HANOI — Vietnam fired artillery rounds off its central coast Monday in naval drills announced during a maritime spat with Beijing, as conflicts heat up between China and its neighbors over the potentially oil-rich South China Sea.
Vietnam accuses Chinese boats of disrupting oil and gas exploration in its waters, echoing a similar dispute that flared last week with the Philippines concerning Beijing’s ramped-up moves to assert its sovereignty over disputed areas in recent months.
Vietnam said it would welcome foreign involvement to keep the peace, in an apparent reference to the United States, which last year angered China by offering to mediate South China Sea disputes and calling them a matter of its own national interest.
The Vietnamese live-fire drills began at the uninhabited island of Hon Ong, some 25 miles off the coast, said a naval officer based in central Quang Nam province. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Despite the disagreement with China, he said the drills were routine annual exercises involving artillery and other weapons. He said no missiles would be fired, and declined to say how many troops or vessels were involved.
China had no immediate reaction to the maneuvers, while Philippine Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said the Vietnamese were “within their sovereign right” since the drills were in Vietnamese waters.
Wang Hanling, a Chinese maritime expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who is currently a visiting research fellow at the East Asian Institute in Singapore, criticized the drills, saying Beijing consistently has sought to settle issues in the South China Sea peacefully.
“Any action leading to the escalation of the situation won’t help, especially military exercises either by Vietnam or other countries, are not helpful,” Mr. Wang said.
Vietnam says Chinese boats cut a cable attached to a vessel conducting a seismic survey off its coast May 26 and hindered operations of another vessel June 9, while China accuses Vietnam of illegally entering its waters and putting fishermen’s lives at risk.
Asked if the U.S. had a role to play in the dispute, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga posted a response online Friday that “every effort by the international community in maintaining peace and stability in the East Sea is welcome,” the term Vietnam uses to refer to waters off its coast.
China feels that such boundary disputes should be settled one on one rather than multilaterally, Mr. Wang said, pointing to successful negotiations between China and Vietnam that led to an agreement in 2000 establishing a boundary in the Gulf of Tonkin.
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