China is to blame for most of the tensions surrounding the deployment of an oil rig in the South China Sea, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said.

A Vietnamese fishing boat capsized this week after it struck a Chinese vessel near a Chinese oil rig deployed in disputed waters.

Reacting to reports the Chinese intentionally rammed the Vietnamese boat, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said both sides were called on to exercise restraint. "Provocative actions" from the dispute, she added, "have largely been from the Chinese side."

China says it's operating within its maritime borders, though Vietnam said the rig's deployment is a violation of international laws.

The U.S. government has said it has no stance on who has sovereign claims to the territory in question.

Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said Tuesday the Vietnamese fishing boat was harassing Chinese vessels in the waters near the Xisha Islands. The Vietnamese actions, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, were a deliberate attempt to disrupt regular operations from a Chinese company operating in Chinese waters.

'Sluggish' economic performance to blame for low oil demand from China
Houston (UPI) May 28, 2013 –

Chinese oil demand in April declined nearly a full percentage point from March because of lackluster industrial activity, the Platts energy news service said.

Platts used government data to show apparent oil demand, a measure of crude oil at domestic refineries plus net imports, rose in April by 1.4 percent year-on-year to 9.75 million barrels per day. The year-on-year increase for April was 0.5 percent higher than reported for March, though on a monthly basis, apparent oil demand in April declined 0.7 percent from the previous month.

Song Yen Ling, a senior writer for China for the energy news service, said in a statement Tuesday the decline was in part because of a slowdown in the Chinese economy.

"On a year-over-year basis, China's oil products imports have been significantly lower since the second half of 2013 as demand growth remains sluggish amid stagnant economic recovery," she said.

The World Bank said growth in China's gross domestic product averaged about 10 percent a year since the government embraced a market-based economy in the late 1970s, though it will be a significant challenge to sustain that level of growth.

Since the beginning of the year, Platts reported China's apparent oil demand was "essentially flat."