China/Vietnam: China and Vietnam at Impasse Over Rig in South China Sea

May 12, 2014 | Keith Bradsher, The New York Times
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HONG KONG — China and Vietnam appear to have reached at least a temporary impasse over a giant drilling rig sent by a state-controlled Chinese oil company to a site in the South China Sea between the Vietnamese coastline and a cluster of disputed islands, as the confrontation has continued to raise thorny issues of international law.Col. Pham Quang Oanh, deputy chairman of the political department of Vietnam’s Coast Guard, said that as many as 15 Chinese ships had sprayed a Vietnamese vessel at the site with water cannons on Monday. He denied a report in Vietnamese news media that the vessel had used water cannons to fire back.