Vietnam and China have resolved their dispute over areas in the Gulf of Tonkin to the south of Chinas Guangdong province. An agreement signed in December 2000 delineated the boundary between their EEZs, opening the way for Oil and gas exploration.
Maritime boundaries in the Natural Gas-rich Gulf of Thailand portion of the South China Sea have not all been clearly defined. Several companies have signed exploration agreements but have been unable to drill in a disputed zone between Cambodia and Thailand. Overlapping claims between Thailand and Vietnam were settled on August 8, 1997, and cooperative agreements for exploration and development were signed for the Malaysia-Thai and Malaysia-Vietnam Joint Development Areas (the latter effective June 4, 1993).
Most of these claims are historical, but they are also based upon internationally accepted principles extending territorial claims offshore onto a countrys continental shelf, as Well as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.