Professor Renato DeCastro from Manila-based De La Salle University has said that by deploying the second oil rig [Nanhai 9] to the East Sea, China has put the Philippines and Vietnam in the same boat.

It is likely that China’s second oil platform will be towed to the Reed Bank, targeting the Philippines, DeCastro told VOV online, recalling the March 2011 incident when a Filipino boat sent to the Reed Bank on a seismic mission was intercepted by two Chinese reconnaissance aircraft.

The dispatch of the second oil rig is probably to retaliate against both the Philippines and Vietnam for organising a recent joint volleyball exchange on Song Tu Tay island of the Spratly archipelago, he said.

Answering a VOV online question on whether the UN Security Council (UNSC) will veto China’s nine-dash line claim, DeCastro said the UNSC should first know how the nine-dash line will affect global security.

Even when the issue is raised at the UNSC, China – one of the five veto-wielding members of the UNSC – will immediately reject any resolution concerning its claim.

To date China has failed to clarify its nine-dash line claim which makes up more than 80% of the East Sea’s area. Chinese explanations are inconsistent at international workshops: it says the nine-dash line locates its territorial waters at one time, or its exclusive economic zone at another.

That’s why the Philippines sued China at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in March 2014, in the hope that the court would ask China to clarify its nine-dash line claim and rule itgoes against the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), of which China is a member, said DeCastro.

The professor attended an international conference in Danang city on June 20-21 examining historical evidence of territorial sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos.

The conference, which brought together nearly 100 Vietnamese and foreign scholars, was held to garner additional support for Vietnam’s struggle for justice, after China unilaterally positioned its floating drilling rig Haiyang Shihyou-981 deep inside Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in early May.

VOV/VNN