Asia: As demand rises, East Asia learning to cooperate over oil

SPRATLY ISLANDS–Flying westward about an hour off Palawan Island in the Philippines, you come to a large, rusting ship lying grounded on a sandbank in the South China Sea. The ship is derelict, but Filipino soldiers stand guard, making a public show that this part of the hotly disputed Spratly Islands is Philippine territory.

On Nov. 19, officials gathered to celebrate the arrival of a Chinese research ship at a port in Batangas, south of Manila. The ceremony marked the first joint exploration of the Spratlys carried out by China, the Philippines and Vietnam. The 931-ton sea-bed geology research ship Nanhai 502, operated by the state-run China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), had navigated a total of about 10,000 kilometers around the islands, spending three months to check reserves of oil and natural gas there.

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