Thank God the Chinese are cool, calm, and collected:
"Beijing-Hanoi standoff over disputed waters intensifies; Conflict centers on drilling rig of Chinese company" by Jane Perlez | New York Times May 09, 2014
BEIJING — China demanded that Vietnam withdraw ships from disputed waters around a Chinese drilling rig Thursday, the latest volley in a standoff that has quickly escalated into one of the most serious in years in the contested South China Sea.
The latest tensions began last week when a state-owned Chinese energy company moved the rig into position, and intensified as ships sent by both countries faced off against each other.
On Thursday, a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said that Vietnamese ships had rammed Chinese vessels as many as 171 times over four days. The announcement followed accusations by Vietnam on Wednesday that Chinese ships had rammed its vessels early this week and sprayed the Vietnamese flotilla with water cannons.
The Chinese, who on Thursday admitted to the use of water cannons, say Vietnam has dispatched 35 ships to the area, while the Vietnamese have said the Chinese deployed about 80 vessels.
The movement of the drilling rig follows recent attempts by China to solidify its increasingly muscular claims over both the South China Sea, one of the world’s major trading routes, and the East China Sea.
In November, Beijing declared an air defense zone over a swath of the East China Sea, including islands that both China and Japan claim, and demanded that other countries notify the Chinese authorities before their planes pass through the airspace. Although the US military and Japanese aircraft flouted the demands, analysts have suggested the air defense zone helps China build its case for taking over the disputed islands, which Japan controls.
East CHINA Sea, you say? What's the dispute?
China has also appeared to tighten its hold over a reef called Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, which the Philippines claims.
The disputes have raised concerns in Washington, which has been trying to carefully calibrate its response to the various territorial claims. The Obama administration has courted countries in Southeast Asia as a counterbalance to China’s power, but it has also been trying not to antagonize the Chinese.
What bull. Vietnam is only the latest in a series of complaints and provocations from US allies. What country will start a war with China for the U.S.? That is the only question.
On Thursday, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Daniel R. Russel, who was on a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam, said that the latest dispute had been a major topic of his discussions there.
“We oppose any act of intimidation by vessels, particularly in disputed areas,” he said. The United States did not take a position on the competing claims of sovereignty, he added, but the disputes need to be “dealt with diplomatically and must be dealt with in accordance to international laws.”
The conflicts center in part on a competition for natural resources, including what some believe are substantial deposits of oil and gas beneath the seabed. China has been particularly eager to find energy reserves to feed its growing industrial needs.
And as we see in Nigeria, the U.S. is willing to block them at every turn. That will drive them right into the hands of Russia.
The oil rig in the South China Sea was stationed by China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, 120 nautical miles off the Vietnamese peninsula.
Yi Xianliang, deputy director general of the department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs of China’s Foreign Ministry, who acknowledged Thursday that China had used water cannons against Vietnamese ships, said, “They are the most gentle measure we can take when trying to keep the other side out.
“We are trying to use maximum restraint,” Yi said. But he added that China’s oil drilling operations were legal because they were in “China’s inherent territory.”
Yeah. Not the real kind.
China is prepared to negotiate with Vietnam to solve the dispute, Yi said, but first Vietnam must end its “disruption” and must remove its vessels from the scene. There have already been 14 “rounds of communication” between the two sides in the past few days, Yi added.
How dare they!
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"Protests over China pose test for Vietnam’s leaders; Tension between the two nations highest in years" by Chris Brummitt | Associated Press May 11, 2014
HANOI — Vietnamese anger toward China is running at its highest level in years after Beijing deployed an oil rig in disputed waters. That’s posing a tricky question for Vietnam’s leaders: To what extent should they allow public protests that could morph into those against their own authoritarian rule?
At one level, the ruling Communist Party would like to harness the anger on the street to amplify its own indignation against China and garner international sympathy as naval ships from both countries engage in a tense standoff near the rig off the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.
