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01:07
rabiul islam
China will boost offshore surveillance by adding ships and 6,000 personnel by 2020, state media said on Friday, another move likely to raise tensions with neighbours staking rival claims to waters thought to hold vast reserves of oil and gas.
The expansion of the China Maritime Surveillance Forces, a paramilitary law enforcement agency that patrols China's territorial waters, was unveiled two days after the country sent its largest civilian maritime patrol ship to the South China Sea.
The moves show Beijing's resolve to protect its "maritime rights and sovereignty" which it says have been increasingly violated amid a rising frequency of disputes.
The maritime surveillance forces, under the State Oceanic Administration, will have 16 aircraft and 350 vessels by the end of the country's five-year plan ending in 2015, and more than 15,000 personnel by 2020, the official China Daily said citing an unnamed senior official.
"There have been an increasing number of intrusions by foreign vessels and planes into Chinese waters and airspace in recent years,"
It said that the maritime surveillance forces had logged 1,303 foreign ships and 214 planes intruding in 2010, compared to a total of 110 cases in 2007.
Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in the past month on concerns China is becoming more assertive in the waters, parts of which are also claimed by the Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
China's claim is by far the largest, forming a large U-shape over most of the sea's 648,000 square miles (1.7 million square km), including the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
This week, Beijing warned outside countries not to step into the dispute, after Vietnam said other countries, including the United States, could help defuse the tension.
China has accused Vietnam of violating its claim to the Spratlys and nearby seas, which Vietnam also deems its own. China calls the islands the Nansha group.
Beijing said last week it would hold naval drills in June in the western Pacific Ocean and the navy has done little to disguise plans to launch its first aircraft carrier.
03:16
rabiul islam
China will boost offshore surveillance by adding ships and 6,000 personnel by 2020, state media said on Friday, another move likely to raise tensions with neighbours staking rival claims to waters thought to hold vast reserves of oil and gas.
The expansion of the China Maritime Surveillance Forces, a paramilitary law enforcement agency that patrols China's territorial waters, was unveiled two days after the country sent its largest civilian maritime patrol ship to the South China Sea.
The moves show Beijing's resolve to protect its "maritime rights and sovereignty" which it says have been increasingly violated amid a rising frequency of disputes.
The maritime surveillance forces, under the State Oceanic Administration, will have 16 aircraft and 350 vessels by the end of the country's five-year plan ending in 2015, and more than 15,000 personnel by 2020, the official China Daily said citing an unnamed senior official.
"There have been an increasing number of intrusions by foreign vessels and planes into Chinese waters and airspace in recent years," the newspaper said.
It said that the maritime surveillance forces had logged 1,303 foreign ships and 214 planes intruding in 2010, compared to a total of 110 cases in 2007.
Tensions in the South China Sea have risen in the past month on concerns China is becoming more assertive in the waters, parts of which are also claimed by the Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.
China's claim is by far the largest, forming a large U-shape over most of the sea's 648,000 square miles (1.7 million square km), including the Spratly and Paracel archipelagos.
This week, Beijing warned outside countries not to step into the dispute, after Vietnam said other countries, including the United States, could help defuse the tension.
China has accused Vietnam of violating its claim to the Spratlys and nearby seas, which Vietnam also deems its own. China calls the islands the Nansha group.
Beijing said last week it would hold naval drills in June in the western Pacific Ocean and the navy has done little to disguise plans to launch its first aircraft carrier.
02:25
rabiul islam
Vietnam is holding live-fire drills in the South 
China Sea amid high tensions with China over disputed waters.
A Vietnamese naval officer said the "routine" drills were being held about 40km (25 miles) off central Quang Nam province, outside the disputed area.
The second stage of the exercise will be held at night; shipping has been warned to stay clear of the area.
Chinese state media denounced the exercises as a military show of force to defy Beijing.
The drills are taking place within days of an escalation in the long-standing maritime border dispute between China and Vietnam.
The South China Sea includes important shipping routes and may contain rich oil and gas deposits.
Vietnam last month accused China of cutting the exploration cables of an oil survey ship. In a similar incident last week it said a Chinese fishing boat had "intentionally rammed" the exploration cables of another of its boats.
China said that its fishing boats were chased away by armed Vietnamese ships in the incident last Thursday.
The fishing net of one of the Chinese boats became tangled with the cables of an Vietnamese oil exploring vessel, which was operating illegally in the area, and was dragged for more than an hour before it was cut free, the Chinese foreign ministry said.
China accused Vietnam of "gravely violating" its sovereignty and warned it to stop "all invasive activities".
'Official sanction'
A Vietnamese naval officer said the "routine annual training" exercises have "nothing to do with the recent incidents involving China".
The first part of the nine-hour drill is being held around the uninhabited island of Hon Ong - well within Vietnamese territorial waters.
A second phase of live firing lasting about six hours will be staged at night, officials said.
China has not commented officially on the naval exercises, but a newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, the Global Times, said the drills were "a military show of force to defy Beijing".
Demonstrations have been held in Hanoi for the second weekend in a row, calling for China to get out of Vietnam's territorial waters.
Demonstrations are not usually tolerated in Communist Vietnam, but the authorities appear to be allowing protests related to the South China Sea dispute, our correspondent says.
China is engaged in maritime border disputes with several countries.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have rival claims in the area. The US has also expressed concern about China's rising naval ambitions.
