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Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui - Tag - China L'actualité du Viêt Nam 2014-11-28T19:29:25+00:00 Guénin Patrick urn:md5:11602 Dotclear Vietnam gov't urged to scrap resort project of Chinese venture over defense issues urn:md5:4f3ca4ddbf1e4ac00b6e210c034db368 2014-11-08T20:34:00+01:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaDa Nangmilitarytourism
The administration of the central city of Da Nang has appealed to the central government to cancel the license of a multimillion-dollar resort project developed by a Chinese joint venture as its location is sensitive in respect of national defense.

Dang Huan, head of internal affairs and legislation with the city government office, confirmed to Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper on Friday that Da Nang chairman Van Huu Chien has proposed that the central government pull the plug on the Lang Co-Vietnam international retreat project.

The project is located in Cua Khem Cape, a border area between Da Nang and Thua Thien-Hue Province, and is being developed by The Dieu Co. Ltd., a Chinese joint venture whose general director is Chinese national Lu Wang Sheng.

Cua Khem Cape is where the Hai Van Mountain borders the East Vietnam Sea. The Dieu Co. obtained an investment license for a 50-year term from Thua Thien-Hue authorities in October of last year.

Huan said the project was licensed even though it is situated in an area that is sensitive to national defense.

"This is against the planning of the central government," he said.

"So Da Nang City suggests that the government and relevant ministries and industries order Thua Thien-Hue to revoke the investment license of The Dieu Co.," Huan added.

"The first step must be suspending the construction of the project."

The Da Nang official, however, did not elaborate why the area is deemed sensitive.

The 200-hectare retreat complex is designed to include a 450-room five-star hotel, a 2,000-seat international convention center, a five-story block of 200 deluxe apartments and 350 villas, according to the investment certificate.

 Total capital for the project is around US$250 million.

The first phase of the project, estimated to cost $115 million, will see construction of the villas and hotel.

The Thua Thien-Hue administration has invested VND50 billion ($2.35 million) in building a 5-km road leading to Cua Khem Cape to facilitate the development of the project.

Tuoi Tre News - November 8, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/11/08/Vietnam-gov%E2%80%99t-urged-to-scrap-resort-project-of-Chinese-venture-over-defense-issues#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/801077 Can China and Vietnam Overcome Their Territorial Disputes ? urn:md5:37374fe96a9d169ac7797ff4e55e92dd 2014-10-27T20:14:00+01:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinadiplomacy
Yang Jiechi's visit to Vietnam was full of optimism, but the China-Vietnam relationship remains fragile.

Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi was in Vietnam on Monday for a meeting with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. Their talks were held under the framework of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee on Cooperation, signaling a return to normalcy after maritime tensions earlier this year caused a rift between Beijing and Hanoi.

The last time Yang was in Vietnam, also for a meeting of the China-Vietnam Steering Committee on Cooperation, it was June 2014, and the two countries were embroiled in a testy standoff over the placement of a Chinese oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam as part of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). At that meeting, both sides dug in on their respective positions – China maintained that its oil rig was operating in uncontested waters and being unduly harassed by Vietnamese vessels and Vietnam that the oil rig was a violation of Vietnam's EEZ and that Chinese ships in the area were ramming Vietnamese vessels.

Since then, tensions have eased markedly. China withdrew its oil rig a month ahead of schedule, in July rather than August. At the end of August, Vietnamese Politburo member Le Hong Anh visited China in an ice-breaking trip meant to solidify camaraderie between the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Chinese Communist Party.

More recently, as Carl Thayer covered for The Diplomat, Vietnamese Defense Minister General Phung Quang Thanh visited Beijing in mid-October. "The importance of this visit cannot be overstated," Thayer wrote, noting that communication between the Chinese and Vietnamese militaries is crucial for avoiding miscalculations and escalation that could led to a a minor incident ballooning to become a major crisis. During Thanh's visit to Beijing, China and Vietnam signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing a direct communication line between their respective defense ministries, a hotline that could prove invaluable in future spats.

Yang's visit to Vietnam this week built on this positive momentum. At a press conference before Yang's departure for Hanoi, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying acknowledged that the "Sino-Vietnamese relationship has been beset with temporary problems since the beginning of this year." Hua said relations "starting picking up" in August, when Anh visited Beijing. "China is willing to … keep improving and developing the comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation between China and Vietnam," Hua said.

Yang's trip to Vietnam built on the idea that China-Vietnam relations are still recovering from the oil rig crisis. According to Xinhua, Yang said that China-Vietnam relations are in a "crucial period." Both Yang and Minh reiterated their governments' commitments to keeping China-Vietnam relations on the right track.

To do this, both sides agreed to "control and manage their maritime differences," Xinhua reported, with both China and Vietnam promising to "avoid taking any actions that might complicate and aggravate the disputes." They also agreed to "properly handle maritime issues" while seeking a lasting solution through a bilateral government mechanism dealing with border negotiations.

While Yang's visit represented public goodwill, it really didn't offer any new solutions for the maritime disputes that present the biggest threat to China-Vietnam ties. Both sides pledged to "exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes" in the 2002 joint "Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea" signed by ASEAN and China. That did nothing to prevent the oil rig crisis in 2014.

Likewise, the bilateral border negotiation framework is nothing new. China and Vietnam signed an Agreement on the Basic Principles Guiding the Resolution of Maritime Issues in October 2011, with both sides agreeing to negotiate over maritime issues "in a gradual manner, with easy things coming first." Hanoi and Beijing reaffirmed their commitment to using the border negotiation mechanism to address maritime issues in December 2013, shortly after Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's visit to Vietnam. Those agreements did nothing to calm the oil rig crisis in May 2014.

The damage to China-Vietnam relations this summer was not a result of a lack of political agreements or communication mechanisms. Instead, ties were damaged because, when push comes to shove, both sides value staking out their territorial claims over maintaining a stable bilateral relationship. China-Vietnam relations will only be truly stable when this political calculus changes. Otherwise, the relationship between these neighbors will remain highly vulnerable to territorial spats.

By Shannon Tiezzi - The Diplomat - October 27, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/10/27/Can-China-and-Vietnam-Overcome-Their-Territorial-Disputes#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/799881 Vietnam boat attacked by chinese surveillance ship urn:md5:df917bed367ac3eeec8fc39de5400262 2014-10-24T08:38:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinaseaship
A Vietnamese fishing boat captain said his vessel was attacked this month by the crew of a Chinese law enforcement ship near the disputed Paracel islands, risking a fresh escalation in tensions in the South China Sea.

The Vietnamese were threatened with guns and batons on Oct. 14 after they were chased by Chinese surveillance ship No.46106, said Nguyen Ngoc Khanh, 41, owner and captain of the 15-meter-long wooden fishing boat. The equipment on the five-crew fishing vessel was destroyed, he said by phone.

While Vietnam and China agreed last week to avoid armed conflicts between their militaries, territorial tensions between the two communist countries remain with fishing and surveillance ships acting as proxies in the dispute. In July, a Chinese company removed an oil rig it had placed in contested waters off Vietnam's coast after skirmishes between boats of the two countries and deadly anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam.

"The Vietnamese fishermen are going out into the Paracel waters with the backing and support of the Vietnamese government to assert their sovereignty," Carlyle Thayer, an emeritus professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra, said by phone. "That is going to put them in direct conflict with the Chinese. China is not backing down."

Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn't immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn't reply to a fax seeking comment.

Camouflaged Uniforms

"Six people in camouflaged uniforms approached my vessel in a canoe with guns and cudgels," Khanh said. The Chinese crew threw overboard two metric tons of sea spinach, harvested over three weeks, he said. None of his crew were hurt, said Khanh, who estimated his losses at about $4,000.

Vietnamese fishing boats will continue to ply waters near the Paracel islands because backing off could play into China's claims to the territory should the dispute end up in international court, Thayer said. "Both China and Vietnam are using fishing boats to advance sovereignty claims," he said.

The latest incident follows Vietnam's Oct. 9 criticism of China's completion of an upgraded airstrip on the islands, giving it another foothold in the South China Sea. The frictions come as the U.S. and Vietnam develop closer military and diplomatic ties. Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh that Vietnam will be able to buy nonlethal weapons from the U.S.

Vietnam and China's top leaders have sought to patch up relations. The countries' defense ministers have agreed to set up hot-lines to manage sea tensions, as did their presidents last year.

Still, the two sides are facing off at sea, Thayer said.

"It will cause Vietnam to protest and will cause a hardening of positions," he said of the latest clash. "It will revive antagonism from both sides."

By John Boudreau & Mai Ngoc Chau - Bloomberg - October23, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/10/24/Vietnam-boat-attacked-by-chinese-surveillance-ship#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/799563 China builds military airstrip in disputed South China sea urn:md5:8cdae2d55ad22cef34550303f1790909 2014-10-08T20:39:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacel
The new military airstrip is part of China's ongoing effort to strengthen its ability to patrol the South China Sea.

China has completed the construction of a military airstrip on one of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea, according to Chinese state-run media outlets.

On Wednesday AFP reported, citing an article from Xinhua News Agency, that China had finished the construction of a "newly built" runway on Woody (Yongxing) Island, a PRC-administered Paracel Island that is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan.

AFP said the Xinhua article contained few details but did say the airstrip is 2,000 meters long and would be used by the People's Liberation Army.

"With the completion and continued improvements to the runway on Yongxing, military aircraft can be based in the Paracels, and greatly improve Chinese defense capabilities" in the South China Sea, AFP quoted the Xinhua article as saying. It added that the article contained pictures of the airstrip.

Although the AFP article referred to the airstrip as a "newly built facility," and said Xinhua had stated its length at 2,000 meters, there is already an airstrip located on Woody Island and recent satellite imagery has shown work being done to extend it from 2,400 meters to around 2,700-2,800 meters. It therefore seems likely that China has not built a completely new airstrip but rather finished extending the existing one.

Regardless of whether China has built a new airstrip on Woody Island or just extended the existing one, the move is consistent with its ongoing effort to build up military and other facilities on islands and reefs it administers throughout the South China Sea as a way to strengthen both its claims of sovereignty and the PLA's ability to patrol the vast waters that China claims in the region.

Woody Island, which is the largest of the Paracel Islands, has been central to this effort. The island serves as the center of government of Sansha City, the prefecture-level city China created in June 2012 to strengthen its ability to administer the surrounding island chains, which are claimed in whole or part by Vietnam, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

The following month China's Central Military Commission announced it had approved a plan to establish a new military garrison in Sansha.

"The garrison command will be a division-level command under the PLA's Hainan provincial sub-command, responsible for managing the city's national defense mobilization, military reserves and carrying out military operations," Xinhua reported of the Sansha military garrison at the time of its creation.

More recently, in July of this year, China announced it will "gradually establish a regular patrol system on Sansha city to jointly protect the country's maritime interests." To do this it said it would continue building up the necessary infrastructure on Woody Island, and ultimately base a 5,000-ton marine patrol ship there. In 2011 China finished construction on a new harbor on the western side of Woody Island.

By Zachary Keck - The Diplomat - October 8, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/10/08/China-builds-military-airstrip-in-disputed-South-China-sea#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/798147 Hong Kong protests are China's internal affairs: Vietnam FM spokesman urn:md5:476025a8c786a2fa47c7d196732aa054 2014-10-03T19:59:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinademonstrationsHong Kong
HANOI -- "Protests in Hong Kong are China's internal affairs," stated Le Hai Binh, spokesperson of Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday.

Binh made the remark at a regular press briefing held in capital Hanoi on Thursday while addressing inquiry for Vietnam's reaction over the protests in China's Hong Kong.

"Vietnam hopes government of Hong Kong will have appropriate measures to soon stabilize the situation, ensure safety of the life and property, as well as legal interests of Vietnamese nationals and enterprises in Hong Kong," said Binh.

After learning about the protests in Hong Kong, Vietnam's foreign ministry instructed Consulate of Vietnam in Hong Kong to implement suitable measures to ensure the safety of Vietnamese citizens who are living and working in the region, said the spokesperson.

"We warn that Vietnamese citizens should stay away from protest areas to avoid complicated situations," added Binh.

The illegal "Occupy Central" movement started off early Sunday morning at the Government Headquarters in Admiralty in downtown Hong Kong, followed by mass protests in Central, Causeway Bay and Mongkok, leading to serious traffic disruptions and school closures.

The Hong Kong government on Thursday urged protesters to put an end to the protests, as Occupy Central has caused increasingly serious impacts on people's livelihood, Hong Kong's economy and even government operations.

Xinhua Agency - October 2, 2014

Ministry asks Vietnamese to avoid Hong Kong protest areas

For safety reasons, Vietnamese citizens should not visit areas of Hong Kong where demonstrations are taking place, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has advised.

The advisory was released by the ministry's spokesman, Le Hai Binh, at a press conference in Hanoi on Thursday.

Immediately after getting information about the ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong, the ministry directed the Vietnamese Consulate General in the territory to take proper measures to ensure the safety of Vietnamese citizens there, Binh said.

In order to avoid any problems, Vietnamese people should avoid protest sites, he added.

In reply to question about Vietnam's stance on Hong Kong's on-going pro-democracy demonstrations, spokesman Binh said this is an "internal affair of China."

He said that Vietnam hopes the Hong Kong government will find appropriate solutions to recover stability and security and ensure safety for Vietnamese citizens, as well as their property there, Binh said.

Hong Kong's leader, Leung Chun-ying, on late Thursday told pro-democracy protesters that he had no intention of stepping down, Reuters reported Friday.

He also warned them that the consequences of occupying government buildings would be serious.

Leung, speaking just minutes before an ultimatum for him to resign expired, also said that Chief Secretary Carrie Lam would hold a meeting with students soon to discuss political reforms, according to Reuters.

Tuoi Tre News - October 3, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/10/03/Hong-Kong-protests-are-China-s-internal-affairs%3A-Vietnam-FM-spokesman#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/797659 Vietnam expelled 9,700 Chinese boats in past decade urn:md5:c0242ed0824373f19638189f281e17f3 2014-09-21T10:09:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinasea
Vietnam drove away roughly 9,700 Chinese fishing boats in the past ten years for violating the Vietnam-China Agreement on Fishery Cooperation in the Tonkin Gulf, a Vietnamese official said Friday.

Many Chinese ships licensed to fish in the joint fishing area in the Tonkin Gulf were discovered smuggling petroleum products from Van Gia Port in Vietnam's Quang Ninh Province to China, , according to Nguyen Van Trung, deputy head of the Vietnam's Fisheries Surveillance Department.

 Many other boats illegally entered Vietnamese waters to poach.

Worse still, many Chinese vessels that were not licensed to enter in the joint fishing grounds still fish in the area, Trung said at a 10-year review of the agreement in Danang.

Vietnam fined 34 Chinese boats VND4 billion (US$190,000) for the aforementioned violations and confiscated more than 60,000 liters of petroleum products, he said.

On the other side, around 44 Vietnamese fishing boats were fined nearly VND3 billion ($142,000) by Chinese authorities between 2004 and 2009, mostly for using electrical currents to stun fish.

The Fishery Cooperation Agreement, which was signed by China and Vietnam ten years ago, established a joint fishing ground within an area of 33,500 kilometers.

The agreement is valid until 2019.

By Nguyen Tu - Thanh Nien News - September 20, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/09/21/Vietnam-expelled-9%2C700-Chinese-boats-in-past-decade#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/796215 China, Vietnam trade accusations over boats in disputed waters urn:md5:13c1ae24983e69c91455536b4c70e890 2014-09-10T19:49:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacel
China said on Wednesday that its forces had boarded a Vietnamese trawler last month in disputed waters in the South China Sea and confiscated explosives used for fishing, rejecting accusations from Vietnam that its ships had been attacked.

Ties between the Communist neighbors have soured this year over competing territorial claims in the potentially energy-rich waters which straddle key shipping lanes.

Vietnam said two Chinese rubber dinghies took control of one Vietnamese fishing boat that was fishing near the Paracel islets, confiscating property. Chinese personnel "intruded and destroyed" the boat and beat up fishermen, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

Chinese boats took control of two other boats, the ministry said, and confiscated some of their property.

But China said a Vietnamese fishing boat had used explosives to fish in disputed waters. The Chinese personnel boarded the boat and confiscated the explosives, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing.

"We urge the Vietnamese side to use effective measures to strengthen the education and management of their fishermen, and stop illegal fishing activities in the waters around the Xisha islands," Hua said, using the Chinese name for the Paracel Islands.

She made no mention of other Vietnamese vessels.

Vietnam had made a demand of compensation to a representative of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi, said Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh.

"Vietnam requests China investigates and strictly handles the acts by Chinese authorities, not to repeat the acts and to compensate Vietnamese fishermen fairly," the spokesman said, adding that the Chinese actions violated Vietnam's sovereignty.

Relations sank to a three-decade low this year after China deployed a $1 billion-oil rig to waters Vietnam claims as its exclusive economic zone, sparking a wave of riots and bloody clashes between Vietnamese and Chinese workers in Vietnam.

China claims almost the entire South China Sea, believed to be rich in deposits of oil and gas resources. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims in the waters where $5 trillion of ship-borne goods pass every year.

By Ben Blanchard & Mai Nguyen - Reuters - September 10, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/09/10/China%2C-Vietnam-trade-accusations-over-boats-in-disputed-waters#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/795057 390 of 700 Vietnam websites attacked by Chinese hackers yet to recover urn:md5:ea36dc477ea5b902d541031ca92f8fd9 2014-09-09T08:23:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinainternet
More than 700 websites in Vietnam were attacked simultaneously by Chinese cybercriminals during the recent National Day holiday, and 390 of them have yet to recover, SecurityDaily, a local network security provider, reported.

The attacks began on August 30 and lasted until National Day, September 2, the Hanoi-based firm said.

The hackers seized control of the websites and changed the interface of these sites, among other harmful acts.

The list of the victimized websites were published on 1937cn.net, an online forum where Chinese hackers show off their "accomplishments," SecurityDaily said.

There are signs that more websites may fall victim to Chinese hackers in the near future, the company said.

Tran Quang Chien, founder and executive manager of Security Daily, blamed the effectiveness of the hackers on the weak security systems employed by the victimized websites.

Vo Do Thang, director of the Ho Chi Minh City-based International Network Administration Training And Network Security Center, or Athena, said that hackers have installed harmful code into websites to steal data for a long time.

"We have warned about this risk, but many websites have not improved their security systems, leaving loopholes that enable hackers to penetrate," Thang said.

"Many businesses have not paid due attention to our warnings," Thang said. "Most of them are owned by medium-and small-sized enterprises that do not have enough resources, including security experts, to effectively protect the confidentiality of their websites."

According to many experts, similar attacks, even at high levels, can happen again, Chien said.

Therefore, all business or State agencies should invest more in their websites' security systems, including the training of more network security experts, Chien suggested.

Tuoi Tre News - 9 septembre 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/09/09/390-of-700-Vietnam-websites-attacked-by-Chinese-hackers-yet-to-recover#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/794859 No one knows how many Chinese workers are in Vietnam urn:md5:008e9bafb8431f22bf96c2c5e9caf070 2014-09-08T08:44:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinaworker
Five state management agencies from ministries to local authorities have given five different figures about the number of Chinese workers in Vietnam.

Deputy Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs Nguyen Trong Dam at the government's press conference on August 28 denied the fact that 10,000 Chinese workers will go to Vung Ang Economic Zone to work at the construction site there.

According to Dam, 33,952 workers had been reportedly present in Vung Ang by August 21, including 30,438 Vietnamese workers and 3,514 foreign workers. The foreign workers included 1,913 Chinese, while the others were from the other 28 countries and territories.

Regarding Formosa's steel project, there had been 27,000 workers by that time, including 23,700 Vietnamese workers and 3,212 foreign workers. Of the foreign workers, there were 1,799 Chinese.

When asked to clarify the information that 10,000 Chinese workers would come to Vung Ang, Dam said that this is the total number of Chinese workers that the 29 contractors plan to employ to implement the projects.

However, the plan will still need approval from the chair of the Ha Tinh provincial People's Committee.

By August 27, the committee had agreed to grant work permit to 2,063 Chinese workers. The contractors have proposed to grant work permits to another 2,700 workers for the time to come. However, the proposal has not been approved.

"The report of the Ha Tinh provincial Economic Zone Management Board showed that in the fourth quarter of 2014 and first quarter of 2015, the contractors would need 40,000-45,000 workers, including 8,000 foreign workers," Dam said.

"As such, 10,000 is not an accurate figure," he said.

Some days ago, Nguyen Trong Tuan, head of the Labor and Human Resource Development of the Ha Tinh Economic Zone, in an interview given to Dat Viet newspaper, said Formosa and contractors had asked for work permits for over 10,000 foreign workers, 90 percent of whom were from China.

Tuan also said that some of their requests were approved by the provincial labor department. Twenty-eight contractors, including 25 Chinese and the Vietnamese, asked for permission to recruit 8,426 foreign workers to implement some construction items, including the blast furnace No 1 and No 2 and items for the Son Duong Port.

The provincial authorities on August 8 released a decision, agreeing to allow 11 out of the 28 contractors to hire 2,063 foreign workers, while the other 2,976 workers were awaiting licenses.

Meanwhile, answering Dan Tri's reporters, Pham Tran De, deputy head of the Ha Tinh provincial Economics Zone, said there are 1,800 Chinese workers in Vung Ang.

And Lao Dong newspaper quoted Tran Thi Dung, deputy director of the provincial general hospital, as saying that on June 1 – August 26, the hospital gave health examinations to 892 foreigners, most of them Chinese.

Meanwhile, Colonel Nguyen Duc Thuan, Head of the Immigration Division, said the agency was making procedures for the entry permits for more than 8,400 foreigners to enter the Vung Ang Economic Zone.

De said that no relevant agency has an accurate number about Chinese workers in Vietnam.

Dat Viet - September 8, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/09/08/No-one-knows-how-many-Chinese-workers-are-in-Vietnam#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/794739 China, Vietnam try to repair ties after South China Sea dispute urn:md5:21b27f14ce2806b16c92b73b9c9d0014 2014-08-29T08:25:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinadiplomacy
A Vietnamese envoy's visit to China this week helped steady ties between the countries after a two-month standoff in the South China Sea, but former Vietnamese officials and security analysts said relief may be temporary amid Beijing's escalating push to control the disputed waters.

Chinese President Xi Jinping attempted to play down tensions between the nations during a meeting with Vietnamese special envoy Le Hong Anh on Wednesday.

"A neighboring nation cannot be moved, and it is in the common interests of both countries to be friendly to each other," said Mr. Xi, according to an account by China's Foreign Ministry.

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the countries agreed to avoid actions in the South China Sea that would heighten tensions as they seek lasting agreements that would help to resolve the maritime row.

Relations between the neighboring nations had been strained since May, when a Chinese oil rig appeared unannounced in waters claimed by both countries to explore for oil and gas. The move drew criticism from Vietnam, which dispatched government vessels to confront the rig, leading to a series of ramming incidents between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels.

The two-month standoff marked the sharpest deterioration of China-Vietnam relations in years. Washington has criticized Beijing's actions as provocative. China has described the deployment of the rig as a normal business activity on the part of one of its companies.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Xi's remarks mean China will slow its South China Sea push. China claims nearly the entire sea as historical waters, an assertion that brings it into conflict with neighbors such as Vietnam and the Philippines. Along with China, five other governments claim parts of the South China Sea.

That Mr. Xi, China's top leader, met the Vietnamese envoy illustrates the high level of attention top Chinese leaders are paying to its disputes in the South China Sea, said Ian Storey, an expert on Asian security issues at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. However, that doesn't mean China will back down in its claims.

"China has made no concessions," he said.

Since Mr. Xi took over as China's top leader in late 2012, China's central government has embarked on a series of steps to establish control over its periphery, measures that have increased tensions with neighbors and the U.S. China set up a new air-defense zone over the East China Sea in November 2013, in waters also claimed by Japan, and has stepped up land reclamation and building work on disputed islands of the South China Sea, among other efforts.

Mr. Storey said the message from China's central government has been consistent. China is willing to work together with neighbors "but we will not compromise our sovereignty claims," he said.

Diplomats in Beijing are concerned by China's moves, with some questioning Mr. Xi's pledges to improve China's relations with neighbors and the government's efforts to assert control over disputed areas.

The disputes between Hanoi and Beijing over the South China Sea, known as the East Sea in Vietnam, stretch back decades, and a single visit won't resolve underlying disputes, said Tran Cong Truc, the former chief of Vietnam's government border committee.

China's intention to control the sea hasn't changed, Mr. Truc said, and its government "will take more unilateral actions that may cause tensions in the future."

The rig at the center of the latest dispute, HYSY 981, is controlled by China National Offshore Oil Corp., the country's main state-controlled offshore oil producer. The rig was operating in waters around the disputed Paracel Islands chain, which is claimed by both China and Vietnam.

The rig was removed from the disputed waters in mid-July after Cnooc said it had completed drilling and exploration in the waters around Triton Island, or Zhongjian Island in Chinese, which is part of the Paracels chain.

The dispute over the rig led to deadly riots in Vietnam and attacks against Chinese businesses. At least three Chinese nationals were killed in the violence, and Chinese and other foreign factories were looted and burned.

By Brian Spegele - The Wall Street Journal - August 28, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/29/China%2C-Vietnam-try-to-repair-ties-after-South-China-Sea-dispute#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/793727 China media : Vietnam ties urn:md5:5b1928ef2c1938bb3410f3e0109274d3 2014-08-27T08:47:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinadiplomacymedia
Media welcome Vietnam's efforts at "mending ties with China", as Hanoi sends a high-ranking official to Beijing.

Le Hong Anh, a senior member of the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam, started his two-day visit to China on Tuesday, state media outlets report.

Ties between the two countries have been tense due to territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Anti-China protests erupted in Vietnam in May after Beijing moved an oil rig into waters also claimed by Vietnam.

Most papers give prominent coverage to the visit. A Xinhua report, which has been republished by most state-run papers, says "Vietnam is striving hard to mend ties with China".

Pan Jin'e, an expert on Vietnamese studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, tells the China Daily that the visit shows "Vietnam wants to repair ties with China as Hanoi is trying hard to tackle challenges at home".

"Hanoi wants to ensure that top-level interactions are not interrupted because of some negative incidents. It knows that its domestic stability cannot be achieved without China's support, especially in an economic context," says the pundit.

Hong Kong-based Pro-Beijing Ta Kung Pao daily, however, points out that the trip shows that "both China and Vietnam are trying hard to mend ties".

Noting earlier reports about 60 Communist Party of Vietnam members' appeal to "abandon socialism" last month, the paper adds that Mr Le will also update Beijing on the party's internal affairs.

"Beijing is unlikely to ignore the news. It will also want to have a better idea on Vietnam's development and its attitude towards China," says the paper.

National security

Meanwhile, media and experts assess an official proposal to strengthen China's national security law.

The draft proposal seeks to rename the existing National Security Law as the "Counter-Espionage Law".

It was submitted to the bi-monthly session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) on Monday, according to local media reports.

According to the proposal, foreign organisations and individuals who conduct espionage activities will receive harsher punishments. It also seeks to give more powers to the agencies like confiscating devices, money and other properties linked to suspected spying activities.

Minister of National Security Geng Huichang explains that the proposal has been made to standardise and strengthen China's anti-spy work as the country faces "new challenges".

He adds that the country's security agencies need better co-ordination and stronger support.

Li Wei, an anti-terrorism expert with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, tells the Global Times that China is "witnessing increasingly active espionage activities targeting the nation".

"China now faces the most complicated national security situation in its history. It is facing multiple challenges not only in traditional national security factors such as territory, but also in non-traditional factors such as energy and information security," he says.

And finally, a new law may make it mandatory for celebrities to use a product before deciding to endorse it.

According to local media reports, China's top legislature is reviewing a wide-ranging draft amendment to advertising laws.

The new law, which also aims to ban tobacco advertisements on public platforms and on the internet, will carry harsher penalties for giving false information about products and services.

Industry experts tell the daily that once the law is passed, public figures might face punishment if they recommend a product or service they have not used.

Law expert Zhang Mao tells the China National Radio the law will "ensure that celebrities bear legal responsibility in their endorsements".

BBC News - August 26, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/27/China-media-%3A-Vietnam-ties#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/793539 Vietnam sends envoy on ice-breaking trip to China urn:md5:94e257a4d73f4402b3f19417e36223a0 2014-08-25T20:20:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinadiplomacy
Politburo member Le Hong Anh will be in China August 26 and 27, the first such visit since the oil rig crisis.

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry announced Monday that Politburo member Le Hong Anh will visit China from August 26 to 27 as a special envoy of Nguyen Phu Trong, the secretary general of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). A Foreign Ministry spokesperson told reporters that Anh would meet with Chinese leaders to discuss "measures to ease the situation, prevent the recurrence of recent tenses sic, and enhance the relationship between the two Parties and two countries." Anh was invited to visit China by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Ties between Vietnam and China have been strained since May, when China deployed an oil rig near the Paracel Islands in waters Hanoi claims as part of its exclusive economic zone. Over the next few months, the waters around the oil rig became the scene of numerous confrontations and collisions between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels. Meanwhile, anti-China sentiment in Vietnam boiled over into full-scale riots, damaging dozens of foreign factories (many of which were owned by Taiwanese or South Korean companies) in southern regions.

Anh's visit to China will only be the second high-profile bilateral visit since the oil rig crisis — and the last one, State Councilor Yang Jiechi's trip to Hanoi, didn't go so well. Yang visited Vietnam in mid-June for meetings with leaders, including Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. However, rather than thawing the relationship, Yang's trip merely saw both sides dig in on their existing positions. Yang reiterated China's commitment to protecting the oil rig and demanded that Vietnam stop its "harassment" of the vessel. Vietnamese officials, meanwhile, repeated their complaint that the oil rig was operating in violation of Vietnamese sovereignty and should be removed immediately.

It may be easier for both sides to talk now that the immediate crisis is over. China's oil rig left the area in July, a month earlier than originally scheduled. In addition, the decision to frame this current outreach as a CCP-CPV exchange rather than a full-scale political meeting could be useful. The communist parties of China and Vietnam have historically worked closely together. Plus, though both parties effectively are the governments of their respective countries, there is just enough of a line between party and state to allow for some wiggle room. Both sides will be carrying out their dialogue primarily as party members, not as statesmen — making it easier to sell a friendly atmosphere back home.

Vietnam has already attempted to provide some positive momentum by addressing the fallout from May's anti-China riots. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson promised that Hanoi would provide "humanitarian assistance" to Chinese workers affected by the riots. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said that "China acknowledges the steps and positions the Vietnamese side has taken, and hopes earnest efforts can be taken to implement relevant measures." After the riots, China evacuated 3,500 of its workers away from Vietnam. Since then, the Wall Street Journal reports, around 2,000 have returned.

Though Vietnam is seeking to repair its strained relationship with China, the government is still actively trying to diversify its diplomatic and economic relations. Doing so will allow Hanoi to hedge against overreliance on China should another crisis emerge in the future. Vietnam's most high-profile potential partner is the United States. Reuters notes that four U.S. senators have gone to Vietnam since May, evidence of a growing movement in Congress to lift the U.S. embargo on selling lethal weapons to Vietnam. The potential for increasing defense cooperation between Hanoi and Washington has sparked speculation about the possibility of an informal alliance between the two.

Vietnam is also seeking closer to ties India. Even as Anh heads to China, Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is in Vietnam for a three day visit. Indian President Pranab Mukherjee is expected to follow in mid-September, around the same time that Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit India. Vietnam has made it clear that it believes India has a role to play in balancing against China's increasing regional influence.

In an interview with the India Writes Network, Vietnam's ambassador to India, Nguyen Thanh Tan, emphasized Vietnam and India's similar positions on regional issues. "We need Indian balance in the region… We also see an Indian role in ARF," Tan said, referring to the ASEAN Regional Forum. Tan also noted growing economic and defense ties between Hanoi and New Delhi. Most intriguingly, India has leased exploration rights to seven oil and gas blocks in the South China Sea from Vietnam, despite China's extensive maritime claims in the region.

Still, despite growing ties with other countries like the U.S. and India, Hanoi needs to maintain a cordial relationship with China, especially in the economic realm. Vietnam and China's bilateral trade is worth $50 billion; Vietnam-U.S. trade only amounts to $28.7 billion. Vietnam-India trade is even smaller, valued at around $6 billion in 2013. Even Ambassador Tan's optimistic estimate for 2020 puts total Vietnam-India trade at $15 billion.

For Vietnam then, despite its hedging strategy, Le Hong Anh's visit to China has important implications. And for China, getting its relationship with Hanoi back on track will provide a needed boost to China's regional image. Now that the crisis is over, both sides can be more cordial — at least until the next territorial dispute begins.

By Shannon Tiezzi - The Diplomat - August 26, 2014

Vietnam envoy to visit China to seek thaw in testy ties

Vietnam will send a special envoy to China this week to try to rebuild battered diplomatic ties with its communist neighbour after they sank to their lowest in three decades, amid a flare-up over sovereignty in the South China Sea.

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry on Monday said Le Hong Anh, a member of the Communist Party's powerful politburo, had been invited to meet Chinese leaders to try to ease tension and stabilise ties with Beijing, with which it shares $50 billion of annual trade.

The visit, starting on Tuesday, is the first sign of a concerted effort to heal rifts between two sides locked in a war of words since May 2, when China deployed a $1-billion oil rig in waters Vietnam claims as its exclusive economic zone. China moved the rig on July 16, saying its mission was complete.

The last high-profile meeting between the two sides on June 18 ended in stalemate, with China's top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, telling Vietnam to "stop hyping up" the row and Vietnam re-asserting its maritime claim.

