#East Sea

   Japan Coast Guard security team members display tracking and capture drills in October 2016  (Kazuhiro Nogi/Pool Photo via AP, File) The sovereignty of the South China Sea has been hotly debated in recent years among China and the littoral nations (especially the Philippines and Vietnam).  Beijing lays claim to some 90 percent of the […]

Just when Chinese and Vietnamese relations appeared to be going well, the waters of the South China Sea (and East Sea) may be heating up again.

Hanoi officially expressed its displeasure over Beijing’s annual fishing ban in the South China Sea at a regular press conference last week.

Vietnam reacted strongly in response to a recent visit by a Chinese cruise ship to the disputed Paracel archipelago. Hanoi pressed for an end to the cruise ship visits, which have taken hundreds of Chinese tourists to the island chain since 2013.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson concluded his visit to China earlier this month, pledging that relations between the two countries would be based on “non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation.”

In downstream Vietnam, experts claim as much as 50% of the 2.2 million hectares of arable land in the delta had been hit by salinization due to the drought.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte latest rants have caused international concern, resulting in capital flight and drops in the stockmarket and currency.

Now that an arbitral court in The Hague has ruled in favor of Manila over Beijing’s claims to the South China Sea, will Hanoi be next?

In recent weeks, incidents of bad behavior by Chinese tourists in Vietnam have widely circulated on social media and been reported by Vietnamese news media.

A court in the Hague is due to issue this month a ruling on a case against China brought by the Philippines over maritime territory in the South China Sea.

Despite concerns human rights violations in Vietnam, Obama opted to fully lift the arms embargo on lethal military equipment during his recent visit.

The incident last week was not a one-off: there have been dozens of attacks by Chinese vessels on Vietnamese fishing boats in the Paracel Island chain since last year.