrocketing inflation in Venezuela makes the cost of doing business there too high. Consumer prices in […]

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Slowly, Asia’s Factories Begin to Turn Green

When Intel went about setting up its chip factory in Vietnam, it found an oddity: Local laws did not govern every aspect of the building. The government had no comprehensive standards, for instance, on refrigerant chemicals, which in the United States are typically regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. In fact, officials asked Intel whether the company had any ideas on the subject that might be useful to other manufacturers operating in the country. Yet today, Intel’s $1 billion plant, about 10 miles from downtown Ho Chi Minh City, embraces environmental and sustainability measures far beyond those required by Vietnam’s laws. Opened in 2010, the complex has the country’s largest operating solar array. Company officers say a new water-reclamation system could soon help it reduce water consumption as much as 68 percent. It is also vying for certification by the U.S. Green Building […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple