HANOI — Vietnam insists that China stops offshore oil exploration in the South China Sea within Vietnam’s territorial waters, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the phone on Thursday. The Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said on Friday the minister had criticized Beijing’s installation of […]
Violence against Chinese-owned factories in Vietnam has spread to mayhem at factories run by South Korean, Taiwan and Singapore companies as well. It’s as though Vietnamese were protesting not only the heavy-handed construction by China of an oil rig within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea but also giving voice to a long […]
China claims sovereignty over almost 80 percent of the South China Sea, which is rich in oil and gas and fisheries and is a busy waterway for world trade. Territorial disputes there as well as in the East China Sea have pitted China against several neighboring countries. Although China has avowed a desire to have […]
UNTIL this month relations between Vietnam and China seemed only to be improving. Business deals were being done and trade was humming. The Communist neighbours were discussing the possibility that they might jointly prospect for oil in the South China Sea, where they have long disagreed over conflicting territorial claims. But the calculus changed abruptly […]
The spilling of blood and burning of factories by anti-Chinese rioters sweeping across Vietnam reinforces Beijing’s message to other countries claiming territory in the South China Sea: resistance is costly and ultimately futile. But a region in which anti-Chinese sentiment grows and where sovereignty disputes disrupt trade and economic growth will burn Beijing as well. Over […]
MANILA – (11:31PM) Several hundred Filipino and Vietnamese protesters united in a march on Friday, demanding that China stop oil drilling in disputed South China Sea waters, as a Filipino lawmaker revealed Hanoi officials were mulling over filing a separate case against China – similar to what Manila filed in 2013 – over their maritime […]
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 […]
What’s the difference between an oil rig and a naval base or an aircraft carrier? Very little, politically, in the eyes of China. The waters of the South China Sea have witnessed a growing set of confrontations between Chinese and Vietnamese maritime forces as China deploys its deep-sea oil drilling rig, Haiyang Shiyou 981, to […]
The crews from the Vietnamese and Chinese coast guards shook hands and took photos as they met last month, sharing platters of fruit and raising their glasses for a toast. Now, they are in a tense standoff in the South China Sea. “The two sides were very happy and united,” Lt. Colonel Phan Duy Cuong, […]
BEIJING — Vietnam’s Prime Minister texted millions of citizens late Thursday encouraging them to defend the nation’s sovereignty in a dispute with China over an oil rig that has left at least two Chinese workers dead and injured a 100 more. Nguyen Tan Dung warned against letting “bad elements” engage in violence, but did not […]