#Hoang Sa

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.

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.

The U.S. State Department has issued a request for China’s navy to refrain from harassing fishermen of other countries in the disputed South China Sea.

A Chinese vessel was accused of sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat near the disputed Paracel islands on September 29.

Local fishermen in the South China Sea have long gone unprotected when fishing in their own waters or in waters claimed by other countries. But this may soon change, following attacks this year on Vietnamese fishing boats.

Just when the memories of anti-Chinese protests and rioting have started to fade among the Vietnamese, the Chinese are stoking the fires again with another salami-slicing maneuver.

Last Friday, eight Indonesians were arrested by a Vietnamese coast guard patrol off the southern coast of Vietnam.

Here in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the local government last week ordered its travel and tourism departments to draw up a feasibility study for tours to the Truong Sa (Spratly) islands, which Vietnam currently occupies.

Last Thursday, a Vietnamese wooden fishing boat returning to the central province of Quang Ngai was badly damaged following attacks from three Chinese vessels near the Paracel Islands, which the Vietnamese call the Hoang Sa.

Lately, it seems China’s aggressive foreign policy stance toward territorial disputes in the South China Sea is backfiring, especially in Vietnam. Last month, Vietnamese officials offered India two oil-exploration blocks in the disputed South China Sea waters, which Vietnam calls the East Sea, which drew strong condemnation from Beijing. In turn, India promised to sell […]

In a time of heightened tensions between Asian nations with claims to the waters of the East and South China Seas, the deployment of an offshore oil rig back in May by Beijing in disputed waters with Vietnam was not going to be an event without ramifications. The rig’s deployment by the Chinese National Offshore […]