122 Chinese vessels scare away Vietnamese ships in Vietnam’s waters

China on Sunday deployed 116- 122 vessels in Vietnamese waters to protect its oil rig Haiyang Shiyou 981 that has been illegally placed there since early May, the Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance Department reported.

These vessels included 45-47 coast guard ships, 14-16 transport boats, 17-19 tugboats, 34 iron-clad fishing boats and six military ships, the department said.

There were eight more Chinese ships in the waters yesterday than on Saturday.

These ships were arranged in two circles: the outer was about 14 nautical miles from the rig, while the inner was 6-8 miles away.

All the ships in the outer circle were aligned in a horizontal formation with their prows directed at Vietnamese vessels.

The foreign watercrafts were ready to speed toward local boats at any time to ram or fire their water cannons at them.

At 8:30 am, eight Chinese vessels aggressively approached some local Coast Guard and fisheries surveillance ships when the latter entered an area 11 nautical miles from the drilling platform.

Local vessels then tried to move away to avoid being hit by the foreign ships.

At night, the Chinese ships threatened Vietnamese vessels with powerful floodlights, as Chinese coast guard vessel 3210 did the same to Vietnam Coast Guard CSB 4034 at a distance of 1.5 nautical miles for 25 minutes, starting at 7:00 pm yesterday.  

Meanwhile, a large number of Chinese iron-clad fishing boats, with the support of some coast guard ships, continuously bullied their smaller Vietnamese counterparts in Vietnamese waters about 42 nautical miles west-southwest of the rig.

However, local fishing vessels tried to maintain operations under the protection of Vietnamese fisheries surveillance ships.

Beijing has illegally maintained the rig and its guarding ships in Vietnam’s waters since May 1 despite strong protests from Hanoi.