Chinese Ship Withdraws from Vietnamese Waters After Three-Month Standoff

Coast guard ships escorted the Chinese vessel out of Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone. (Wikimedia Commons)

After a three-month standoff, a Chinese oil survey vessel has left waters contested by Vietnam, briefly de-escalating a longstanding conflict between the two nations over the South China Sea.

Online data indicated the vessel, the Haiyang Dizhi 8, departed Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in the Spratly Islands on October 24. It was escorted out of the area by heavily armed coast guard ships. The foreign ministry in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital, has repeatedly accused the ship of violating the nation’s sovereignty, and has been demanding for more than three months that China remove the vessel.

“[The ship] started its scientific survey in Chinese-controlled waters in early July,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying during a daily news briefing in Beijing. “According to our understanding, the work is presently complete.” 

Since the 1940s, the People’s Republic of China has embroiled itself in diplomatic conflict over the region known as the South China Sea, which borders numerous countries in East and Southeast Asia, including Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. 

An estimated $3.37 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, which accounts for a third of the global maritime trade, including 80 percent of China's energy imports and 39.5 percent of China's total trade. 

China has claimed sovereignty over the whole South China Sea. Its claim encompasses multiple exclusive economic zones. China has contested these countries’ claims in various ways, including creating artificial islands in the Paracel and Spratly island chains and stationing military bases there. Both Vietnam and Taiwan claim the Paracel Islands despite China’s de facto control of the islands, while numerous countries claim different areas of the Spratly Islands due to the islands’ strategic locations in shipping and oil routes. 

Despite the momentary pullback in China’s forces, the larger standoff shows no sign of ending soon, as both countries refuse to back down. “The situation in the South China Sea has become increasingly complicated,” said Vietnamese President and Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong to lawmakers at the National Assembly in Hanoi. “Our party and state have consistently stated that what belongs to our independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, we will never give up.”

On the other hand, Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe told military officials in Beijing that the South China Sea is an inalienable part of China’s territory on October 20. “We will not allow even an inch of territory that our ancestors have left to us to be taken away.”