The Vietnamese envoy would discuss "measures to ease the situation, prevent the recurrence of recent tension, and enhance the relationship...towards a sound development and long-term stability," spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement on the ministry's website.

The deployment of the Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig caused an outpouring of anger in Vietnam, where bitterness is entrenched over what its people see as a history of Chinese bullying.

Rare protests in Vietnam turned violent in several industrialised provinces in May, with bloody clashes between Vietnamese and Chinese workers in central Ha Tinh province killing at least four people and wounding at least 100. About 4,000 Chinese workers fled Vietnam.

In two southern provinces near Ho Chi Minh City, dozens of Taiwanese factories were set on fire and looted, presumably after having been mistaken as being Chinese-owned.

The China row has put Vietnam's leadership in a tricky spot. While a prolonged period of bad blood with China risks exposing a far smaller economy - which relies heavily on Chinese materials for its manufacturing sector - perceived concessions to Beijing could prove deeply unpopular at home.

Over-dependency on trade with China is a source of friction and even members of the secretive Communist Party of Vietnam have spoken up about "escaping" China's orbit.

Spokesman Binh expressed regret for damage to Chinese firms in the May riots and promised to "help affected enterprises overcome difficulties, mitigate damages and resume normal operation", while providing security for companies and workers.

Expanding relations

Experts are divided whether China's experiment with the oil rig was an economic or strategic move, as it grows more assertive in its claims to nine-tenths of the potentially energy-rich South China Sea, putting it at odds with the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The dispute has seen Vietnam forge closer alliances with other countries locked in maritime rows with China, including the Philippines and Japan, which has offered six navy boats and radar equipment to Hanoi's coastguard.

The Vietnamese leadership has also been courting numerous visitors from the United States in meetings that will not have gone unnoticed in China.

Four U.S. senators have visited the country since the China row broke out, some calling for a gradual lifting of Washington's three-decade embargo on lethal arms to help boost Vietnam's maritime capability.

On Aug. 8, Senator John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam, spoke of "strong bipartisan support" to ease the embargo as early as September. Six days later, Vietnam's top leaders met the U.S. chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Martin Dempsey, in the first visit by a top U.S. general since the two countries were at war.

In a posting on the website of China's Foreign Ministry, spokesman Hong Lei said Vietnam "was pained by the casualties and fatalities that were suffered by Chinese workers" and that Beijing hoped its neighbour would stay true to its word.

"China affirms the work and attitude by the Vietnamese side and hopes that Vietnam can earnestly implement the relevant measures," Hong said.

By Martin Petty - Reuters - August 25, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/25/Vietnam-sends-envoy-on-ice-breaking-trip-to-China#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/793378 Delicate diplomacy for Vietnam urn:md5:c8638393521c57a1c57aeed0eae7e1d5 2014-08-24T20:19:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinadiplomacyUnited States of America
HO CHI MINH CITY - Rising territorial tensions and the recent oil rig crisis have put Sino-Vietnamese ties on the rocks, driving Hanoi to ramp up strategic alliances with other regional powers, particularly the United States.

But Vietnam is not poised to completely drop the gauntlet by jettisoning its deep-seated reliance on its giant northern neighbor that has both burgeoned and bedeviled bilateral ties.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was in Vietnam last week, marking the highest ranking military officer to visit Vietnam since 1971. During his four-day landmark tour, Dempsey met with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and

high-ranking military leaders in Hanoi, visited the central city of Da Nang, a strategic deep water harbor facing the South China Sea previously used by American forces, and symbolically concluded his trip in Ho Chi Minh City, once the political and economic hub of the US-backed regime during the Vietnam War.

Dempsey was upbeat about the prospect of Washington lifting its 30-year ban against selling lethal weapons to Vietnam, a move both Vietnamese top echelons and influential US Senator John McCain have advocated.

"There's a growing sense among our elected officials by our administration, by non-governmental organizations, that Vietnam has made progress against the limitations that led to the lethal weapon ban," said Dempsey at a press conference. "I think the maritime domain is the place of our greatest common interest right now, common security interest. My recommendation, if the ban is lifted, will be that we start with that."

In early May, when China first towed a US$1 billion oil exploration rig into waters Vietnam considers part of its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf in the South China Sea, the move triggered tense skirmishes between Chinese and Vietnamese coast guard vessels.

In an unprecedented move on the disputes, China sent United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon a position paper detailing what it called Vietnam's "illegal disruption" of its "routine" offshore drilling operations in the contested Paracel Islands region.

When the confrontation sparked deadly anti-China riots in central and southern Vietnam, Hanoi's leaders "realized that they have to reduce their dependence on China. China's troop movements near the Sino-Vietnamese border and its alleged hidden hands in the anti-China riots inside Vietnam during the oil rig crisis have led to a change in Vietnamese leaders' perception of China's role vis-a-vis Vietnam," said Alexander Vuving, a security analyst at the Hawaii-based Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

Prime Minister Dung said that "bad elements" escalated the violence, while other anonymous officials have said China inflamed the on-the-ground situation to tarnish Vietnam's image.

At the height of the bilateral tensions, Vietnam's top Communist Party leaders, including premier Dung, spoke publicly on several occasions about plans to take legal action against China, a move that would internationalize the conflict. "We always want peace and friendship but this must ensure independence, self-reliance, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and maritime zones," Dung said in late May. "These are sacred and we will never trade them off for some kind of elusive, dependent peace and friendship."

Since China withdrew the oil rig in mid-July, Hanoi has maintained that it could opt to take international legal action against Beijing, similar to the claim the Philippines has filed against China through the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). At the same time, Hanoi has sought to bolster alliances with both the US and treaty ally Japan, a hedging strategy many analysts view as Vietnam's best option in countering China's assertiveness in the South China Sea.

"China is acting on the assumption that it has 'undeniable sovereignty' in the sea. If Vietnam wants to challenge this it must have the physical means to protect its claims," said Bill Hayton, author of the forthcoming book South China Sea: the struggle for power in Asia. "Nobody wants open conflict but Vietnam wants to acquire the capability to deter the kinds of non-military tactics that China has been using recently while also preparing for a hypothetical military confrontation in the future. To do this the country needs as many friends as possible."

Reluctant pivot

Japan is proving to be a ready ally. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said during a visit to Hanoi earlier this month that Tokyo would give six used naval vessels to Vietnam to boost its patrols and surveillance capacity in the South China Sea. The donation, totaling 500 million yen (US$4.86 million), will also include funds for training and equipment to improve Vietnam's coastguard and fisheries surveillance.

Tokyo has also said it would resume Official Development Aid (ODA) flows to Vietnam after a short-lived halt in the wake of a June investigation into bribery allegations at an ODA-funded project involving state-run Vietnam Railways.

While Japan makes strategic and economic overtures, anti-China sentiment is growing in Vietnam. In the latest sign, 61 Vietnamese Communist Party members, including notably a former ambassador to China, lodged an open letter to the party leadership urging them to, among other things, "escape" from their reliance on China. While concerned about China's rising maritime assertiveness, Hanoi must balance those concerns with political and economic imperatives.

"On the economic front, the Vietnamese leadership is clearly interested in diversifying its economic relationships to become less dependent on China," said Gregory Poling, a Southeast Asia expert at the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But for at least the medium-term, China will remain the essential trade partner, particularly for inputs into Vietnam's manufacturing sector."

Total China-Vietnam trade was worth $50 billion in 2013, almost twice the $27 billion recorded in 2010. In 2013, Vietnam exported nearly $8 billion worth of garment and textile products to China, a crucial job-creating sector of the economy. China also imports approximately 40% of Vietnam's total annual rice and rubber shipments and accounts for 25% of its tourist arrivals, which have plummeted in the wake of the recent anti-China riots, according to a recent Reuters report.

According to sources familiar with the situation, there was a strong internal debate within the government and Communist Party leadership at the height of the oil rig dispute over whether to take a stronger line against China.

"The more cautious faction seems to have come out on top, and by removing the rig China has tamped down that debate. But it will come back the next time there is a standoff," said CSIS's Poling. "Whether or not Hanoi will pull the trigger and take a hard line in the short term is unclear, but the fact that the debate is even occurring shows just how far Vietnam's leadership has moved from their previously close ties with Beijing."

The degree of that diplomatic recalibration, however, is hard to gauge. While Vietnam has moved to boost defense ties with the US and Japan, this appears for now more cosmetic than substantive and does not yet represent a threat to the current balance of power that favors China vis-a-vis its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors.

Vietnam has closely followed, albeit with a decade lag, the Chinese model of open economic and closed political systems. That long-time ideological relationship, some suggest, is too steeped in history to change radically anytime soon. "China will likely continue to grumble about closer links with Washington and Tokyo but will not retaliate in any significant way," Poling suggests.

Other analysts argue that many Vietnamese leaders have profited personally from Chinese payoffs and projects, economic benefits they are likely loathe to relinquish. "The way Vietnam has become so dependent on China is hard to eliminate," said Vuving. "First, Vietnam's stay within the Chinese orbit will give regime conservatives a feeling of security as they face the threat of regime change. Second, rent-seekers who make up a large part of the ruling class in Vietnam benefit from the numerous forms of bribery offered by the Chinese."

Sources familiar with Dempsey's visit say his landmark trip aimed to convince Vietnam to join its Japan-South Korea-Philippines strategic alliance, a configuration designed to counterbalance China's rising power in the region. Chinese mouthpiece media have criticized the alliance as an attempt at "encirclement." Vietnam, however, has remained cautious about overtly joining hands with the US, Japan and Philippines.

During a visit to China for a strategic military dialogue in June, Vice Minister for Defense Lieutenant General Nguyen Chi Vinh told Chinese media that Vietnam would not "play off one country against another. Those who have a strategic vision and are politically savvy all understanding that doing so would only be self-destructive."

That expressed caution explains why Dempsey insisted that his visit was not primarily focused on countering China. "I came here to focus on the relationship between the United States and Vietnam. We do think that we should have a steady improvement in our relationship with the Vietnamese military," Dempsey said. "We're not trying to make anyone choose between China and the United States. Because China's your neighbor, you have incredible economic almost interdependencies with China."

By Brian Leung - Asia Times Online - August 22, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/24/Delicate-diplomacy-for-Vietnam#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/793261 Chinese seek brides in Vietnam, paying RM10,000 to RM18,000 urn:md5:5e4407cfb0a9f6453a2765febca4c857 2014-08-18T20:28:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinatrafficwomen
Vietnamese bride Nguyen Thi Hang (right) and fellow Vietnamese bride Vu Thi Hong Thuy resting in the shop where Hang works in Weijian village, in China's Henan province. More than 20 Vietnamese brides have found new lives in the poverty-stricken rural township, the beneficiaries and sometimes victims of a trade serving farmers who cannot attract local partners in the face of a huge gender imbalance.

Their marriages were arranged for cash, but some of the Vietnamese women who have found unlikely Prince Charmings in remote Chinese villages say they are living happily ever after.

"Economically, life is better here in China," said Nguyen Thi Hang, one of around two dozen women from Vietnam who have married men in Linqi.

The township is a patchwork of hamlets spaced among cornfields deep in the mountains of Henan, one of China's poorer provinces.

It is some 1,700km away from Vietnam, but is a new market for an expanding — and sometimes abusive — marriage trade with Southeast Asia.

The business is fuelled by demand from rural Chinese men struggling to find wives in the face of their country's huge gender imbalance, driven by its limits on family size.

Hang, 30, arrived in Linqi last November, and struggles to communicate with customers at the dusty village store where she sells noodles, cola and cigarettes.

But her basic living conditions — a tiny bedroom with bare concrete walls, and an outdoor long-drop toilet next to a cage of chickens — are an improvement on her previous home, she said.

"We lived in a bad-quality brick house in Vietnam, and were farmers so had to work hard in the rice fields," she said.

Her marriage to a local 22-year-old was arranged by her family, she said, with small ceremonies held in her home town, and China.

"I knew they gave my family some money, but I did not dare ask my parents about that," she said.

"My relatives told me to marry a Chinese man, they told me they care for their wives, and I wouldn't have to work so much, just enjoy life," she added, smiling at a group of children buying sweets.

Her construction worker husband spends most of the year away from the village and was not present when AFP visited, but her grey-haired father-in-law seemed proud of the newest addition to his family.

"Vietnamese women are just like us, they do any kind of work, and work hard," said Liu Shuanggen. "It's not easy to find wives in this place, women are few."

Leftover men

It is a refrain heard across China, where decades of sex-selective abortions by families who prefer boys to girls now see 118 males born for every 100 females, according to government statistics.

The resulting gender gap has led to an explosion in "bride prices", payments traditionally made by the groom's relatives, hitting men in the poor countryside the hardest.

"To get married, the bride's family will often require a car and a house, so it's easier to get married if you have more money," said shopkeeper Wang Yangfang, adding: "In Vietnam, they demand lower prices."

The typical cost for a Vietnamese woman is 20,000 yuan (RM10,260), Linqi residents said — less than a quarter of the local price, and such a bargain that more than 20 Vietnamese women have found homes in the area in recent years.

But the trade is also rife with abuses.

At a shelter in Vietnam, AFP this year spoke to a dozen girls who said they were tricked by relatives, friends or boyfriends and sold to Chinese men as brides.

Myanmar's government said in a 2011 report that most trafficking from the country is "committed solely with the intention of forcing girls and women into marriages with Chinese men".

Chinese police "rescued and repatriated" 1,281 abducted foreign women in 2012 alone, most of them from sSoutheast Asia, the state-run China Daily reported.

Experts say lax law enforcement in rural areas means thousands of other cases probably go undiscovered.

In Linqi, several families refused to talk about their Vietnamese members, with one woman identified as being from the country shooed indoors when reporters arrived.

A driver pointed out a tiny settlement nestled between intimidating peaks as a destination for bought women.

"When they arrive they'll run off after a few days," he said. "But it's not easy to run from here, because it's so mountainous, and the hills are full of relatives.

"If you go missing, the relatives will contact each other and bring you back."

Runaway brides

It is impossible to say how many of the women are victims of trafficking.

"There are no precise figures," said Zhejiang University sociology professor Feng Gang, adding: "It's likely that the proportion of forced marriages is not large."

Nonetheless, Chinese media regularly report cases of "runaway brides" who flee shortly after their weddings.

Some will have simply changed their minds, or be scams to defraud the men of the bride price, said Feng.

Undoubtedly, some of the marriages are voluntary. The men of Linqi have travelled for work to Vietnam, where Vu Thi Hong Thuy, 21, met her husband.

"We got to know each other, fell in love and got married," she said.

"In Vietnam… we had to work hard, but we could not earn enough. Now I think life is better as only my husband works."

Despite currently tense relations between the communist neighbours, a host of "Vietnam dating" websites also fuels the trade, peppered with images of Vietnamese women advertised as "kind" and "obedient".

"We charge 3,000 yuan (RM1,540) to arrange dates in Ho Chi Minh city, and if the two decide to get married, it's an extra 36,000 (RM18,470) to arrange the wedding — including photographs," said a staff member at one site, declining to be named.

Many also offer replacements if the new bride escapes.

"If the female partner divorces or runs away within the first two months, we are responsible for finding another partner," she added.

The Rakyat Post - August 18, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/18/Chinese-seek-brides-in-Vietnam%2C-paying-RM10%2C000-to-RM18%2C000#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/792760 Vietnam verifying reports on Chinese lighthouses in Paracels urn:md5:4f6a7c5d583fcf25ae741e6848c00e98 2014-08-11T08:38:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacel
Vietnam is verifying reports that China intends to build lighthouses on five islands in Vietnam's Paracel archipelago, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Le Hai Binh has said.

The state-run China News Service reported Thursday that Chinese officials have been surveying construction sites for lighthouses on five islands and reefs since July 27.

The English names for the locations are North Reef, Antelope Reef, Drummond Island, South Sand and Pyramid Rock.

By August 4, planned construction sites and alternative locations for the lighthouses "had been initially selected," the news service reported, citing a Chinese navigation official.

The news service also cited this official, named Yang Qing, as explaining that the lighthouses were necessary as a lack of navigational aids and charts directly undermine the safety and regulation of ships traveling through the area.

"Vietnam's relevant agencies are actively verifying this information," Binh said at a press briefing on Thursday afternoon. "However, we have repeatedly affirmed Vietnam's indisputable sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes. Therefore, all Chinese activities in the two island chains are null and void."

Answering about Vietnam's response to a report that China will use deep-water seismic vessel HYSY 721 to carry out a geological survey for oil and gas exploration in the East Sea the Vietnamese reference for the South China Sea Binh said that all activities implemented by any parties in the sea must comply with international laws and respect the sovereignty and jurisdiction of coastal countries.

Using maps featuring the now-notorious "U-shaped line," China has claimed around 90 percent of the East Sea, which is believed to contain oil and gas deposits and many rich fisheries.

