Six Chinese warships were arranged in three directions from China’s illegal oil rig in Vietnam’s waters on Wednesday, while other Chinese vessels continued attempts to crash into local ships in a bid to drive them away from the platform.
>> Clip: Chinese vessel rams, sinks Vietnam fishing boat
Yesterday, China deployed 114 vessels to guard the drilling rig Haiyang Shiyou 981, including six military ships, 39 coast guard ships, 20 tugboats, and 35 fishing boats, the Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance Department reported.
The six warships were arranged in three directions from the rig: two mine sweepers #839 and #842 were in an area about 20-22 nautical miles south of the rig, two missile frigates (one of which numbered 534) were located 18-20 nautical miles east-northeast of the platform, and two fast attack missile boats (one of which numbered 756) were stationed 10-13 nautical miles from Tri Ton Island, part of Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago in the East Vietnam Sea.
Compared to Tuesday, the fishing boats were reduced by nine while tugboats and coast guard ships each increased by one, the department said.
Throughout yesterday, 35 Chinese fishing boats, with the support of two coast guard ships, aggressively surrounded and threatened Vietnamese fishing boats while they were operating in their traditional fishing grounds about 30-40 nautical miles from the rig.
Meanwhile, the other Chinese craft, arranged in groups in areas 7-8 and 9-11 nautical miles from the platform, were ready to ram and fire water cannons at the Vietnamese law enforcement ships in order to push them away from the rig.
As previously reported, the rig moved for the third time on Tuesday since it was illicitly dispatched to Vietnamese waters on May 1.
Regarding the movement, Rear Admiral Le Ke Lam told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that this is a normal activity of a drilling rig in operation.
He also added that the Chinese rig may move a few more times in the future.
China has maintained the rig for over a month inside Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf despite strong opposition from the Southeast Asian country, which has repeatedly demanded that China remove the platform from the area immediately and unconditionally.
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