HONG KONG — Territorial disputes between China and Vietnam have triggered deadly anti-China protests in Vietnam this week. Thousands of Vietnamese rioted against an oil rig China placed in waters that Vietnam considers its own. On Friday, protests took place in the Philippines, which is also entangled in territorial disputes with Beijing. China’s move to […]
At least 21 people were killed as anti-China riots in southern Vietnam escalated and spread to the center of the country on Thursday. A doctor in Ha Tinh province described five of the dead as Vietnamese workers and others as Chinese. He said they were among roughly 100 people sent to his hospital, Reuters reports. […]
Southeast Asian nations look helpless to counter Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea—but it would be misguided to think China isn’t wary of its own political toll, writes Andrew Browne in this week’s China’s World column: Nothing seems to illustrate the impotence of Southeast Asian nations more than their glacial progress toward a […]
The confrontation began on May 2 when the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation placed its deep sea drilling rig HD-981 in disputed waters of the South China Sea. As Vietnam objected, China deployed some 80 ships, including seven military vessels, along with aircraft to support the rig. Hanoi reacted by dispatching 29 ships to […]
Collisions between ships of Vietnam and China following the latter’s installation of a deep water oil rig in the disputed South China Sea mark a dangerous escalation of simmering tensions. Simultaneous to this fracas near the contested Paracel Islands, maritime authorities of the Philippines have arrested Chinese fishermen close to another coveted portion of the […]
Four decades since their most high-profile maritime clash, China and Vietnam are at it again. When China moved a massive oil rig within disputed waters earlier this month, Vietnam demanded the Chinese state oil company remove it. The US promised to investigate and later criticised the move but the rig has stayed put and the […]
China has dangerously increased tensions in the South China Sea by deploying an oil rig for the first time in a disputed area claimed by Vietnam. The move is certain to make countries in the region feel even more threatened by China’s expansionist territorial claims. The rig, belonging to a state-owned oil company, was parked […]
“What would America fight for?” exclaimed The Economist, as it cautioned the Obama administration against strategic retreat and neo-isolationism. It dismissed President Obama’s foreign policy as a cerebral doctrine that excuses inaction — one that is based on visceral recoil at confrontation and distaste for strategic gamble. It warned Washington about increasing doubt among allies, […]
It is difficult to be blithe about the dispatch of China’s HYSY981 drilling rig into disputed waters off the Vietnamese coast. It actually would have been less of a provocation if the PRC had sent the aircraft carrier Liaoning down there instead. One of the interesting by-products of the US “freedom of navigation” campaign in […]
Vietnam and China are engaged in a heated standoff in the South China Sea, with both sides thus far unwilling to back down. The problem started earlier this week when China sent an oil rig and other accompanying vessels into an area within the 200-mile exclusive economic zone of Vietnam. From there, things took a […]