But Vietnam’s government instinctively distrusts public gatherings of any sort, much less ones that risk posing a threat to public order. And they also know that members of the country’s dissident movement are firmly embedded inside the anti-China one, and have used the issue to mobilize support in the past.
Smells US to me.
On Saturday, around 100 people protested outside the Chinese Consulate in the country’s commercial capital, Ho Chi Minh City, watched over by a large contingent of security officers. Dissident groups have called for larger demonstrations on Sunday in Ho Chi Minh City and in Hanoi.
A statement widely circulated on Facebook and dissident blogs called for protests on Sunday morning in Hanoi outside the Chinese Embassy and a Chinese cultural center in Ho Chi Minh City. In past years, authorities have only allowed anti-China demonstrators to walk around a lake in downtown Hanoi.
Looks like US-initiated, what with the "social media" being quoted. It's a two-fer. Pressure on the government and China looking bad.
‘‘Facing the danger of Chinese aggression appropriating the sacred East Sea, the source of livelihood of the Vietnamese over generations, we are determined not to compromise,’’ said a statement posted alongside the protest call that used the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea.
This one-sided agenda-pushing is getting on my nerves.
‘‘We cannot continue to compromise and be vile and sinful to our heroic ancestors and feel ashamed before our future generations,’’ it said.
The last time there was a flare-up in the South China Sea in 2011, anti-Chinese protests lasted weeks, and some protesters voiced slogans against the government. Authorities used force to break them up.
Occupy Vietnam?
‘‘The state is in a truly difficult position,’’ said Jonathon London, a specialist on Vietnam at Hong Kong’s City University. ‘‘By expressing its stern objections to China, it also invites expressions of dissent from Vietnamese that can take multiple forms. Certainly there is some overlap between those who want to express their anger at China, and those who are calling for basic reforms.’’
Vietnam’s first response to the rig’s deployment close to the Paracel Islands was to send ships to try to stop the rig from starting drilling, and demand Beijing withdraw. Each side accuses the other of ramming their boats. China has said it is staying put and called on Vietnam to pull back its ships.
Vietnam finds itself pleading its case internationally but without any kind of solid alliance with a powerful country that that might make China listen more carefully. It can’t afford to do anything that would severely rupture ties with Beijing since it is the country’s largest trading partner.
So much for the trip by John Kerry and U.S. power.
That argument doesn’t wash with everyone, however. ‘‘You can’t use the importance of the relationship as an excuse not to do anything,’’ said Nguyen Quang A, an academic who has been a frequent attendee of anti-China protests in the past. ‘‘I think what they did with sending the coast guard vessels was OK, but they have to be much stronger on the diplomatic and legal field.’’
China has announced the rig will stay in the area until August, meaning tensions are likely to remain until then.
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"Tensions over China’s moves roil Southeast Asian summit" by Esther Htusan | Associated Press May 12, 2014
NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — Vietnam and the Philippines pushed for stronger action to confront China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea at a Southeast Asian summit Sunday that was hosted for the first time by Myanmar, a former pariah state now eager to show off its fragile democratic reforms.
Yeah, Myanmar seems to be back on the outs for sliding back towards China.
A showdown between Chinese and Vietnamese ships near the Paracel Islands has highlighted longstanding and bitter maritime disputes. The stakes are high, with Beijing claiming sovereignty over much of the strategically important waters — among the world’s busiest transport lanes and believed to contain significant oil and gas reserves.
Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations reject China’s claims, saying parts of the sea are theirs. But few are willing to risk their economic and political ties with the regional powerhouse.
A statement released by Southeast Asian leaders at the close of Sunday’s meeting expressed concern and called for restraint by all parties involved in the maritime disputes but made no direct mention of China.
Vietnam and the Philippines made it clear from the start that they wanted more.
‘‘China has brazenly moved its deep-water drilling rig escorted by over 80 armed and military vessels and many airplanes to the Vietnamese waters,’’ Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung was quoted as saying.