China's claim loops down to a point about 1,800 kilometers below Hainan Island--its southernmost province. The map swallows areas claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Taiwan.

By Truong Son - Thanh Nien News - August 10, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/11/Vietnam-verifying-reports-on-Chinese-lighthouses-in-Paracels#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/792036 A US-Vietnam alliance ? Not so fast. urn:md5:7ec946de6b5cff8666274d73e509e4c2 2014-08-06T08:50:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinadiplomacyUnited States of America
Expectations that Hanoi will enter Washington's embrace appear unrealistic as the pro-Chinese camp prevails in Vietnam.

The recent tactical withdrawal of a giant Chinese oil rig from waters claimed by both Beijing and Hanoi does not herald a change in China's strategy of staking out claims in large swaths of the South China Sea that have bedeviled the two ideologically communist allies over the past years. The retreat has come at a convenient juncture for the pro-Chinese faction of the Vietnamese Communist Party to preempt any planned legal action against China and thwart the highly-anticipated alliance with the U.S.

On July 15, the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation announced that the $1 billion oil rig had finished drilling in disputed waters near the Paracel Islands, over which both Beijing and Hanoi claim sovereignty. The rig will be relocated closer to Hainan Island, China's southernmost province, after having successfully discovered "signs of oil and gas," the Chinese company said in a statement.

The rig set off a geopolitical storm when it was deployed on May 2 into what Vietnam calls its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the potentially resources- and oil-rich South China Sea. Chinese and Vietnamese ships regularly tailed one another off the waters near the rig, while anti-China protests erupted into violence in central and southern Vietnam. The resulting riots left hundreds of foreign-owned factories vandalized and four Chinese nationals dead.

The rig was originally scheduled to explore the waters around the Paracels until mid-August and independent analysts have tried to account for why China withdrew it ahead of schedule, though China's Xinhua news agency noted that July was the beginning of the typhoon season. Analysts say the move may have been prompted by the simple completion of its mission objective: to find enough hydrocarbons to justify coming back at a later time. The early arrival of two major typhoons allowed China the perfect face-saving opportunity to exit. Others argue that Beijing hopes to defuse tensions and repair its relations with Vietnam.

But no matter what the reason might be, at the end of the day "the removal of the oil rig appears to be a retreat by China, although I would argue that such a retreat is tactical and at this stage does not suggest a change of China's strategy," according to Yun Sun, a fellow with the East Asia Program at the Washington-based Stimson Center. "By deploying the oil rig in the disputed area, China established a precedent and the "legitimacy" (at least from China's point view) to do so again in the future. When tensions are lowered, Vietnam will have less incentive to seek legal actions or alignment with the U.S. and Japan," she said.

At the height of the tensions in mid-June, Yang Jiechi, a top Chinese diplomat who outranks the foreign minister, visited Vietnam for talks with Vietnam's top echelons: Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. During his visit, Yang was reported to have warned Hanoi against taking legal action to challenge Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea like the Philippines did in March. "Since Yang's visit, there has been a steady de-escalation of tensions, but that has come from Hanoi, not Beijing," said Zachary Abuza, a Washington-based Asia analyst.

Analysts point out that after Yang's visit, the Politburo, the decision-making body of the Vietnamese Communist Party, has been split into three camps. Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung led the confrontation camp that wanted to stand up to China, pursue a proactive foreign policy within the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and elicit support from Japan, India and the U.S.. Dung has spoken out strongly in public, asserting that his country would consider taking legal action against China. He actively enlisted U.S. support to balance China's growing assertiveness in the region. This group is looking to push for an across-the-board overhaul of the economy and the less-than-efficient state sector to gain entry into an ambitious U.S.-led regional free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, further deepening ties with the U.S.. "The so-called pro-American faction would feel that accommodation with China would constraint Vietnam's freedom of action and put Vietnam into a position of subordination and dependence on China. Ideological dependency would reduce the prospects for economic reforms," said Carl Thayer, a Vietnam expert with the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Meanwhile, the group seeking accommodation with China, led by Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, is concerned that getting too close to the U.S. would result in negative pressures or even sanctions by China. "Getting close to the U.S. would entail some response on the U.S. requirement for demonstrable progress on human rights and U.S. pressures for greater military access to Vietnam, such as Cam Ranh Bay and joint military exercises," Thayer said. There are three heavyweights whose input could have made a difference, analysts say. Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang was probably fearful of mass discontent and continued protests should the conflict escalate. President Truong Tan Sang has most likely sided with the majority. Minister of Defense Phung Quang Thanh, the most senior uniformed officer to have talked about pursuing an arbitration case, is cautious about the West. Cognizant of Vietnam's limited options, Thanh probably joined the majority.

"Without a doubt, the pro-Chinese camp carried the day. Those who were on record or expected to want to pursue a more confrontational policy, and reach out to the U.S. and Japan appear to be in the minority," Abuza said. "The Vietnamese have buckled to Chinese pressure. A majority of the Politburo is unwilling to stand up to China at this time." Analysts say right now, the prospect of Vietnam filing a lawsuit parallel to that of the Philippines seems to have been shelved as senior leaders appear extremely wary of antagonizing Beijing. In late May, the Vietnamese media reported that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh was set to call on the U.S. "soon" at the invitation of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, but that well publicized and strategically planned trip never materialized. In mid-July, a U.S. presidential envoy did travel to Hanoi to meet with Minh but that is far lower profile than an official visit to Washington. While welcoming Shinzo Abe, Vietnam has not overtly embraced his reinterpretation of the constitution to allow for "collective self-defense."

US-Vietnam Alliance: A Pipe Dream ?

The removal of the oil rig has resulted in the withdrawal of a Chinese armada of more than one hundred ships and vessels, setting the stage for Vietnam to withdraw its Coast Guard and Fisheries Surveillance Force ships. Thus the basis will be created for bilateral talks between China and Vietnam to discuss how to get bilateral relations back on track. But that also means "the so-called pro-China camp, or accommodationists, will resist any actions that will exacerbate relations with China. This means no legal action and no upgrade of relations with the United States. Prime Minister Dung risks being left out on a limb," Thayer said.

Right after the oil rig withdrawal, sources revealed that Dinh The Huynh, a pro-China camp member who heads the Communist Party's Department of Propaganda and Education, instructed the media not to go further to discredit China and make it lose face because of the move. Apparently, analysts expect those advocating for a less confrontational approach to continue to carry the day. "As for future conflict with China, the accommodationist group would self-censor itself. They would veto any policy likely to arouse Chinese ire. They would in effect bandwagon with China, that is, avoid criticism of China in the expectation of Vietnam would be rewarded economically for its good behavior. In short, continued contestation between Vietnam's pro-China and pro-U.S. factions would undermine Vietnam's ability to pursue its national interests and stand up to Chinese pressures," Thayer said.

Analysts say the pro-Chinese accommodationists may argue that quiet backroom diplomacy worked and that they convinced China to de-escalate tensions for the sake of regional stability. "They can claim to have had influence, but this is nonsense. China removed the rig when they did because it had served their interests. The rig, and more of them will be back after typhoon season. China is not going to back down on this issue," Abuza said. "And there is an appalling naiveté on the part of Hanoi that if they accommodate China on some issues, that they will get concessions on others. China does not make concessions to uppity small states. If anyone should know that, it's Vietnam, yet so often the leadership thinks that socialist solidarity will prevail."

The analysts raise a concern: In Vietnam, there are really just one or two more meetings of the Central Committee, a powerful grouping of 175 senior Communist Party members, where some real reforms can take place before the remainder of the plenums are dominated by politicking and grooming for the next national congress in 2016. "I see a window of opportunity for pursuing bold economic reforms as closing very quickly. Once everyone is in planning mode for the Party congress, there will not be any bold reforms," Abuza said.

By Teddy Pham - The Diplomat - August 4, 2014

Vietnam, China and the oil rig crisis : who blinked ?

China's unexpected announcement on July 15 that it was withdrawing its mega oil drilling platform from Vietnamese waters early has resulted in a debate among academic specialists about the reasons why.

Zachary Abuza, a professor at Simmons College in Boston, argues that Vietnam buckled under Chinese pressure, while Alexander Vuving, a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, argues that Vietnam stood its ground and China blinked.

Abuza's analysis appeared in the "Speaking Freely" section of the Asia Times on July 29. His analysis was original, provocative and highly speculative.

Abuza argued that China's placement of the oil rig "presented the most divisive threat in years to Hanoi's Communist Party leadership." Not only were members of the Politburo deeply divided, but the majority chose to de-escalate the crisis by accommodating Chinese pressure. "Hanoi's decision to back down has potential grave implications," Abuza writes, "Vietnam has effectively appeased China, which will most likely lead to more aggression." A policy of appeasement, Abuza concludes, "will pose a danger to the regime itself… and to the regime's legitimacy."

To support his argument Abuza provides some very detailed information about the normally opaque decision-making process by the Vietnamese leadership. Abuza's argument may be summarized in four points:

First, in response to Chinese assertiveness in placing the HYSY 981 oil rig in Vietnamese waters in early May, Abuza avers that the Vietnam Communist Party's Central Committee met in June and "unanimously resolved to condemn Chinese aggression and encroachment."

Second, the visit to Hanoi of China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi on June 18 proved pivotal. Prior to the visit Vietnam's leaders hoped that Yang would make diplomatic concessions. According to Abuza, just the opposite occurred. Yang "was anything but conciliatory;" he "berated his hosts for 'hyping up' the situation" and warned "bluntly that China would 'take all necessary measures' to protect the rig."

Third, as a result of Councilor Yang's visit a majority of the 16-member Politburo reversed the Central Committee's June resolution. According to Abuza, a minority of six members favored "a multi-faceted strategy" of standing up to China, while the ten-member majority favored de-escalating the crisis in order to accommodate China.

The most speculative aspect of Abuza's analysis is his classification of individual Politburo members into these two groups. According to Abuza, the minority group comprised six members: Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Sinh Hung, Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary and "pro-reformist" Le Thanh Hai, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and Deputy Chairs of the National Assembly Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Thong sic Thi Phong.

The ten-member majority comprised: Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong, party Secretariat members To Huy Rua and Le Hong Anh, head of the party's Central Inspection Commission Ngo Van Du, head of the party's Propaganda and Education Commission Dinh The Huynh, Hanoi City party chief Pham Quang Nghi, chair of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Nguyen Thien Nhan, Minister of National Defense Phung Quang Thanh, "probably" Minister for Public Security Tran Dai Quang, and "most likely" President Truong Tan Sang.

Fourth, as a consequence of this policy reversal, the Politburo shelved an earlier decision to take legal action against China, downplayed Vietnam's insistence on a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea, and cancelled the "well publicized scheduled trip to Washington" by Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh.

The Politburo decided to sound out Washington on its "level of commitment to playing a role in a potential conflict with China in the South China Sea" by dispatching Hanoi party boss and Politburo member Pham Quang Nghi in Minh's place.

Abuza concluded that the majority of the Politburo "is unwilling to stand up to China" and that "there is a hope in some quarters that by making concessions on the Paracel Islands, the Chinese will reciprocate in the Spratly Islands."

Alexander Vuving offers a contrasting view in a commentary entitled, "Did China Blink in the South China Sea," which was published on the The National Interest. Vuving wrote that the oil rig crisis was "a battle of wills… The party with more resolve may win even if it is the less powerful party. With their respective sovereignties at stake, the two states tested each other's resolve to see who would blink first."

Immediately after China placed the oil rig in Vietnamese waters, Hanoi's leaders sought to negotiate with Beijing. China responded with four preconditions: Vietnam must stop its harassment of the oil rig; Vietnam must drop its sovereignty claims over the Paracels; Vietnam must not pursue legal action against China; and Vietnam must not involve third parties, such as the United States.

According to Vuving, Vietnam's collective leadership responded by dropping plans to proceed with legal action against China and by postponing the visit of Foreign Minister Minh to Washington. This set the stage for China to undertake "a reciprocal act of de-escalation."

On July 15 China announced that it was withdrawing the HYSD 981 from Vietnamese waters and, in a separate statement, releasing 13 Vietnamese fishermen it had arrested earlier. Vuving concluded that "Beijing's actions may look like a tacit bargain, but its real nature is something different." Vuving noted the symmetrical nature and the fragility of mutual concessions by both China and Vietnam.In other words each party could reverse its actions at any time.

In contrast to Abuza, Vuving considered the motivations of both China and Vietnam in his analysis. Vuving concluded that Hanoi's deference to Beijing was only "a small portion of the recipe, if any portion at all."

Vuving argued that up until the oil rig crisis China pursued "salami-slicing" tactics through which Beijing pursued "a delicate balance between assertiveness and restraint so that its actions are enough to change facts on the ground but not enough to create a good reason for others to turn decisively against " it.

In contrast to Abuza who asserted that Vietnam's leaders capitulated to China and "the United States… did not get involved in a meaningful way," Vuving concluded the opposite. According to Vuving, China's bullying led to an unprecedented change in Vietnamese perceptions of Beijing and "together with the threat of a de facto alliance with the United States, they indicate a huge change in Hanoi's approach to Beijing."

Further, Vuving noted "the general trend… has added more impetus for several states, including Japan, the Philippines, Australia, India and Vietnam, to adjust their military postures and foreign-policy alignments to more effectively counter Chinese aggressiveness."

Vuving argued in his conclusion that in the past, many states, including Vietnam and the United States, created a "glass ceiling" and "adopted a policy of restraint for fear of provoking the giant dragon." China "adroitly exploited this fear with its salami-slicing tactics." As a result of the oil rig crisis, the glass ceiling has been broken and China has been exposed as "not much different from other actors" in its fear of escalation. In other words China blinked.

Abuza's account of Vietnamese decision-making may be challenged on the grounds of plausibility and factual accuracy.

First, there is no public record that the Vietnam Communist Party Central Committee met in June. As one Hanoi-based observer noted in a private communication, "there have been no whispers in Hanoi on such a meeting… it is also hard to hide something as big as a CC meeting." A senior government official confirmed in late July that no meeting of the party Central Committee had been held since the ninth plenum (May 8-14).

Further, as one Hanoi-based diplomat noted in private to The Diplomat, "if in fact the June CC meeting 'unanimously resolved to condemn Chinese aggression and encroachment', why did the Party not issue any resolution on this after the meeting. Would this not have served a domestic purpose in assuring the public of the Party's handling of the situation."

Second, Abuza's account of Councilor Yang's June 18 visit to Hanoi too narrowly focuses on public posturing by Yang. Up until Yang's visit China rebuffed approximately thirty Vietnamese approaches to open talks about the oil rig crisis, yet Yang attended the long-scheduled annual meeting of the Joint Steering Committee for Bilateral Cooperation. This is a significant indicator of China's willingness to engage Vietnam.

A close reading of official statements by Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicates that when Yang met party Secretary General Trong there was a general agreement to "continue discussing ways to ease tensions and solve sea-related issues." After Yang's visit, the Chinese media portrayed the outcome in far more positive terms than the western media quoted by Abuza. As noted by Vuving, Yang's visit set the stage for a tacit bargain to deescalate the crisis.

Third, Abuza does not provide sources for his assertion that the Politburo met after Yang's visit and overturned a Central Committee resolution condemning China for aggression. The Central Committee is the highest party executive authority between national party congresses. As evidenced in domestic politics in 2013, the Central Committee has on several occasions overturned a decision by the Politburo.

It is known that the Politburo met on several occasions during the oil rig crisis both before and after Yang's visit. In a visit to Vietnam in late July, the author was told by Vietnamese and diplomatic sources that the Politburo voted 9 to 5 "to approve a proposal to go ahead with international arbitration."

Hanoi-based diplomats who follow these events closely suggest that the decisive Politburo meeting took place in early July. This was prior to China's announcement that it was withdrawing HY SY 981.

It is impossible to know with certainty the breakdown of how individual members of the Politburo voted at the early July meeting. A canvass of informed Vietnamese and foreign observers in Hanoi suggests the following:

The majority reportedly comprised: Nguyen Tan Dung, Truong Tan Sang, Nguyen Sinh Hung, Le Thanh Hai, Le Hong Anh, Tong Thi Phong, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Nguyen Thien Nhan and likely Phung Quang Thanh.

The five-member minority reportedly included Nguyen Phu Trong, To Huy Rua, Pham Quang Nghi, Ngo Van Du and Dinh The Huynh.

Reports that two Politburo members abstained are incorrect. In early July two members of the Politburo were overseas and unable to attend the meeting. Public Security Minister Tran Dai Quang visited Germany from July 3-4, while National Assembly Deputy Chair Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan visited Argentina and Chile from June 30-July 5.

Fourth, Abuza errs in asserting that Foreign Minister Minh's trip to the United States was cancelled and Politburo member Pham Quang Nghi was sent instead. Minh's trip was postponed until September. Presently the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington and the State Department are in discussions on the timing of Minh's visit.

Pham Quang Nghi's visit reportedly was to burnish his foreign affairs expertise and to provide a sounding of the current state of relations with the United States in advance of Minh's visit.

