Indonesia has deployed warships in the North Natuna Sea to monitor Chinese coast guard ships operating in resource-rich waters, the country’s naval chief said on Saturday, citing the two countries as their own. I talked about the area where
Vessel tracking data show that CCG 5901 has been sailing in the Natuna Sea since December 30, particularly near the Tuna Block gas field and Vietnam’s Tsim Xao oil and gas fields, the Indonesian Ocean Justice Initiative told Reuters. rice field.
Indonesian Navy chief Laksamana Muhammad Ali told Reuters news agency that warships, maritime patrol planes and drones had been deployed to monitor the vessels.
“Chinese ships are not conducting suspicious activity,” he said. “But it has been in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) for some time, so we have to monitor it.”
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta could not be reached for comment.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives ships the right to navigate through the EEZ.
The activity follows an EEZ agreement between Indonesia and Vietnam and approval from Indonesia to develop the tuna gas field in the Natuna Sea, with an estimated total investment of more than $3 billion to start production.
In 2021, Indonesian and Chinese vessels overshadowed each other for months near a submersible oil rig that was performing well in the Tuna concession.
At the time, China asked Indonesia to stop drilling, saying it was being drilled on its own territory.
Southeast Asia’s largest country, under UNCLOS, says the southern tip of the South China Sea is its exclusive economic zone, naming the area the North Natuna Sea in 2017.
China refused, saying that the waters are part of the vast sovereignty of the South China Sea, marked by the U-shaped “nine-dash line,” a demarcation line that the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in 2016 to have no legal basis. said it was within the scope of the claim. .
