China’s energy needs and a weak Asean bloc are fuelling its aggressive pursuit of oil off the disputed Paracel Islands
China’s provocative decision to station a $1bn (£600m) deep-sea oil drilling rig in disputed waters 120 miles off Vietnam well within Hanoi’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone, in clear breach of a 2011 bilateral maritime pact and in defiance of regional and international agreements can be explained, though not justified, in several ways.
The most prosaic explanation is that China’s state-owned National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the rig’s owner, is keen to develop sources of oil and gas for the country’s energy-hungry economy that do not depend on exploration agreements with western oil companies.