Malaysia will not stop South China Sea exploration despite China protests, PM says

(Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said on Thursday the country will not stop its oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea despite claims by Beijing that Malaysia was infringing on its territory.

Anwar, speaking from Russia where he is on an official trip, said Malaysia's exploration activities were within its territory and were not intended to be provocative or hostile towards China, with whom it has friendly relations.

"Of course, we will have to operate in our waters and secure economic advantage, including drilling for oil, in our territory," Anwar said in a televised press conference in Vladivostok.

"We have never denied the possibility of discussion (with China). But it doesn't mean we have to stop the operation in our area."

Malaysia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday it would investigate the leak of a classified diplomatic note from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

In the note, which was carried by a Philippine news outlet, Beijing asserted that Malaysia's oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea breached its territory.

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, including parts of the 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam, complicating energy exploration efforts by several of those countries.

Under international law, an EEZ does not denote sovereignty, but grants a country sovereign rights to extract natural resources from those waters.

Malaysian state energy firm Petronas, or Petroliam Nasional Berhad, operates oil and gas fields in the South China Sea within Malaysia's EEZ and has in recent years had several encounters with Chinese vessels.

Anwar said China has sent "one or two" protest notes to stop Malaysia's oil exploration activities, without specifying details, but stressed that the government would continue to explain to Beijing its position.

"We have said that we will not transgress other people's borders. That is our stringent policy and principles," he said.

"They know our position.... They have claimed that we are infringing on their territory. That is not the case. We say no, it is our territory."

"But if they continue with the dispute, then okay, we will have to listen, and they will have to listen."

An international arbitration tribunal in The Hague in 2016 ruled China's claim to about 90% of the South China Sea, made via a U-shaped "nine-dash line" on its maps, had no basis under international law, a decision Beijing does not recognise.

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff and Danial Azhar in Kuala Lumpur; Editing by John Mair, Martin Petty)