The vessels ‘‘fired high-powered water cannons and rammed straight into the Vietnamese public-service and civil ships, causing damage to many ships and injuring many people on board,’’ he said.
Why did the government send civilian ships?
The standoff between China and Vietnam started May 1, when China moved a deep sea oil rig into waters close to the Paracel Islands in what most analysts believe was an especially assertive move to help cement its claims of sovereignty over the area. Vietnam, which says the islands belong to it, immediately dispatched ships.
Yup, China started it! They started it!
China insists it is doing nothing wrong and said Thursday it had ‘‘maintained a lot of restraint’’ in the face of ‘‘intensive provocations’’ by Vietnam that were endangering its personnel and property.
At the behest of the U.S., no doubt!
Vietnam says the security and free navigation of the strategic waterway are now under serious threat.
Which is strange because since the Chinese inquired about flight plans and the U.S. responded by sending bombers through on a daily basis, there hasn't been much going on up there.
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"Vietnam, Chinese ships fire water cannons" | Associated Press May 13, 2014
HANOI — A Vietnamese patrol boat and several Chinese vessels blasted each other with water cannons Monday near an oil rig recently positioned by Beijing in disputed waters, Vietnamese state media reported, in the latest incident in a dangerous standoff between the two nations.
As long as it is just water that is fine.
The Tuoi Tre newspaper said it was the first time that Vietnamese vessels have responded to aggressive Chinese actions close to the deep sea rig, which was positioned May 1 in an area of the South China Sea claimed by Beijing and Hanoi. Both sides have accused the other of ramming ships. Vietnam has presented a video showing Chinese ships hitting its vessels.
The reason I'm so tired of reading this stuff is because other than the names, it's all cookie-cutter formula.
In Washington, Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the United States and other nations involved in navigating in the South and East China Seas were deeply concerned about the ‘‘aggressive’’ Chinese action. ‘‘We want to see a code of conduct, we want to see this resolved peacefully through the law of the sea, through arbitration, through any other means but not direct confrontation and aggressive action,’’ Kerry said before a meeting with Singapore’s Foreign Minister K. Shanmugam.
Does he ever listen to himself?
Vietnam has reacted with fury to the Chinese deployment, part of a campaign by Beijing to slowly cement its extensive sovereignty claims in the South China Sea, disregarding the anger of smaller Southeast Asian nations.
Vietnam has demanded that China pull back the rig. China has refused, saying the waters are its ‘‘inherent territory.’’
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And now the protests are out of control:
"Vietnamese workers protest at Chinese factories | AP May 13, 2014
HANOI — Several thousand Vietnamese workers protested at Chinese-owned factories on Tuesday, vandalizing some of them, as anger flared at Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig in waters claimed by Vietnam, a factory executive and media accounts said.
Over the weekend, Vietnam’s authoritarian government gave rare sanction to street protests against China as a way of amplifying its own anger at Beijing. But the protests now appear to be spreading, taking on a violent tinge and directly targeting foreign investment.
Yeah, even the mouthpiece media didn't want it going there.
An executive at one industrial park said the protests began Monday night and by Tuesday had hit four parks that are home to Chinese and other foreign-owned businesses. He said some factories that refused to stop work were vandalized.
Police were present on Tuesday morning, but the protests were continuing, he said.
Photos circulating online showed crowds of people pushing over fences at one industrial park and broken windows at a factory
Vietnam reacted angrily to the arrival of the deep sea oil rig on May 1 close to the Paracel Islands, which are controlled by China but claimed by Hanoi. It has sent a flotilla of vessels to try and disrupt the rig, some of which have clashed with Chinese ships sent to protect it.
I love the use of the word flotilla. Some flotillas good and nonthreatening (Vietnam), others very threatening (Gaza).
