Drilling is legal and legitimate

Despite Japan's attempts at the G7 summit in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday to get the G7 leaders to blame China for the rising tensions in the East and South China seas, the G7 leaders said in a communiqu�� they are deeply concerned by the tensions and oppose any unilateral attempt by any party to assert its territorial or maritime claims through the use of intimidation, coercion or force, but without naming any specific country.

The essence of the South China Sea issue is the territorial disputes over some islets and reefs of the Nansha Islands and the Xisha Islands and the resulting disputes over maritime demarcation. The former is the main dispute and the latter secondary. Because of the complexity and sensitivity of the territorial issues involved, no country wants to compromise or make concessions.

The location of China National Offshore Oil Corporation's Haiyang Shiyou 981 drilling platform is 17 nautical miles (31.5 kilometers) southeast of Zhongjian Island, one of China's Xisha Islands, and about 150 nautical miles from the coastline of Vietnam, it falls indisputably within the contiguous zone of China's Xisha Islands.