It appears unlikely that the Politburo shelved a decision to take legal action against China or Vietnam downplayed its insistence on a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea. On July 26 the University of Law in Ho Chi Minh convened a high-powered international conference on the "Legal issues regarding the incident of China's placement of oil rig Haiyang Shiyou 981 in Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf." Vietnamese participants noted privately that the recommendations of this conference would be forwarded to high-level leaders in advance of a meeting of the Central Committee scheduled for sometime in August.

Vietnam remains fully committed to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its support for a binding code of conduct (COC) in the South China Sea. Last year China executed an about face and agreed to meet with ASEAN officials to discuss a COC within the framework of discussions on implementing the Declaration on Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. It is unlikely that Vietnam downplayed its support for the COC to curry favor with China. Both sides are committed to the diplomatic process. Whether or not Vietnam actually believes the COC will be negotiated is another matter. As a senior Vietnamese official told The Diplomat, "the journey is more important than the destination."

The impending annual meetings of ASEAN Foreign Ministers, the ASEAN Regional Forum and associated meetings between ASEAN and its dialogue partners will all discuss the oil rig crisis and where to go from here. It is clear that China will come under intense diplomatic pressure to freeze its provocative behavior in the South China Sea.

The oil rig crisis has demonstrated that Vietnam is capable of standing up to China and showing resolve. Vietnam is unlikely to foreclose any options including taking legal action against China. It is in Vietnam's interest to hold this option in reserve.

Vietnam's cautious leaders are as unlikely to buckle under pressure from China as they are to lurch into an alignment with the United States. Vietnam and China have much diplomatic work to do to repair their damaged bilateral relations and restore strategic trust. Vietnam is also likely to deepen its comprehensive partnership with the United States.

There is more likely to be continuity in Vietnamese foreign policy than change. Vietnam will continue to apply the injunction of Central Committee Resolution No. 8 to struggle and cooperate with the major powers to further its national interests and to pursue a multilateral approach in its external relations.

By Carl Thayer - The Diplomat - August 4, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/08/06/A-US-Vietnam-alliance-Not-so-fast.#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/791575 Battered and broke, Vietnam fishermen bear brunt of China row urn:md5:a75030f384c6331d62ff40b6e1fc3f07 2014-07-29T08:29:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinafishingParacel
Vietnamese fisherman Dang Van Hoanh sits on the deck of a creaky ferry, nursing a broken leg wrapped in grubby bandages and splinted with wood.

Staring out to sea, he recounts how an unidentified vessel rammed and sank his boat one night in May in South China Sea waters claimed by both Vietnam and China. One of his six crew was killed and another is still missing.

"I planned to marry after that fishing trip but we lost everything," Hoanh, 27, told Reuters as the ferry headed to Ly Son island off central Vietnam where he and many other fishermen live. "Now, I'm broke and in debt."

Hoanh believes he got caught in the crossfire of a dispute between Hanoi and Beijing over China's recent deployment of a $1 billion oil rig near the disputed Paracel islands off Vietnam.

China moved the rig back toward its coast in mid-July, but for 10 weeks scores of coastguard and fishing vessels from both sides squared off around the platform in a daily routine in which the Vietnamese boats appeared to be no match for the larger Chinese vessels.

Reuters reporters joined two Vietnamese coastguard patrols near the rig in May and July. On both occasions, faster and better equipped Chinese ships chased them off.

Hoanh has no proof because it was dark, but he believes a bigger Chinese boat rammed his small wooden craft on May 25. At the time, Ly Son authorities said they also suspected it was Chinese.

China did not comment on the incident but it had frequently accused Vietnamese boats of being aggressive around the rig and blamed them for any collisions.

Hoanh said he had wanted no part in the drama and had sought to fish elsewhere, unlike some of his fellow fishermen who took part in the cat-and-mouse jostling around the drilling platform.

"Since the rig was put there, we moved further north to avoid the Chinese. But they still rammed us and sank us," he said, adding Vietnamese fishermen weren't safe anywhere.

Another Vietnamese fishing boat was sunk in an incident on May 26 near the rig. Its 10 crew were rescued.

Getting costly

About 3,000 fishermen live on Ly Son, 15 nautical miles (28 km) off Vietnam's coast and which for centuries has been a base for fishermen to venture into the South China Sea.

China claims 90 percent of the strategic waterway. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also claim parts of the ocean, which is potentially rich in oil and gas but also home to vital fishing grounds for the region.

Tensions with China in disputed waters had already been costly to Vietnam's fishermen, but worsened after the oil rig was deployed on May 2.

Fourteen of Ly Son's 426 boats were badly damaged in collisions with Chinese vessels while the platform was off Vietnam, said Pham Thi Huong of the local Ly Son government. The damage bill was $280,000, she said.

That compared with 17 incidents across the South China Sea involving Chinese ships in 2013, Huong added.

Bui Van Minh, 33, said he'd been harassed by Chinese vessels some 20 times this year, including getting blasted with water cannon from a Chinese coastguard ship near the rig last month.

"We were angry, but we couldn't do anything," Minh said.

Fishermen complained they were spending more on fuel to avoid risky waters while others said they had struck deals to sell their catch to buyers at lower prices in return for loans to repair their damaged boats.

Some help might be on the way after the government in Hanoi approved a 16 trillion dong ($750 million) support package, to take effect next month. Of that, 11.5 trillion dong will be used to buy 32 coastguard and surveillance ships.

Fishermen seeking new boats can apply for low-interest loans and the state will cover insurance costs for all vessels and crew under the package. But with an estimated 800,000 fishermen and 128,000 fishing boats in Vietnam, the money might not go far.

Indeed, Vietnamese officials said they could not match the financial support Chinese authorities were giving their fishermen.

"This policy is not a magic wand ... We can't compare with investment in China's fishermen," said Le Ngoc Phuoc, vice chairman of the Vietnam Fisheries Association, which represents all of the country's fishermen.

"Their strategy is to occupy wherever they go, that's why they focus strongly on building huge boats with modern equipment."

By Nguyen Phuong Linh - Reuters - July 27, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/07/29/Battered-and-broke%2C-Vietnam-fishermen-bear-brunt-of-China-row#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/790524 Taiwan's Formosa Plastics to receive $2.39 mln in Vietnam compensation urn:md5:829b7fa9477e876d19e48026d6f0d171 2014-07-22T09:13:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinademonstrations
Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group said on Monday it will receive $2.39 million in compensation from the Vietnamese government and a Vietnamese insurance firm for damages incurred during anti-China protests in May.

Formosa's Vietnam unit, which is building a steel project and whose shares are not listed, had been targeted in the protests by Vietnamese workers. The workers had mistakenly believed that Formosa was a China-based company.

Hanoi will pay $1.44 million of the total sum this week, a spokesman for the Formosa unit said, and the remaining $948,000 will be paid out in instalments by a Vietnamese insurance firm.

Formosa is the biggest foreign investor in Vietnam, local media have said. The protests were sparked after Chinese state oil companies moved an offshore drilling rig into water off Vietnam's coast to drill an exploratory well.

Reuters - July 21, 2014

Vietnam officials scrap shrine construction at site of deadly riot

A view of the administrative building of Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation, a unit of Formosa Plastics Group, in Vung Ang Economic Zone in the north-central province of Ha Tinh. The provincial administration has ordered the zone's management board to halt the construction of a shrine inside the zone by the Taiwanese firm. Photo: Nguyen Dung

Communist Party officials in the north-central province of Ha Tinh have ordered the management board of the Vung Ang Economic Zone to halt the construction of a shrine inside the zone by Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group.

Tran Dinh Thuyen, a spokesman for the the Ha Tinh Party Unit, told Thanh Nien News on July 19 that the order was made following public outcry over the provincial government's acceptance of Formosa's request to build the shrine after a deadly anti-China riot left three Chinese workers dead and 149 others, both Chinese and Vietnamese, injured on May 14.

China's deployment of a giant US$-1billion oil rig into Vietnamese waters on May 2 triggered peaceful anti-China protests that erupted into violence in central and southern Vietnam two weeks later. Rioters torched, looted and vandalized hundreds of foreign-owned factories.

The violence racked up millions of dollars in losses and claimed the lives of three Chinese nationals. Taiwanese businesses, mistaken for being Chinese, suffered most. Taipei claims at least 200 factories were looted or burned down in the riots. Around 3,000 Chinese workers subsequently fled Vietnam.

Two months after the riot, Formosa submitted an "unprecedented" request to the government for permission to build its own special economic zone in Vung Ang.

In addition to asking for its exclusive economic zone under the direct control of the central government, Formosa also called for a raft of safeguard measures for the steel sector and waivers on import duties for equipment and raw materials.

On top of that, the Taiwanese firm asked that the government grant it land-use rights to a large area of the Vung Ang Economic Zone so it can build infrastructure and housing facilities to accommodate its 15,000-strong staff and their relatives, most of whom are Chinese.

The request was turned down. Vietnam's current regulations do not allow such special treatment for foreign investors according to comments made by Nguyen Van Nen, Minister and Chairman of the Government Office, during a press briefing on July 1.

The rejection came at a time when the government is making great strides in restoring foreign investor confidence after anti-China riots shut down three industrial parks in mid-May.

But on July 3, Formosa received permission from the Ha Tinh provincial government to build the shrine, which it said would allow employees to pray to "the wandering souls whose graves were lost."

In Vietnamese and Chinese culture, individuals who are killed far from home (particularly those who die violent deaths) have a tendency to wander among the living rather than pass into the spirit world. These ghosts are called 'hungry souls' because it is believed that they do not enjoy regular offerings of food and other amenities traditionally laid out on family alters in the home.

The Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corporation, a unit of Formosa Plastics Group, was in the process of building a huge steel complex in Vung Ang when the deadly riot broke out.

The Formosa plant is to be the largest steel mill in Southeast Asia once the construction is completed. It is also one of the biggest foreign direct investment projects in Vietnam.

Formosa Plastics Group said on Monday it will receive $2.39 million in compensation from the Vietnamese government and a Vietnamese insurance firm for damages incurred during anti-China protests, according to a Reuters report.

Analysts say Vietnam still desperately needs foreign investment to boost growth but at the same time must be careful not to hand over too much power to businesses.

While foreign direct investment is important to economic growth and development in any country, these analysts say no government can allow itself to be held hostage by any one company.

By Nguyen Dung-Thanh Hung - Thanh Nien News - July 21, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/07/22/Taiwan-s-Formosa-Plastics-to-receive-%242.39-mln-in-Vietnam-compensation#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/789924 China tensions choke off tourism to Vietnam urn:md5:441402af6af944b6627e398b7814c7eb 2014-07-22T08:25:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinatourism
DA NANG — The year began well for Mai Thanh Trung, newly employed at a travel company here that caters to Chinese tour groups.

Mr. Trung said he regularly greeted charter flights from the Chinese mainland and pocketed an average monthly commission of about $600.

But then came May, when a state-owned Chinese company parked an oil rig near Vietnam's central coast in a part of the South China Sea that both countries claim. Two days of anti-Chinese riots followed in southern and central Vietnam. And, according to hospitality professionals in this central coast city of nearly one million, the inbound Chinese tourism market crashed.

Mr. Trung, 24, said the flights that once brought his Chinese clients stopped in late May, leaving him and his 50 colleagues temporarily unemployed. He sat idle for weeks in his home village, 25 miles south of Da Nang, watching the World Cup on television.

The rig began moving north, toward Hainan Island in China, on July 15. Mr. Trung said that seemed to have prompted a trickle of Chinese tourists to return, and that he expected to make at least $200 this month in commissions. But the unrest over the rig and continuing tense relations have rattled his sense of job security.

"Right now it's going back to Hainan Island, but we don't know when it will come back," he said of the rig.

Although at least four Chinese workers died in the riots, order was restored quickly. But China and other countries issued advisories citing potential risks to public safety in Vietnam. Tourism specialists said the Chinese advisory led thousands of people to cancel trips, in part because it invalidated some travel insurance policies.

Chinese accounted for about a quarter of the nearly 4.3 million foreign visitors to Vietnam in the first six months of 2014. But in June, arrivals from the Chinese mainland fell about 30 percent and those from Hong Kong fell 72 percent, compared with May.

"They became a little bit afraid," said Matthias Wiesmann, general manager at the Furama Resort Danang, one of the city's many beachfront properties. The hotel lost 10 percent to 15 percent of its business, or about 2,800 room nights, in May and June, he said.

Nguyen Xuan Binh, director of the government's Da Nang Center for Tourism Promotion, said the average occupancy rate at the city's beachfront hotels was 60 percent to 70 percent in late June, compared with the usual 80 percent to 90 percent. But Ken Atkinson, chairman of the tourism working group at the Vietnam Business Forum, a public-private consortium, suggested that rate was probably not higher than 30 percent or 40 percent.

Mr. Binh says Da Nang is as safe as ever. He predicted that Chinese tourists would return but said that he did not know when.

"They'll come to Da Nang and see the reality," he said.

Chinese tourists spent $102 billion on 83 million international trips in 2012, lifting their country above Germany as the world's top source of international tourism, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.

But tourists from China are often acutely sensitive to the way they and their government are perceived abroad, while Chinese officials view tourism as closely linked to larger diplomatic strategies, tourism specialists said in interviews.

In Japan, Chinese arrivals plunged in late 2012 and much of 2013, according to Japan National Tourism Organization figures provided by the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute in Heide, Germany. The slump appeared to mirror a period of rising tensions between China and Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea, said the institute's director, Wolfgang Georg Arlt.

And in Malaysia, 19.5 percent fewer Chinese tourists arrived in April than in April 2013, according to government data. By contrast, the number fell 0.10 percent in March and 3.6 percent in February and increased nearly 25 percent in January from a year earlier.

Brian King, a professor of tourism at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said several Chinese airlines had scaled back flights to Malaysia after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 on March 8, two-thirds of whose passengers were Chinese. Also, a Chinese tourist was abducted from a resort in Malaysia in April.

"Malaysia's plans for growing China tourism are well off course at the moment," Mr. King said. "Until there's more information about the flight, then that probably will continue to be the case."

He added that the Malaysia Airlines flight shot down over Ukraine would probably have a "very minor" effect on tourism in Asia and that the disaster could actually increase Malaysia's inbound Chinese tourism if the airline continued to cut fares to attract customers.

Mr. Binh, the Da Nang tourism official, said growth in the city's inbound Chinese tourism market before May was mainly related to a sharp rise since 2012 in charter flights operated by Vietnam Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. He said Dragonair, a sister airline of Cathay Pacific, had also opened non-charter flights between Hong Kong and Da Nang.

A spokeswoman for the state-owned Vietnam Airlines declined to comment on the Chinese tourism slump, saying in an email that the company was still "collecting and evaluating" related information. China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines did not respond to email seeking comment.

Cathay Pacific and Dragonair canceled a total of 23 return flights between Hong Kong and three regular Vietnam destinations — Da Nang, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City — between late May and the end of June, said Erica Peng, Cathay Pacific's Vietnam country manager. She added that the airlines normally operated 33 weekly flights from Hong Kong to those cities, including seven Dragonair flights to Da Nang.

Mr. Binh, the tourism official, said the "main driver" behind the Da Nang charter flights from China was the Crowne Plaza Danang, a large hotel on the city's beachfront. Four hospitality executives on the central coast echoed his analysis, saying the Crowne Plaza caters almost exclusively to Chinese tour groups.

On a recent summer afternoon, Zhang Lei, a Chinese businessman from Henan Province, stood beside the pool in the Crowne Plaza's deserted beachside courtyard. He said that aside from the friends he was traveling with, he had not met any other Chinese-speaking guests during his stay and that many Chinese were not traveling to Vietnam because of the South China Sea dispute and the factory riots in May.

"China has helped Vietnam so much over the years, but the Vietnamese have turned against us," Mr. Zhang said while sipping from a coconut.

A Crowne Plaza employee, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak with the news media, said Chinese typically were 70 percent to 80 percent of the hotel's clientele. Emma Corcoran, a spokeswoman for the hotel's parent company, InterContinental Hotels Group, declined a request for an interview with the hotel's general manager.

Clarence Tan, the company's chief operating officer for Southeast Asia and resorts, said in an emailed statement that China's recent tourism advisory from the Chinese government, coupled with the reduction in direct chartered flights into Da Nang, had contributed to a decline in Chinese arrivals at the company's Da Nang properties.

Despite the drop in Chinese arrivals, Vietnam still expects to welcome 8.2 million international tourists this year, Nguyen Manh Cuong, vice chairman of the national tourism agency, told reporters on July 9, days before the Chinese oil rig left the disputed area of the South China Sea. The total for last year was nearly 7.6 million, official figures show.

The rig's departure appears to have increased overall tourist confidence in Vietnam, said Mr. Wiesmann, of the Furama Resort Danang. He added that business at the beachfront property had nearly returned to normal by late July, because of upticks in Australian, Japanese, South Korean and Vietnamese guests.

