Last month we posted about a stand-off between Chinese fishing vessels and Philippine Coast Guard ships at Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Both nations claim sovereignty over the area. Even the island name is in contention. The Philipines refers to Scarborough Shoal as Panatag Shoal and Bajo de Masinloc, whereas the Chinese call it Huangyan Island and Minzhu Jiao. This week 32 Chinese vessels blockaded the shoal, barring local Philippine fishermen access to the fishing grounds. The the shoal is 472 nautical miles from the Chinese coast and 124 nautical miles from the Philippines province of Zambales.
In another move to assert sovereignty over disputed waters in the South China Sea, China’s first deep-water drilling rig began operations near islands in the South China Sea. Cnooc Ltd., China’s largest offshore oil producer, said its semi-submersible CNOOC 981 began drilling yesterday 199 miles southeast of Hong Kong at a depth of 1,500 meters in an area north of the Paracel islands claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan.
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