In an appearance on Tuesday before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Command stated: “I believe China seeks hegemony in East Asia.”
Beijing is back to salami-slicing again, as it moved an offshore oil drilling rig on January 16 near the entrance to the Gulf of Tonkin, about 21 nautical miles east of the median line between Vietnam and China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Vietnam this week, the first by a Chinese president in ten years, drew mixed reaction among the Vietnamese.
Tuesday’s voyage of the destroyer USS Lassen through waters claimed by China in the South China Sea had the potential to escalate an already tense situation.
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.
Beijing attempted to quash any mention of the South China Sea dispute prior to Tuesday’s meeting in Kuala Lumpur of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Being a Chinese tourist these days is not easy.
The apparent success of Putin’s misadventures in Ukraine could serve as an attractive geopolitical militaristic strategy for other nations with territorial disputes, such as China.
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.
On Saturday in Singapore, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter addressed the attendants at the 14th Shangri-La Dialogue, a high-level security forum, asserting China’s recent land reclamation in the South China Sea was “out of step” with international norms, and adding his opposition to “any further militarization” in the region.
I had not given much thought to the flight plan of the airline I recently booked to go back to the U.S. from Vietnam, but recent events in the airspace over the South China Sea prompted an online search. As I discovered, my commercial flight will be flying not far from where a U.S. surveillance plane was warned on Wednesday to leave by a Chinese radar operator.
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