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China's Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would
be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of
the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run through Thursday evening.
It gave no further details, but the drills follow an
announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used
to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of
Tonkin.
State-run Vietnam News reported that the baseline was in
compliance with the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and
would provide "a robust legal basis for safeguarding and
exercising Vietnam’s sovereignty, sovereign rights and
jurisdiction."
Vietnam has not publicly responded to the Chinese drills.
China and Vietnam have long had a maritime agreement governing
the Gulf of Tonkin, but have been locked in competing claims in
the nearby South China Sea over the Spratly and Paracel Islands
and maritime areas.
China has been been growing aggressive in pursuing those claims,
and in October assaulted 10 Vietnamese fishermen near the
Paracel Islands, three of whom suffered broken limbs.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea as its own,
though it has not publicly released exact coordinates of its
claim other than a map with 10 dashed lines broadly demarcating
what it calls its territory.
In addition to Vietnam, China's claims overlap with those of the
Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, while Indonesia has
also figured in violent confrontations with the Chinese coast
guard and fishing fleets in the waters around the Natuna
Islands.
Tensions have been particularly high with the Philippines, with
regular confrontations between the two countries.
Most recently, a Chinese navy helicopter flew within 10 feet (3
meters) of a Philippine patrol plane last week over the South
China Sea, near the hotly disputed Scarborough Shoal off the
northwestern Philippines.
Leaders in Australia and New Zealand also said China should have
given more warning before its navy conducted an unusual series
of live-fire exercises in the seas between the two countries,
forcing flights on Friday and Saturday to divert on short
notice.
Political leaders from both countries emphasized that China
didn’t breach international law, but said they had only been
given “a couple hours notice” rather than the usual 12 to 24
hours.
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