Mr. Wiesmann said inbound Chinese tourism, though still sluggish, was improving "little by little," though it remained unclear when, or whether, the market would recover fully.

"It's a little bit difficult to predict," he said.

By Mike Ives - The New York Times - July 21, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/07/22/China-tensions-choke-off-tourism-to-Vietnam#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/789919 Chinese tourists abandon Vietnam after oil rig row urn:md5:9cd4094f1023311b506fe36d91e350d9 2014-07-20T13:38:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinatourism
For years Nguyen Huu Son has guided Chinese tourists around Vietnam's popular coastal city Danang, but a bitter maritime dispute between Hanoi and Beijing means he is now out of work.

Relations between the communist neighbours plunged to their lowest point in decades when Beijing moved a deep-sea oil rig into disputed waters in the South China Sea in early May, triggering deadly riots in Vietnam.

The rig has since been withdrawn. But the Chinese tourists have not returned.

"It's never been this bad before... My company has almost no customers, no work," Son told AFP.

Son's salary has been cut by two-thirds, but he feels "embarrassed" to take even this reduced pay package as he knows his company is not making any money at all.

"We focus on individual travellers, not tour groups, and 100 percent of them cancelled... I have nothing to do with my time," he said, adding that he was mulling a change of career.

After the mid-May riots, in which China says four of its nationals were killed, Beijing evacuated thousands of citizens and issued a "yellow" travel warning for Vietnam.

While this was reasonable in the immediate aftermath of the riots which mostly affected Taiwanese and South Korean businesses maintaining the travel warning when any danger to tourists has passed smacks of politics, said Professor Jonathan London at City University of Hong Kong.

"It reminds one of Beijing's campaign to reduce mainland tourism to the Philippines," London said, referring the economic fallout from the 2012 standoff over the Scarborough Shoal.

After a dispute over the uninhabited shoal, Beijing warned its citizens about travel safety in the Philippines, prompting mass cancellations.

- Economic impact -

Chinese tourist arrivals to Vietnam were down 29.5 percent in June from the previous month, according to official figures.

In June, 136,726 Chinese visited Vietnam, down from 194,018 in May and 216,659 in April this year, the figures show.

Vietnam will continue tourism promotion efforts in China, aiming to show "Vietnam is a safe destination," said Nguyen Manh Cuong, an official at the tourism department.

Tourism is an important source of revenue for communist Vietnam, contributing nearly six percent of the country's gross domestic product in 2013, official statistics show.

Chinese visitors make up the largest single group of arrivals -- more than 1.1 million in 2014 overall, despite the sharp fall off after May.

The next largest group, South Korea, saw 405,634 arrivals.

The average Chinese visitor stays five days and spends $300 if they travel by land, or $700 if they have arrived by airplane, Cuong said.

This compares to an average stay of about 10 days by European or American tourists, who spend up to $3,000 during that period, official figures show.

- Tourism politics -

The fall in Chinese arrivals after the maritime dispute erupted is understandable as Beijing uses outbound tourism as a "negative sanction", according to Tony Tse, a professor at the school of hotel and tourism management at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

"Outbound tourism can be used by the Chinese government to show its aggression," he said in a 2013 paper, citing the examples of the Philippines and Japan -- where tourism was hard hit after a 2012 dispute with the latter over the Senkaku islands, known as the Diaoyu in China.

"The hostility in withholding tourism acts like a punishment and China is powerful enough to exercise this kind of sanction," Tse wrote in the paper on how China uses outbound tourism as a form of diplomacy.

Vietnamese tourists have also been cancelling trips to China in droves, although the government has not issued any travel warning, said one travel agent who declined to be named.

"It's a way to express patriotism. Vietnamese like travelling in China... but now they cancel to show their patriotism," he said.

Tran Thi Lan, 54, a primary school teacher from central Nghe An province, had booked a trip to China for this summer which she was "very excited" about.

"We decided to cancel, not the tour operator. The Chinese government's behaviour was unacceptable," she told AFP.

"We decided not to go to show our attitude... We don't want to go on holiday to a country that is invading our waters," she said.

By Cat Barton - Agence France Presse - July 20, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/07/20/Chinese-tourists-abandon-Vietnam-after-oil-rig-row#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/789741 How the big rig rolls urn:md5:31083bc29ffcdf681d45ac7536119399 2014-07-17T08:31:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacelSpratly
A sea monster, it seems, can disappear just as quickly as it emerges. Choppy waters and anxious bystanders take more time to settle.

On July 16th relations between Vietnam and China took another dramatic turn when a Chinese state-owned company announced it would relocate a mobile, $1 billion oil rig whose presence had infuriated Vietnamese officials and citizens for weeks. Vietnamese newspapers reported that the rig had left disputed waters near the central Vietnamese coast on July 15th, which would be about one month ahead of schedule. It was seen steaming north through the South China Sea, towards Hainan island and the Chinese mainland beyond.

These two Communist republics have a complex history, defined by enmity, suspicion and grudging co-operation. Like difficult lovers or siblings, they cannot seem to help arguing and then making up. Yet relations have been unusually tense since the rig arrived in early May in waters near the Paracel islands, which both countries claim as their own. In Vietnam's major cities government-sanctioned protests against China gave way to chaotic anti-Chinese rioting at factories owned by Chinese and other foreign firms in southern and central provinces. Four Chinese nationals were killed. Such public displays of anger and violence are highly unusual in Vietnam. Its strain of authoritarianism tends to keep a tight lid on public demonstrations.

By many accounts, China has been diplomatically unco-operative with Vietnam for much of the spring and summer. In May it was said to have rebuffed Vietnam's request to send a high-level party official for negotiations in Beijing. On June 18th a top Chinese diplomat, Yang Jiechi, scolded Hanoi for his country's "unlawful interference" in the South China Sea, according to his colleagues. And the next day, China said it would dispatch a second oil rig into the sea, this time to the Gulf of Tonkin. Notwithstanding America's professed "pivot" to Asia and the Pacific, China appears bent on redefining the regional security architecture. And Vietnam—which, unlike Japan or the Philippines, enjoys no binding security agreement with America—sometimes feels like a sitting duck.

Nguyen Tan Dung, Vietnam's prime minister, said in May that Vietnam was preparing to challenge China's legal justification for its territorial claims. It is an open question whether he is bluffing or not. But such an unprecedented snub would likely have serious consequences. China is an ideological ally and a key trade partner, not to mention a rising military power. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) also has a large pro-China contingent that normally pays close attention to noises from Beijing, favouring that relationship—to some degree, at least—over closer ties with America.

Aside from a slump in the inflow of Chinese tourists and a cooling of the contracting and cross-border trade, the Vietnamese economy seems largely unaffected by the oil-rig dispute. The governments are still on speaking terms. Yet Vietnamese intellectuals say that the CPV is subject to growing popular pressure to project its sovereignty in the territorial dispute and at the same time to reassess its economic dependence on the Chinese inputs that fuel the domestic manufacturing sector. A failure to satisfy these demands, they think, could dent the party's legitimacy. It is a party after all, that was forged in resistance to foreign aggression.

A report published July 16th by Xinhua, China's state news agency, suggested that the rig was moved as a precaution against potential typhoons. Jonathan London, an expert on Vietnam at the City University of Hong Kong, speculates that the move may instead reflect an effort to "reduce the urgency of Hanoi's predicament" regarding what to do about China. It is unclear, he adds, whether the decision was unilateral or the result of back-channel negotiations. But for Vietnamese leaders the China headache is likely to linger no matter what happens in the coming weeks: The rig could always come back.

The Economist - July 17, 2014

China moves Vietnam row oil rig

China says the oil rig that sparked a major diplomatic row with Vietnam by drilling in disputed waters has finished work and is being removed.

In a statement, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) said it would now assess the data collected by the rig.

China moved the rig into waters near the Paracel Islands - which Vietnam also claims - in May.

The row over the rig led to clashes between ships from the two nations and major anti-China riots in Vietnam.

Vietnam's coast guard told Reuters news agency that the rig was now moving away towards China's Hainan island.

Coast Guard Chief of Staff Admiral Ngo Ngoc Thu said the rig had been moving since late on Tuesday. A senior fisheries official also confirmed that the rig was under way.

'Next step'

The news that the rig was moving came in a CNPC statement carried by China's state-run Xinhua news agency.

"Signs of oil and gas were found in the operation," Xinhua quoted the statement as saying, and CNPC "will assess the data collected and decide on the next step".

China moved its Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig into South China Sea waters west of the disputed Paracel Islands in early May, an action the US described as "provocative" and "aggressive".

Government ships from China and Vietnam then clashed there on several occasions, bumping and exchanging water cannon fire as Vietnam sought to block Chinese drilling operations.

Vietnam also saw three days of anti-China unrest during which angry workers targeted foreign-owned factories in some areas, leaving at least two people dead and dozens injured. Several factories were burned down or damaged.

Both nations claim the Paracel islands and in 1974 fought a brief but bloody war over them.

The introduction of the rig came amid broader tensions between Beijing and South East Asian nations over the South China Sea.

China's maritime territorial claims overlap those of several of its neighbours and in recent years it has sought to assert these claims in a more muscular fashion.

Ties with Hanoi and Manila have been particularly badly hit. The Philippines is currently taking China to an international court over the issue.

A statement by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei on the rig's removal pointed out that "the Xisha Paracel Islands are integral parts of China" and that the drilling operation was in "indisputable" waters which fell within China's jurisdiction.

China "firmly opposes Vietnam's unjustified disruptions" to operations, he added.

By Nga Pham - BBC News - July 16, 2014

Vietnam should sue China for 'stealing' Paracels, violating human rights: French filmmaker

Speaking with Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, French filmmaker André Menras says Vietnam should sue China for seizing Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago and violating human rights with the recent seizure of Vietnamese fishermen.

According to the Vietnamese Embassy in China, 13 Vietnamese fishermen were released on Tuesday after they had been illegally detained by Chinese vessels over the past three weeks.

André Menras also talks about his new movie, which focuses on Vietnamese law enforcement and fishermen in the East Vietnam Sea.

Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper interviewed André Menras, who also holds Vietnamese citizenship under the name Ho Cuong Quyet, in Vietnamese on Tuesday aboard Vietnam Coast Guard ship CBS 8003 that was operating in the waters off Hoang Sa.

Here is the interview translated into English by Tuoi Tre News:

I arrived here to make a documentary about how Vietnamese fishermen catch fish in the waters off Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago. My film will begin with the scene of the Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig and Chinese military ships in Vietnamese waters.

The next scene will depict the return trip of a fishing boat owned by Mrs. Nhu Hoa a Vietnamese woman in central Da Na... which was sunk by attacks from Chinese vessels. I will interview several fishermen aboard that ill-fated ship to show the world that the area around the oil rig was very dangerous due to threats from China and tropical storms.

Nevertheless, Vietnamese fishermen still continue their offshore trips. Mrs. Nhu Hoa now owns a ship with a 1,200 horsepower engine. This sends a message to China that despite threats these fishermen will never give up.

For my part, I would like to send my own message to people in Europe and America through my documentary that sovereignty speaks to both politics and humanity. I want to make a film about humans. I want to record the images of Vietnamese Coast Guard soldiers who have been very calm and determined to defend their national sovereignty. I also want to interview foreign journalists aboard Vietnam Coast Guard ships to ask for their views on what they have seen and felt.

As a Vietnamese citizen, I think that Vietnam will lose its seawaters if the country does not peacefully denounce China's acts in accordance with international law and tell the world what is really happening at sea. In my opinion, China will not start a war because they will lose their international reputation if they do so. Additionally, if a war occurs, China's relations with other nations will worsen.

At present, Vietnam should protect its national sovereignty through peaceful means and take legal action against China. First, Vietnam should sue China for "stealing" Hoang Sa. Second, they should sue China for placing an illicit oil rig there. And third, they should sue China for violating human rights because they seized Vietnamese fishermen in Vietnamese waters.

As far as I have known, some fishermen in Da Nang including Mrs. Nhu Hoa are ready to bring China to court. Several Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) in the United States and lawyers in Vietnam will help them prepare documents to pursue this possible lawsuit.

A Japanese journalist's special life jacket

Also onboard Vietnam Coast Guard ship 8003, Japanese journalist Murayama Yasufumi carefully recorded the images of how Vietnamese Coast Guard soldiers live. Particularly, Murayama has collected signatures for his life jacket from his local and international colleagues from Vietnam Television (VTV), Ho Chi Minh City Television (HTV), Tuoi Tre and Thanh Nien newspapers in Vietnam and The New York Times, The Guardian, and Kyodo News.

Murayama told Tuoi Tre that he collected the signatures for two reasons.

"First, it's a souvenir of my trip and a reminder of what is happening in these waters. Secondly, I want to publish the photo of the life-jacket in my newspaper to show people that the conflict is now attracting the attention of many international and local reporters," he said.

Tuoi Tre News - July 16, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/07/17/How-the-big-rig-rolls#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/789078 Top China diplomat to visit Vietnam in possible thaw over oil rig urn:md5:b1e5f283348b91eddef4f4cb8074be6c 2014-06-19T08:23:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinadiplomacy
China's top diplomat will visit Vietnam on Wednesday in a sign the two countries want to ease tensions over China's deployment of an oil rig in the disputed South China Sea, but experts said there were many obstacles to healing the ruptured relationship.

The visit by State Councilor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister, will be the highest level direct contact between Beijing and Hanoi since a Chinese state oil company parked the rig in waters claimed by both countries on May 2.

Yang would attend an annual meeting on bilateral cooperation, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefing. Vietnamese officials said Yang would meet Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as well as the head of the country's ruling communist party.

"We hope that Vietnam keeps its eye on the broader picture, meets China halfway and appropriately resolves the present situation," Hua said, without directly mentioning the rig.

Vietnam's Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said the rig would be discussed.

Ties between the two neighbours have been largely frozen since early May, with both sides constantly accusing the other of inflaming the situation. Dozens of Vietnamese and Chinese coastguard and fishing vessels have repeatedly squared off around the rig, resulting in a number of collisions.

Ni Lexiong, a naval expert at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said he believed China was extending an olive branch to Vietnam.

"Of course our country wants to avoid conflict, but can this visit really solve all of the issues?" Ni said. "It's difficult to say to what extent there will be resolutions."

"Vietnam in this case went too far. It's up to them to choose not to incite conflict," he added.

The Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig is drilling between the Paracel Islands, which are occupied by China, and the Vietnamese coast.

Vietnam has said the rig is in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf, while China says it is operating within its waters.

The rig's deployment triggered anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month in which four people were killed during a rampage of destruction and looting of factories believed to be owned by Chinese companies. Many of the factories were Taiwanese-owned.

China has demanded Vietnam provide compensation for damage caused in the riots and punish those responsible.

Vietnam detained several hundred people in the aftermath of the violence. Around a dozen people have been tried and given jail terms of up to three years.

Prime Minister Dung last month said his government was considering taking legal action against China following deployment of the rig. That drew an angry response from Beijing.

China has said the rig will explore in the area until mid-August.

Beijing claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, but parts of the potentially energy-rich waters are also subject to claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

By Ben Blanchard - Reuters - June 17, 2014

Vietnam, China make no progress in oil rig talks

HANOI — A top Chinese diplomat and Vietnamese officials made no progress in talks Wednesday about an increasingly bitter confrontation over a giant oil rig China deployed in the disputed South China Sea, officials said.

State Councilor Yang Jiechi is the most senior Chinese diplomat to visit Vietnam since China placed the rig off the Vietnamese coast last month. Both countries have accused the other of violating their territorial rights and instigating clashes between ships around the rig.

A Vietnamese official familiar with the talks said no progress was made during the discussion between Yang and Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

He said the two sides still insisted on their opposing positions.

China's Foreign Ministry said Yang blamed Vietnam for interfering with the rig's operations and causing the present difficulties in their relations.

Yang said Vietnam should stop the disruptions and take measures to secure Chinese property and people in Vietnam, according to an account of his remarks released by ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.

The rig's deployment in early May triggered anti-China demonstrations and some turned to riots, which resulted in the deaths of five Chinese nationals and injuries to hundreds more. Hundreds of factories were damaged and dozens were burned. Many of them were built with Taiwanese investment.

Yang also met with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.

Dung told Yang that China's placement of the oil rig in Vietnamese-claimed waters was a "grave violation of Vietnamese sovereignty, .... threatening peace, security, maritime and aviation safety in the region," Vietnam's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. It said he demanded that China withdraw the rig and the vessels escorting it and resolve disputes by peaceful means in accordance with international law.

The two ideological allies fought a brief border war in 1979, and skirmishes also occurred in 1988 when China used force to occupy Johnson South reef in the Spratlys. Relations were normalized in 1991.

China claims most of the South China Sea, rich in natural resources and one of the world's busiest sea lanes, bringing it into disputes with neighbors, including the Philippines, a U.S. ally.

