China was reportedly building oil and gas rigs inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone, in what analysts claimed was part of a campaign to slowly chip away at the island’s defences and expand Beijing’s control of disputed waters.
Research by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, said at least 12 vessels and fixed structures belonging to the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) were operating inside Taiwan’s zone, close to the Pratas Islands in the northern South China Sea. Some have been there for several years.
