<\/p>\n
The episode began in December, when Malaysia\u2019s state-run energy giant Petroliam Nasional Bhd. contracted a vessel to explore two areas in the South China Sea in its extended continental shelf. Those waters are also claimed by Vietnam and China, which immediately sent ships to shadow the boat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The situation took a turn for the worse on April 16 with the arrival of a Chinese surveyor known as the Haiyang Dizhi 8, which last year was engaged in a standoff with Vietnam over offshore energy blocks. The U.S. this week sent at least two warships within some 50 nautical miles of the Malaysian ship, according to defense analysts privy to the information who asked not to be identified.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo on Thursday accused China of \u201cexploiting\u201d the world\u2019s focus on the Covid-19 pandemic with provocations in the South China Sea.\u00a0In a statement<\/a>\u00a0issued on the same day he held a video call with 10 Southeast Asian foreign ministers, he said China \u201cdispatched a flotilla that included an energy survey vessel for the sole purpose of intimidating other claimants from engaging in offshore hydrocarbon development.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S. strongly opposes China\u2019s bullying and we\u00a0hope\u00a0other nations will hold them to account too,\u201d Pompeo said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The U.S. doesn\u2019t take a position on territorial disputes in the region even while staking a national interest in freedom of navigation, which involves challenging any claims that aren\u2019t consistent with international laws. As China gets more assertive in enforcing its claims, it\u2019s increased the risk of a potential confrontation with the U.S. that could quickly escalate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command confirmed Wednesday that three ships \u2014 the USS America, an amphibious assault ship; the USS Bunker Hill, a guided missile cruiser; and the USS Barry, an Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer \u2014 were operating in the South China Sea, without giving a precise location. They were\u00a0joined<\/a>\u00a0by an Australian Anzac-class frigate on April 18,\u00a0according to<\/a>\u00a0the U.S. 7th Fleet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe risk of a new incident is rising, as tension elsewhere in the relationship could inflame the situation on the ground, or rather, in the water,\u201d New York-based risk consultancy Eurasia Group said in an analysis on Wednesday. \u201cGrowing animosity between the two sides would it make it difficult to prevent an accidental collision from becoming a full-blown crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Without a direct threat from the U.S., China has increasingly disrupted the efforts of Vietnam, the Philippines \u2014 and increasingly Malaysia \u2014 to exploit oil, gas and fishing resources off their shores. China claims about 80% of the South China Sea through its so-called \u201cnine-dash line,\u201d and its increasing economic might has allowed it to invest in bigger ships that can operate ever-further from its shores.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s unknown how much recoverable oil and gas is in the disputed Malaysian blocks at the center of the standoff. But if China blocks all future exploration activities within the nine-dash line, the Malaysian company known as Petronas would be robbed of domestic drilling opportunities at a time when it\u2019s trying to boost spending at home amid an economic slump.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is \u201cby far the biggest and most overt challenge yet to Malaysia\u2019s South China Sea energy interests,\u201d said Collin Koh Swee Lean, research fellow at Singapore\u2019s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Malaysia sought to tamp down tensions on Thursday, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Hishammuddin Hussein calling for all parties to work together to maintain peace.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe must avoid unintended, accidental incidents in these waters,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile international law guarantees the freedom of navigation, the presence of warships and vessels in the South China Sea has the potential to increase tensions that in turn may result in miscalculations which may affect peace, security and stability in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang this week said its survey ship was \u201cconducting normal activities in waters under Chinese jurisdiction\u201d and called the situation \u201cbasically stable<\/a>.\u201d At least half a dozen armed Chinese coast guard ships and several militia were involved, according to Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative in Washington.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Poling said China last year took similar actions against Petronas and Royal Dutch Shell Plc in Malaysian waters as they conducted at least two other surveys of its continental shelf.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That was similar to China\u2019s\u00a0actions<\/a>\u00a0against Vietnam, when it repeatedly sent coast guard ships and the Haiyang Dizhi 8 to an energy block operated by Russia\u2019s state-owned Rosneft Oil Co PJSC. The situation drew\u00a0criticism\u00a0from the U.S. and the\u00a0European Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the exact same operation we saw conducted against Vietnam when Rosneft was drilling a new well last year,\u201d Poling said by email. \u201cBut this is more problematic because it has become so public, and because Petronas has invested so much time and expense in exploring fields this far out. I have no idea whether they\u2019re likely to be commercially viable, but I do know that there\u2019s no chance of Petronas actually producing hydrocarbons from them in the current environment.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Petronas did not immediately reply to a request to comment.<\/p>\n gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The episode began in December, when Malaysia\u2019s state-run energy giant Petroliam Nasional Bhd. contracted a vessel to explore two areas in the South China Sea in its extended continental shelf. Those waters are also claimed by Vietnam and China, which immediately sent ships to shadow the boat. The situation took a turn for the worse …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[777,5286,2370,1730,5285,488,5127],"class_list":["post-8582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-chinese","tag-draws","tag-energy","tag-fight","tag-highseas","tag-malaysia","tag-warships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/8583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}