China’s recently abandoned tactic of asserting its territorial claims to the South China Sea through fishing rather than minerals extraction is well and truly dead. State-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) started drilling in the disputed waters in May. Now it is inviting bids from foreign oil companies for the joint exploration and development of nine blocks off the coast of Vietnam that would appear to lie south of the Paracel Islands and cover 160,000 square kilometers where Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea and the 200 mile zone claimed by Hanoi under the UN Law of the Sea overlap. Clash might be a more appropriate word. The diplomatic protests from Vietnam have already started. State-owned PetroVietnam also says CNOOC’s tender blocks overlap its own. This map from CNOOC shows the locations.
Footnote: CNOOC has invited such tenders in the South China Sea before but only in waters incontrovertibly Chinese.
China Bystander 
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