China was interfering with Vietnam’s “long-standing” exploration and production of undersea energy resources, the US State Department said after Beijing deployed survey ship to Vietnam's exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea (SCS) over the past weeks. 
The US State Department's Spokesperson Morgan Ortagus. Photo: CNN
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The spokesperson considered China’s activities “provocative and destabilizing” and called on Beijing to stop its “bullying” behavior and refrain from engaging in these.
“China’s reclamation and militarization of disputed outposts in the SCS, along with other efforts to assert its unlawful SCS maritime claims, including the use of maritime militia to intimidate, coerce, and threaten other nations, undermine the peace and security of the region,” Ortagus said.
The coercion is an indication Beijing is seeking “to assert control over oil and gas resources in the South China Sea.”
“The United States firmly opposes coercion and intimidation by any claimant to assert its territorial or maritime claims,” the spokesperson emphasized.
Boat standoff
Territorial claims by countries the South China Sea. Photo: AMTI
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Those patrols are “centered on” oil and gas Block 06-01 northwest of Da Vanh Khan (Vanguard Bank) on the Vietnamese continental shelf, the AMTI says. It also falls within China’s nine-dash line – a unilaterally-claimed line which covers more than 90% of the sea.
However, the UN Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2016 ruled the Chinese claim to own the South China Sea, based on a vaguely defined nine-dash line around the waterway, was illegal.
Chinese maritime militia ships and multiple merchant marine vessels joined the coast guard vessel, geopolitical research organization Stratfor Worldview says in a July 16 report. Their presence led to a “standoff”. Vietnam eventually asked the Chinese exploration vessel and coast guard ships to leave.
Vietnam’s Vanguard Bank has “frequently been at the heart of Vietnam and China’s long-standing maritime tensions, with Beijing trying to limit or block Hanoi from exploring in what it considers disputed territory,” according to Stratfor Worldview.
China’s aggression on Vietnam’s long-lasting oil operations has been reported several times. In 2014, Beijing deployed Haiyang 981 oil rig within Vietnam’s territorial waters, resulting in deadly anti-China riots in Vietnam.