The Associated Press - June 18, 2014

For Vietnam and China, no easing of tensions

HONG KONG — China and Vietnam exchanged sharp views Wednesday in their dispute over a Chinese oil rig deployed in contested waters in the South China Sea near Vietnam's coast and appear to have made little headway in cooling tensions, according to accounts by both governments summarizing a top-level meeting in Hanoi.

China's state councilor, Yang Jiechi, accused Vietnam, which has sent ships to the area, of conducting "unlawful interference" in the operations of the rig, and told Vietnam that China would "take all necessary measures to safeguard its national sovereignty," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in the statement.

Vietnam's prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, said that China had instead violated Vietnam's sovereignty, and added that China had breached international and regional agreements on the South China Sea. The Chinese had also "hurt the feelings of the people of Vietnam."

The uncompromising language was unusual for diplomatic statements describing discussions between two Communist countries, and reflected the unyielding positions since China sent the rig last month to a position 120 miles off the coast of Vietnam and close to the Paracel Islands, which both countries claim. The statements suggested the meeting failed to get beyond oft-repeated arguments.

Mr. Yang, China's most senior diplomat and a former foreign minister, met in Hanoi not only with the prime minister, but also with Vietnam's foreign minister, Pham Binh Minh, and the general secretary of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong.

Unlike China, Vietnam called for negotiations under the auspices of the Convention on the Law of the Sea, a position Vietnam has adopted since the start of the recent conflict. But the Chinese diplomat insisted that there was no dispute over the Paracel Islands. The Chinese Foreign Ministry made no reference to the possibility of negotiations, a basic tenet of China in matters to do with the South China Sea.

Vietnam says the waters around the oil rig are its territory because they fall within its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone, while China bases its claim on the waters' proximity to the Paracels.

To protect the rig, China has dispatched a large contingent of Coast Guard vessels that have established a perimeter. A smaller flotilla of Vietnamese Coast Guard and fishing boats try to penetrate the cordon, and the vessels from each side ram each other regularly.

Military ships from both sides are in the general area of the rig, according to American officials. China seized control of the southern Paracel Islands from South Vietnam in a war in 1974.

To back up its claim to the Paracels, China recently released a 1958 letter from Pham Van Dong, then the prime minister of Vietnam, to Premier Zhou Enlai of China. It said that Vietnam recognized China's sovereignty over the islands. Vietnam has argued the letter has no validity because it was written under duress.

The arrival of the rig so close to the Paracels has become a defining event in the mounting campaign by China to control vast portions of the South China Sea, a vital waterway for international commerce where other countries also have claims.

The standoff led to violent protests in Vietnam.

Before the Hanoi meeting, the first at a senior level since the standoff at sea started last month, experts predicted both sides would stick to their views.

"China and Vietnam have been working on their relationship for 4,000 years, and some days the work goes better than others," said Brantly Womack, a professor of foreign affairs at the University of Virginia who has written extensively on the countries.

Mr. Yang, in particular, is known as a fierce proponent of China's rights to large parts of the South China Sea.

He took exception in 2010 at a gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Hanoi when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the issue of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the need to resolve the various territorial disputes through mediation. In her new book, "Hard Choices," Mrs. Clinton quotes him as telling delegates that "China is a big country, bigger than any other countries here."

Mrs. Clinton noted that Mr. Yang's attitude of China's superiority toward its Asian neighbors did not go down well.

By Jane Perlez - The New York Times - June 18, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/06/19/Top-China-diplomat-to-visit-Vietnam-in-possible-thaw-over-oil-rig#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/786251 Behind Vietnam's anti-China riots, a tinderbox of wider grievances urn:md5:f6bdad8081483d3e66438a211df9f052 2014-06-19T08:21:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinademonstrations
HANOI—The waves of riots that followed peaceful demonstrations in Vietnam last month and targeted crucial manufacturing centers provide a cautionary tale for businesses who view the country as a low-risk, stable manufacturing environment.

Thousands of peaceful demonstrators gathered in four cities on May 11 to protest China's placement of an oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam.

Days later, five people died in a separate wave of riots—whose leaders haven't been publicly identified—in the country's provinces, and hundreds of factories owned by Chinese and other foreign companies were looted and torched.

Although the initial spark for the protests was China's oil rig, a Wall Street Journal investigation into the causes of the subsequent violence, involving interviews with more than 40 activists, workers, foreign factory managers and government officials, showed that anti-Chinese sentiment combined with a host of other grievances in a potent and explosive mix.

The riots were a shock in a country manufacturers have viewed as a stable, attractive alternative to China. Wages in Vietnam are less than half those in China and among the cheapest in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam now attracts more money relative to the size of its economy than any other Southeast Asian country besides Singapore; foreign investment pledges jumped to $22.34 billion last year from $16.3 billion in 2012.

The violence was especially troubling for many foreign factory managers since the attacks seemed to come out of the blue. "The workers have always been peaceful before, even when they held strikes," said Saigon Daryar Plastics Co. Chief Executive Johnason Chang, who lost $4 million overnight in a factory fire.

The peaceful protests, which took place in cities, championed causes ranging from release of political prisoners to complaints about confiscation of land by officials.

he riots, which happened in provinces, appeared to be mostly about looting, with rioters shouting nationalist slogans along with calls to end worker exploitation, according to onlookers and Vietnamese officials.

A month later, the Vietnamese government has slammed the lid back on public dissent and has begun to send some offenders to prison. Police have tracked down some of the stolen goods and returned them, and the government is working to reassure rattled foreign investors.

Most foreign firms say they are staying, due to the high cost of relocation and the government's assurance there wouldn't be a repeat.

Yet the sudden, violent blowup—which took both government officials and the initial protest organizers by surprise—suggests deep resentments are still bottled up beneath the apparent calm.

"Some people used the riots as an excuse to act out on grievances, such as workers who had been fired from factories," said Johnny Liao, chief executive of Taiwanese label printing company Daily Full International Printing, who hid in a locked bathroom for seven hours as rioters ransacked his factory in southern Vietnam.

The events began peacefully in early May, when the activists—largely urban academics, lawyers and writers attached to human-rights groups—began for the first time to plan a joint protest. China's rig was a convenient target.

"We picked the oil rig because it's the common issue that not only all the groups but the whole nation is very concerned about," said Vu Dong Ha, chief editor of independent news website Danlambao and one of the organizers. "Also we thought this issue gave us less pressure from the government."

Normally, Vietnamese officials quash such protests. But this time the government would let the protests proceed, a former top police official told the activists, according to Nguyen Van Dai, a protest organizer who spent four years in prison for his pro-democracy views.

he organizers debated whether to go forward, said Nguyen Cong Huan, another organizer, and chief editor of independent news website Dan Luan.

Some argued that holding the protest would imply they supported Vietnam's government, when in fact, they meant to criticize it as "spineless" for its close ties to China and suppression of free speech, Mr. Huan said. A number of groups bowed out, but some, like Mr. Huan's Dan Luan, stuck with it.

The May 11 demonstrations attracted thousands of people. State media showed a peaceful sea of protesters holding up signs to oppose the oil rig, though videos online also show protesters yelling, "If Vietnam wants to be strong, it needs change!"

The next day, a group of protesters on motorbikes rolled up to the gates of Taiwanese shoemaker General Shoes Co. in sleepy An Phu hamlet northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. Eyewitnesses say the protesters, who didn't appear to be local workers, shouted "Protect the country! Protect the Paracels!"—a reference to islands in the disputed waters where China's rig was parked.

That protest ended peacefully. But the next day, an even larger group of people marched on some of the area's biggest industrial parks.

Vietnam's 280-plus industrial parks are an important economic engine. Manufacturing now accounts for around 40% of the economy, and provinces vie for investment from foreign firms. Vietnamese plants form a crucial part of the supply chain for firms like Nike Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.

Taiwanese companies are some of the most numerous tenants of the industrial parks, and many have brought mainland Chinese middle managers to oversee their operations, according to Taiwan business association representatives.

Just who the riots' leaders were remains unclear. Some onlookers described tattooed rowdies who looked like gang members. Others say they recognized former factory employees among the crowd. As the day wore on, the crowd swelled with workers let off early from plants, after demonstrators demanded they join the protest.

At Taiwanese bicycle seat maker DDK Group Co. near Ho Chi Minh City, demonstrators mixed anti-Chinese sentiment with grievances against factory bosses.

"They said that Vietnamese workers have been exploited by the Chinese for way too long, and they were here to seek justice for all Vietnamese everywhere," said DDK Chief Financial Officer Eddy Peng.

As the night wore on, stealing supplanted sloganeering.

In central Ha Tinh province, the impoverished region where the deadliest riots took place the following day, witnesses and police say anti-Chinese sentiment was heightened by conflicts between Vietnamese and Chinese laborers engaged in building a steel plant for Taiwan's Formosa Plastics Group, the largest Taiwanese investor in Vietnam.

Anger was particularly high because Formosa's contractor, Metallurgical Corp. of China, had brought thousands of mainland Chinese workers to help build the plant, local workers said.

By May 14, the Vietnamese government was scrambling to re-exert control. When the urban activist coalition that planned the May 11 protests put out calls online for more demonstrations on May 18, they were quickly suppressed.

Many factory managers say they are glad at the return of controls, though they are still watching their backs.

"We've returned to production," said Lin Wenhao, chairman of DerHao Textile. "But we're still wary that if antigovernment groups act up again, this might happen again."

By Eva Dou & Richard C. Paddock - The Wall Street Journal - June 17, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/06/19/Behind-Vietnam-s-anti-China-riots%2C-a-tinderbox-of-wider-grievances#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/786250 China's campaign against Vietnam urn:md5:139442ace497d7d3cadd51dbac6c45ad 2014-06-12T08:11:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinadiplomacy
China is becoming more active in refuting Vietnam's portrayal of the oil rig crisis.

It's been over a month since a Chinese oil rig began drilling in waters Vietnam claims as part of its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The move sparked naval clashes and violent anti-China protests, and the crisis shows no signs of abating. On the contrary, both Vietnam and China are increasingly turning abroad to support their conflicting narratives.

Vietnam has been seeking outside support since the very beginning, as evidenced by its strategy of filming naval confrontations with Chinese vessels and releasing the footage. Vietnamese leaders, all the way up to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, have explicitly called on the international community "to continue strongly demanding China" stop its violations of international maritime law.

For nearly a month, China was content to rebut Vietnam's accusations in regular press conferences and Chinese media articles. However, China is increasingly ramping up its own efforts to win the war for international opinion. China's Foreign Ministry released a lengthy document outlining China's claims to the Paracel Islands and cataloging Vietnamese provocations. In addition, as Zach noted, China asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to circulate the document in the UN General Assembly. That may have been a direct response to Vietnam's own efforts to reach out to the UN through a diplomatic note.

Amidst the completing claims, it can be difficult to realize that Vietnam and China are describing the same events. Vietnam says that Chinese naval ships are aggressively patrolling the waters near the rig, and have repeatedly rammed and otherwise harassed Vietnamese boats. China, through a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, flatly denied that China has any "warships" in the area, although it acknowledges that "government vessels" have been sent to the area "due to Vietnam's continuous, forceful, and illegal disruptions." According to China, Vietnamese ships are responsible for the ramming incidents.

In the PR war, China has increasingly begun started to leverage the May anti-China riots in Vietnam to its advantage. Protests against China's oil rig turned violent in mid-May, with protestors looting and burning foreign factories (many of which were Taiwanese and South Korean rather than Chinese). In the immediate aftermath of the riots, China limited itself to demanding increased security measure to protect Chinese citizens, as well as calling for Hanoi to compensate affected firms for their losses. Now, however, China has started directly accusing Vietnam's government of "condoning" the riots.

This is no coincidence. From the beginning, China carefully controlled the story of the riots, resulting in Xinhua's first news reports being released significantly later than stories from Taiwanese media outlets. That China is now consistently blaming Hanoi directly for the riots (not just for failing to prevent them, but for actively encouraging them) represents a new step in the campaign for international opinion.

China is not only hitting back at Vietnam with rhetoric, either. South China Morning Post reports that the Ministry of Commerce has banned state-owned enterprises from bidding on contracts in Vietnam. Vietnam's transport minister downplayed the significance of the move, saying that the void left by Chinese firms could easily be filled by investors from other countries. While China is Vietnam's top trading partner, its share of Vietnam's foreign direct investment is much smaller, only ranking 11th in 2012.

China's increased campaign against Vietnam is likely not meant to change any minds. Beijing is well aware that many of the major regional players, including Japan and the United States, will not be swayed by China's arguments. Geoopolitics is the major factor here, no matter how many moral arguments both Beijing and Hanoi use against each other. However, by hitting back against Vietnam, China reminds everyone that there are two sides to this story — and provides countries that are dependent on economic and political ties with China with moral justification for backing Beijing in the clash.

By Shannon Tiezzi - The Diplomat - June 12, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/06/12/China-s-campaign-against-Vietnam#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/785496 Vietnam says China moving rig; China denies sending warships urn:md5:e4aaa97fc48b1a1e15eb51aae1a4ccee 2014-06-11T20:05:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacelSpratly
Vietnam said on Wednesday a Chinese oil rig at the centre of an increasingly bitter territorial dispute appeared to be on the move again, as China denied Vietnamese accusations that it had sent warships to the scene.

The rig's deployment triggered anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month that killed at least four workers.

Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have squared off around the rig despite a series of collisions after the platform was towed to the area in early May.

In a statement, Vietnam's Directorate of Fisheries said the rig had shown signs of moving towards the east and southeast.

China had 119 vessels in the rig's operating area, it added, including six naval ships and four circling military aircraft.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying dismissed as "completely incorrect" the accusations that China had sent six warships, adding that the rig operations were commercial in nature.

"Because Vietnam keeps forcefully and illegally carrying out interference, we have sent official Chinese government ships to guarantee security on the scene, but we have not sent military ships," she told a daily news briefing.

The Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig is drilling between the Paracel islands, which China occupies, and the Vietnamese coast. Vietnam has said the rig is in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf.

China says it is operating within its waters.

China claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, but parts of the potentially energy-rich waters are also subject to claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Hua said Vietnam had sent a large number of armed ships to interfere in the rig's operations, though she would not confirm whether the rig had moved.

She added that rig operations, which started on May 2, are expected to go on until the middle of August.

"We hope that it can be completed smoothly and safely," she said, accusing Vietnam of having stirred up last month's violence against foreign companies.

"Vietnam's government incited certain domestic lawbreaking elements to smash up and burn foreign companies, including Chinese ones...There has still been no compensation for this," Hua said.

In a separate statement, China's defence ministry accused the United States of stirring up regional tension, especially through joint military exercises and by sending "wrong messages" on territorial disputes.

"This has made regional peace and stability even more chaotic," it said, in comments responding to a Pentagon report last week on China's military spending and ambitions that Beijing has already condemned. ID:nL1N0ON06M

The United States was the real threat, it added, pointing to U.S. cyber-warfare and missile defence capabilities and the fact that U.S. defence spending far exceeded China's.

By Ho Binh Minh & Ben Blanchard - Reuters - June 11, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/06/11/Vietnam-says-China-moving-rig%3B-China-denies-sending-warships#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/785465 Spratly Islands : China denounces Vietnam, Philippines over volleyball and soccer games, claims Vietnamese ramming ships urn:md5:d51339b77d1b4d9b9ce89675f074ab3a 2014-06-10T20:09:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacelPhilippinesSpratly
China has denounced Vietnam and the Philippines for playing soccer and volleyball on a disputed island in the South China Sea, calling it "a clumsy farce" and demanded both countries stop causing trouble.

The comments by a foreign ministry spokeswoman were China's first response to the gathering on the Vietnamese-held island of Southwest Cay on Sunday.

Philippine naval officials described the meeting of soldiers from the two sides as a chance to show there can be harmony despite a web of overlapping claims to the potentially energy-rich waters.

"Don't you think this small move together by Vietnam and the Philippines is at most a clumsy farce?" China's foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.

"China has irrefutable sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and the seas nearby."

"We demand that Vietnam and the Philippines stop any behaviour that picks quarrels and causes trouble ... and not do anything to complicate or magnify the dispute."

The gathering underscores the growing cooperation between Vietnam and the Philippines, which have both felt China's wrath over the South China Sea.

The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all claim some of the islands, while China, Taiwan and Vietnam claim the whole chain.

Diplomats and experts have described the partnership between Hanoi and Manila as part of a web of evolving relationships across Asia that are being driven by a fear of China, as well as doubts among some over the US's commitment to the region.

China accuses Vietnam of ramming ships more than 1400 times

China has also accused Vietnam of ramming its ships more than 1,400 times and said while it wanted good relations with its neighbour, it would not abandon principles to achieve that.

A Vietnamese fishing boat sank on May 26 during a confrontation not far from where China has towed an oil rig, accompanied by a cordon of Chinese vessels, 240 kilometres off Vietnam.

Shortly after China brought its oil rig into the area, Vietnam sent a large number of vessels into the area, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry said.

