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 The foreign ministry in Hanoi said the collisions took place on
Sunday and caused considerable damage to the Vietnamese ships. Six
people sustained minor injuries, it said.
"On May 4, Chinese ships intentionally rammed two Vietnamese Sea
Guard vessels," said Tran Duy Hai, a foreign ministry official and
deputy head of Vietnam's national border committee.
"Chinese ships, with air support, sought to intimidate Vietnamese
vessels. Water cannon was used," he told a news conference in Hanoi.
Six other ships were also hit, other officials said, but not as
badly.
Dozens of navy and coastguard vessels from both countries are in the
area where China has deployed the giant rig, Vietnamese officials
have said.
"No shots have been fired yet," said a Vietnamese navy official, who
could not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to
media. "Vietnam won't fire unless China fires first."
The tensions between the two Communist nations come as both are
trying to put aside border disputes and the memories of a brief but
bloody border war in 1979. Vietnam is usually careful about public
comments against China, with which it had bilateral trade surpassing
$50 billion in 2013.
However, Hanoi has strongly condemned the operation of the drilling
rig in what it says are its waters in the South China Sea, and told
China's state-run oil company CNOOC to remove it.
The United States has also criticized the move.
The row comes days after U.S. President Barack Obama visited Asia to
underline his commitment to allies there, including Japan and the
Philippines, both locked in territorial disputes with China.
Obama, promoting a strategic "pivot" toward the Asia-Pacific region,
also visited South Korea and Malaysia, but not China.
China has not yet responded to the Vietnamese allegations of
ramming, but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said earlier
on Wednesday that the deployment of the rig had nothing to do with
the United States, or Vietnam.
"The United States has no right to complain about China's activities
within the scope of its own sovereignty," she said.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting rival
claims from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.
TENSIONS WITH PHILIPPINES
Tensions are also brewing in another part of the South China Sea
where Beijing has demanded the Philippines release a Chinese fishing
boat and its crew seized on Tuesday.
Chief Superintendent Noel Vargas of the Philippine National Police
Maritime Group said a maritime police patrol apprehended a Chinese
fishing boat around 7 a.m. on Tuesday off Half Moon Shoal in the
Spratly Islands.
The boat has 11 crew and police found about 350 turtles in the
vessel, some of which were already dead, a police report said,
adding that a Philippine boat with crew was also seized, and found
to have 70 turtles on board. Several species of sea turtles are
protected under Philippine law.
Maritime police are now towing the boats to Puerto Princesa town on
the island of Palawan where appropriate charges will be filed
against them, Vargas said.
China said the Philippines had to release the boat and the
fishermen.
"China's Foreign Ministry and China's ambassador to the Philippines
have made representations to the Philippines side, demanding that it
provide a rational explanation and immediately release the people
and the vessel", ministry spokeswoman Hua said.
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"We once again warn the Philippines not to take any provocative
actions," she said, adding that China had "indisputable sovereignty"
over the Spratly Islands. There are frequent tensions in the South
China Sea between China and the other claimant nations, particularly
Vietnam and the Philippines, both of which say Beijing has harassed
their ships in the waters there.
While there are frequent stand-offs between fishermen and the
various claimant states in the South China Sea, the actual detention
of Chinese fishermen or the seizure of a boat is rare.
NOT COMMERCIALLY DRIVEN
An oil industry official in China said the deployment of the rig
owned by China's CNOOC oil company to waters near Vietnam appeared
to be a political decision rather than a commercial one.
"This reflected the will of the central government and is also
related to the U.S. strategy on Asia," said the official, who spoke
on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
"It is not commercially driven. It is also not like CNOOC has set a
big exploration blueprint for the region."
However, Wu Shicun, president of the National Institute for South
China Sea Studies, a government think-tank in the southern province
of Hainan, said China was unlikely to pay much heed to Vietnamese
concerns.
"If we stop our work there as soon as Vietnam shouts, China will not
be able to achieve anything in the South China Sea," Wu said.
"We have lost a precious opportunity to drill for oil and gas in the
Spratlys. Also this time we are drilling in Xisha (Paracel Islands),
not Nansha (Spratlys), there is no territorial dispute there. I
think China will keep moving ahead with its plan (in Xisha), no
matter what Vietnam says and does."
Tran Duy Hai, the Vietnamese foreign ministry official, raised the
possibility of Hanoi taking the dispute to international
arbitration.
"We cannot exclude any measures, including international legal
action, as long as it is peaceful.
"We are a peace-loving nation that has experienced many wars," he
said. "If this situation goes too far, we will use all measures in
line with international law to protect our territory. We have
limitations, but we will stand up to any Chinese aggression."
The Philippines has already taken its dispute with China to an
international arbitration tribunal in The Hague.
(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing, Manuel Mogato in
Manila and Charlie Zhu in Hong Kong; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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