"There were as many as 63 Vietnamese vessels in the area at the peak, attempting to break through China's cordon and ramming the Chinese government ships for a total of 1,416 times," they said.

"China exercised great restraint and took necessary preventive measures."

Last week, Vietnamese television footage showed a large Chinese vessel steaming after two Vietnamese fishing boats, then colliding with one which capsized.

The foreign ministry spokesperson says China has communicated with Vietnam more than 30 times asking it to "stop its illegal disruption".

"China wants good relations with Vietnam, but there are principles that China cannot abandon," they said.

The Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig is drilling between the Paracel Islands occupied by China and Vietnam.

Vietnam says the rig is in its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf but China says it is operating within its waters.

The rig's deployment set off anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month in which at least four people were killed.

The dispute is the most serious deterioration of relations between the communist states and traditional rivals since a brief war in 1979 following Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia.

Reuters - June 9, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/06/10/Spratly-Islands-%3A-China-denounces-Vietnam%2C-Philippines-over-volleyball-and-soccer-games%2C-claims-Vietnamese-ramming-ships#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/785328 Vietnam's future as rice supplier to China still bright urn:md5:9d09827243e4ee54915d216d624d0039 2014-06-05T07:19:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinarice
China, with its huge population of 1.4 billion, may lack food in the near future, which could give Vietnam an opportunity to gain superiority in rice trading with China. But recent tensions in the East Sea have raised concerns that Vietnamese rice sales are in danger.

Vietnam's agricultural production, which depends on China as a major rice buyer and material supplier, could also suffer if the partnership with China ended, but experts say there is no need to worry. China will need Vietnam more than Vietnam will need China.

Prof Vo Tong Xuan, considered to be the most renowned rice expert in Vietnam, acknowledged that Vietnam imports many of its raw materials for agricultural production from China, and exports a large proportion of farm produce to China.

However, problems can be resolved, he said.

A recent report from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) showed that imports of fertilizers and pesticides from China accounted for 50 percent of import turnover in 2013, while 70 percent of hybrid-rice varieties were also from China.

Xuan believes that Vietnam could import pesticides from Japan, Switzerland or Taiwan instead of China.

In fact, the effectiveness of Chinese pesticides remains dubious, and Chinese pesticides are used mostly in the north.

Regarding hybrid rice varieties, Xuan said Vietnamese farmers would not buy Chinese varieties if local authorities stopped subsidizing farmers.

It is estimated that Chinese varieties would cost an additional VND40,000 per kilo, if the subsidy were cut.

What would happen if China stopped importing rice from Vietnam? The country has become the biggest consumer of Vietnam's rice. It bought 41.75 percent of Vietnam's total rice exports in the first five months of the year.

Analysts say this scenario will not occur because China will still need Vietnam's rice to feed its 1.4 billion consumers. In theory, China can buy Thai rice instead, but Thai rice is far more expensive than Vietnamese.

Analysts have cited international reports as saying that China would lack at least 10 million tons of food by 2020.

Agreeing with the analysts, Xuan said China has been depending on Vietnam as a rice supplier.

"They have been trying to step up food production, but the output is not enough for such a huge population," he explained.

"China can only buy Thai rice in small quantities because Thai rice is expensive. Meanwhile, there are no other supply sources, if Laos and Cambodia also have to buy rice from Thailand," he added.

Therefore, Xuan believes that Vietnam should take the initiative in doing business with China by focusing on exporting products through official channels rather than across the border.

Vietnamese exporters, however, still prefer across-the-border exports because of the simple procedures used.

However, Xuan said it would be better for Vietnamese exporters to protect themselves with written rather than oral contracts.

Báo Đất Việt - June 5, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/06/05/Vietnam%E2%80%99s-future-as-rice-supplier-to-China-still-bright#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/784766 Vietnam mulling new strategies to deter China urn:md5:dd434656f262740169b8107475b9257c 2014-05-28T08:20:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacelSpratly
International media coverage of the confrontation between China and Vietnam over Beijing's placement of a mega oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam has dried up with the passage of time. But daily confrontations continue.

The present situation is not a standoff but a determined effort by China to alter the status quo by pushing the Vietnamese Coast Guard and Fishery Surveillance Forces back beyond China's self-proclaimed nine-dash line.

Vietnamese government sources express concern that China will move the oil rig closer to Vietnam than its original placement. They worry about where it will be placed because, these sources argue, neither China nor Vietnam knows precisely where the nine-dash line is located.

Media coverage of Chinese Coast Guard ships using water cannons to douse Vietnamese boats and Chinese ships ramming Vietnamese maritime enforcement vessels made for good visual news clips but fell far short of serious analysis. China is engaged in an unequal "war of attrition" with Vietnam. China's tactics of ramming Vietnamese vessels two to four times lighter in weight is designed to damage them sufficiently to require repair.

Some Vietnamese analysts speculate that if the current rate of damage continues, Vietnam may not have enough vessels to confront China in the waters surrounding the rig.

According to the Deputy Commander and Chief of Staff of Vietnam's Marine Policy (Coast Guard) Ngo Ngoc Thu, on May 3 China's Coast Guard Ship No. 44044 smashed into the side of Vietnam Marine Police vessel No. 4033 leaving a crack three meters by 1 meter and completely damaging the vessel's right engine. Thu gave details of other damage suffered by Vietnamese vessels.

Recent research by Scott Bentley has revealed that China is deliberately targeting the communications masts and antennae of Vietnamese vessels with its water cannons. YouTube clips clearly show these communications masts being forcibly blown off the bridges of Vietnamese vessels. This degrades their ability to communicate with other ships and thus forces them to return to port for repairs.

Further, China-Vietnam confrontations are deadly serious. According to Scott Bentley, most of China's Coast Guard ships are now armed with naval guns. Both Chinese Coast Guard ships and People's Liberation Army Navy frigates have manned their uncovered guns and deliberately targeted Vietnamese vessels during the current confrontation.

What has been Vietnam's response to these aggressive assertions of maritime power by China? What is Vietnam's strategy for resisting Chinese coercion?

Vietnam is maintaining a continuous presence on the outer perimeter of the Chinese armada surrounding the oil rig. Vietnamese Coast Guard vessels broadcast daily reassertions of Vietnamese sovereignty and call on the Chinese to withdraw from Vietnamese waters. According to Scott Bentley, Vietnam as been extremely careful to keep its light weapons under wraps, clearly signaling that Vietnam is adopting a non-aggressive posture.

Vietnam has also kept its Navy warships and submarines in port or well away from the area of the current confrontation. Vietnamese officials have repeatedly called for discussions with China. They have suggested the activation of the hot line between high-level leaders and they have requested that China receive Nguyen Phu Trong, the Secretary General of the Vietnam Communist Party. Vietnam's foreign minister has spoken by phone with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi. And Vietnam's defense minister General Phung Quang Thanh met briefly with his Chinese counterpart, State Councilor Chang Wanquan, on the sidelines of the recent ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting in Nay Pyi Taw.

China has rebuffed all Vietnamese approaches and personal encounters have been frosty.

Vietnam's initial attempt to proffer a conciliatory stance was set back by anti-China protests by Vietnamese workers in industrial states that unexpectedly turned violent and targeted Chinese factories and Chinese workers. Vietnamese government and security officials quickly restored law and order and arrested a large number of workers held responsible for the violence. China dispatched several ships and aircraft to evacuate several thousands workers. As of this writing, Vietnamese courts are handing down prison sentences to the instigators.

Vietnam's response to the oil rig crisis has included diplomatic overtures to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and pleas for support from the international community. In a new wrinkle, Vietnam is also mulling unspecified legal action against China. This could take the form of an independent legal initiative or Vietnamese support for the Philippines at the Arbitral Tribunal now in session.

According to private exchanges with several Vietnamese government officials and security specialists, Vietnam is also drawing up a longer-term strategy to deter China from similar acts of aggression in the future. The discussion below attempts to capture some of the ideas being bandied about, which are not yet part of any officially approved Vietnamese government policy.

The core of Vietnam's emerging strategy is to avoid confronting China directly in an attempt to force it to remove the oil rig and naval ships from Vietnam's Exclusive Economic Zone. Rather, Vietnamese strategists seek to deter China from similar actions in the future.

At the moment Vietnam appears to be considering two strategies to deter China – leveraging United States alliance relationships with Japan and the Philippines and, in the case of armed hostilities, "mutually assured destruction." Vietnamese officials stress in private that all activities carried out under any new strategy would be completely transparent to minimize miscalculation by China.

The prime aim of Vietnam's newly emerging strategy is not to confront China but to deter it by creating circumstance where China would have to accept the status quo or escalate. This would entail risks for China because Vietnamese forces would be operating alongside two United States allies in peaceful pursuits.

Prior to the oil rig crisis Vietnam proposed a trilateral security dialogue with the United States and Japan. This appears to have received a cautious response from Japan but it is still on the table. In present circumstances a trilateral arrangement could serve as a venue for working out a multilateral strategy to deter China.

Vietnam has approached Japan and the Philippines in an effort to step up interaction with their maritime forces, including both Coast Guard and Navy. Vietnam hopes to conduct joint training and other maritime exercises, including joint patrols, in the South China Sea. These exercises would take place well away from the current site of tensions. They would be conducted on the high seas and in Vietnam's EEZ transversing China's nine-dash line.

Vietnam is also considering reaching out the United States. One proposal is to expedite the agreement for cooperation between their Coast Guards. The U.S. Coast Guard could be deployed to Vietnamese waters for joint training. Each party could exchange observers.

Vietnam recently joined the Proliferation Security Initiative. This could provide an opportunity for the United States to assist Vietnam in developing the capacity to conduct surveillance of its maritime zone of responsibility. In the past Vietnam has expressed interest in purchasing U.S. maritime surveillance aircraft. The United States could deploy a model of the aircraft that Vietnam is considering to Vietnam and conduct demonstration flights with Vietnamese military personnel on board.

In addition, unarmed U.S. Navy maritime surveillance aircraft based in the Philippines under the recent agreement on enhanced defense cooperation could be deployed to Vietnam on a temporary basis. They could conduct joint maritime surveillance missions with their Vietnamese counterparts. U.S. military personnel could fly on Vietnamese reconnaissance planes as observers, and vice versa.

Vietnamese officials and analysts expect China to mount aggressive naval displays in the South China Sea every year from May to August. This provides an opportunity for the United States and Japan to organize a series of continuing naval exercises and maritime surveillance flights with Vietnam just prior to the arrival of Chinese forces and throughout the period from May to August. The details of all operations would be completely transparent to all regional states, including China.

Vietnam's indirect strategy provides the means for the United States to give practical expression to its declaratory policy of opposing the use of intimidation and coercion to settle territorial disputes. Vietnam's indirect strategy does not require the U.S. to directly confront China. Vietnam's strategy puts the onus on China to decide whether or not to shoulder the risk of attacking mixed formations of Vietnamese naval vessels and aircraft operating in conjunction with American allies, the Philippines and Japan, or U.S. military personnel.

These naval and air forces would be operating in international waters and airspace. The objective is to maintain a continuous naval and air presence to deter China from using intimidation and coercion against Vietnam. Deterrence could be promoted by interchanging the naval and aircrews in all exercises. The scope and intensity of these exercises could be altered in response to the level of tensions.

Vietnam's second possible strategy of deterrence, "mutually assured destruction," applies only to a situation where relations between China and Vietnam have deteriorated to the point of armed conflict. Vietnamese strategists argue that the aim of this strategy is not to defeat China but to inflict sufficient damage and psychological uncertainty to cause Lloyd's insurance rates to skyrocket and for foreign investors to panic and take flight.

Under this strategy, if armed conflict broke out, Vietnam would give priority to targeting Chinese flagged merchant shipping and oil containers ships operating in the southern extremity of the South China Sea. Vietnam currently possesses coastal ballistic missiles that are in range of China's naval bases on Hainan and Woody islands.

Some Vietnamese strategists also argue that Vietnam should quickly acquire large numbers of ballistic missiles capable of striking Shanghai and even Hong Kong. In the event of armed conflict, these and other cities could be targeted to cause massive disruption to China's economy. This would have a global impact. Vietnamese strategists expect that major powers would intervene to counter China's aggression.

Vietnam consideration of a new strategy of indirection is an indication that Vietnamese officials and strategists view current tensions as part of a longer-term strategy by China to assert its dominance not only over the South China Sea but also the East China Sea. The appeal of a transparent non-aggressive strategy of indirection is that it offers Japan, the Philippines and the United States a means of deterring China from its present course.

By Carl Thayer - The Diplomat - May 28, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/05/28/Vietnam-mulling-new-strategies-to-deter-China#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/783633 Vietnam, China trade accusations after Vietnamese fishing boat sinks urn:md5:98b90d35d555bbf99ef507ff996fcd74 2014-05-27T20:21:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english ChinaParacelSpratly
Vietnam and China traded accusations on Tuesday over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat not far from where China has placed an oil rig in the disputed South China Sea, as tensions fester between the two countries over the giant drilling platform.

Hanoi said some 40 Chinese fishing boats had surrounded the Vietnamese craft before one of them rammed it and it sank. Vietnamese fishing boats operating nearby rescued the 10 fishermen on board, the government and the coastguard said.

China's official Xinhua news agency, citing a government source, said the vessel capsized after "harassing and colliding with" a Chinese fishing boat.

Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have continued to square off around the rig despite a series of collisions earlier this month after the platform was towed to the site.

Each side have blamed the other over those incidents. Until Monday, no ship had sunk.

The incident took place around 17 nautical miles from the rig, which is drilling between the Paracel islands occupied by China and the Vietnamese coast. China calls them the Xisha islands.

"A Vietnamese boat from the central city of Da Nang was deliberately encircled by 40 fishing vessels from China before it was attacked by a Chinese ship," the head of Vietnam's coastguard, Nguyen Quang Dam, told Reuters by telephone.

Xinhua said: "Crew aboard the boat were saved after their ship jostled a fishing boat from Dongfang City in southern China's Hainan province and overturned in the waters near China's Xisha Islands."

Vietnam has said the Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig is in its 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and on its continental shelf. China says it is operating within its waters.

The rig is 240 km (150 miles) off Vietnam's coast and 330 km (206 miles) from the southern coast of China's Hainan island.

The $1 billion deepwater rig is owned by state-run China National Offshore Oil Company Group, parent of flagship unit CNOOC Ltd.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week said his government was considering taking legal action against China following the deployment of the rig.

That drew an angry response from China.

Earlier this month, mobs angered over the rig attacked mostly Taiwanese factories in Vietnam. Many of the rioters mistook Taiwanese companies to be owned by mainland Chinese. At least four workers were killed.

China claims about 90 percent of the South China Sea, displaying its reach on official maps with a so-called nine-dash line that stretches deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have claims to parts of the potentially energy-rich waters.

By Nguyen Phuong Linh & Michael Martina & Hui Li - Reuters - May 27, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/05/27/Vietnam%2C-China-trade-accusations-after-Vietnamese-fishing-boat-sinks#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/783611 Pro-Vietnam protesters march in Hong Kong, calling for China to leave urn:md5:f38b73c4376e9eebfbc4abdd3c27b87d 2014-05-26T08:24:00+02:00 Vietnam aujourd'hui News in english Chinademonstrations
About 200 protesters staged an anti-China protest in Hong Kong yesterday over a sovereignty dispute involving Vietnam in the South China Sea - the first of its kind so close to the mainland.

The protesters, many of them Vietnamese now resident in Hong Kong, and other supporters, marched peacefully from the government's headquarters in Admiralty to a branch office of China's foreign ministry brandishing red-starred Vietnamese flags, singing patriotic songs and chanting Vietnamese slogans.

The protesters, watched by around two dozen policemen, were led by a young Vietnamese man holding a portrait of their country's late, wispy-bearded revolutionary leader and former president, Ho Chi Minh.

"China, the whole world knows, is now invading into our territorial waters. … We love our country," said one of the protest organisers, Mo Pak-fung.

"We are coming out today because we hope China will leave Vietnam. … We don't want a war to occur," added Mo, who comes from Vietnam but has lived in Hong Kong for the past 25 years.

Tensions flared between Vietnam and China after Beijing deployed an oil exploration rig in disputed waters near the Paracel Islands, which China calls the Xisha Islands and Vietnam calls the Hoang Sa Islands.

Protesters in Hong Kong waved several banners reading, "We love Peace withdraw 981 oil rig out of Vietnam sea", and "We need help from international communities". They did not rule out further action in Hong Kong.

The placement of the oil rig to a location 240km off Vietnam's coast in an area both counties claim unleashed a deadly wave of violence across Vietnam as thousands of protesters rampaged in industrial zones.

Vietnam says the islands fall within its continental shelf and a 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone.

Reuters - May 26, 2014
 http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/post/2014/05/26/Pro-Vietnam-protesters-march-in-Hong-Kong%2C-calling-for-China-to-leave#comment-form http://blog.vietnam-aujourdhui.info/feed/atom/comments/783387