The standoff underlines China’s intention to aggressively pursue its territorial claims in the South China Sea despite complaints from smaller nations such as Vietnam and the Philippines, which also claim parts of the waters.
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I'm tired of AmeriKan empire's version of events, I really am.
"Hundreds arrested after riots destroy Vietnam factories" by Chau Doan and Thomas Fuller | New York Times May 15, 2014
HANOI — More than 400 people were arrested after riots in which scores of foreign-owned factories were damaged or destroyed in an industrial area in southern Vietnam, authorities said Wednesday.
The upheaval Tuesday was the worst public unrest in recent Vietnamese history, involving thousands of workers.
The attempt at controlled protest backfired big time!
It reportedly began as demonstrations against China’s stationing of an oil drilling rig in disputed waters off Vietnam’s coast. But the protests boiled over into widespread violence, as workers rampaged through a dense industrial area in a northern suburb of Ho Chi Minh City, once known as Saigon. The area has buildings where thousands of mostly young workers stitch together sneakers and clothing for sale around the world.
Oh, wow, they LASHED OUT at MULTINATIONALS and their SLAVE SHOPS!
Why did Bangladesh just spring back to mind from the memory hole.
“No one knows what really caused the riots — only initially did it seem to be about the Chinese,” Truong Huy San, an author and well-known blogger, said by phone. “These were totally uncontrolled crowds.”
The great majority of the affected factories and workshops were owned by Taiwanese or South Korean companies.
Then it had nothing to do with the Chinese at all!!
“There was quite a lot of damage,” said Chen Bor-show, director general for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office, which functions as Taiwan’s de facto consulate in Ho Chi Minh City. Chen said around 200 Taiwanese companies were affected.
The South Korean Foreign Ministry said 50 Korean-owned factories were damaged and one South Korean citizen was hospitalized with injuries.
San, the blogger, who uses the pen name Huy Duc, said some of the workshops were severely damaged. “It’s kind of a disaster zone,” he said. “Everyone is scared. There are hundreds of factories that will have to close for weeks or months.”
San said the riots were a signal to Vietnam’s authoritarian government that workers needed avenues to express their grievances. Independent unions are banned in Vietnam.
Mine keeps missing ours.
“I don’t know whether the government recognizes the very important message that was sent,” he said. “The government needs to do something to change their thinking.”
Tran Van Nam, the vice chairman of Binh Duong province, where the violence occurred, said 20 factories had been destroyed.
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Those are not the only protests China has to deal with:
"China police arrest 60 in environmental protest" by Jack Chang | Associated Press May 13, 2014
BEIJING — Police said Monday they detained 60 people after a protest over plans to build a waste incinerator in eastern China, where neighbors expressed skepticism about official pledges to seek public approval before proceeding.
Officials repeated in state media that they would seek public support even as they pursued the arrests of more than a dozen people behind weekend protests in Hangzhou involving thousands of people. At least 10 demonstrators and 29 police officers were injured and a major highway blocked.
Police said 53 people have been detained for criminal offenses ranging from vandalism to preventing the use of public property. Another seven have been detained for ‘‘spreading rumors,’’ they said.
One neighbor, who identified himself only as Micah for fear of being arrested, said several smaller protests broke out Monday and he and others would continue taking to the streets.
‘‘We just don’t believe the government’s words,’’ the man said. ‘‘They said they would use European standards when they build the incinerator, but there’s no way to trust them.’’
I know EXACTLY how you feel!
He added that people’s suspicions spiked when they saw construction equipment being moved to the former Jiufeng mine site on the western edge of Hangzhou in the middle of the night in late April. He said the waste incinerator had been in the works since 2012, but the government had not offered any information to people living near the site.
Environmental concessions won by protesters in other cities helped inspire neighbors of the Hangzhou site, he said.
Protesters? In China?
‘‘It’s not if we are brave enough or not to do this,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s just that we want a healthy environment.’’
We all do, and government ignores the real problems while hollering global warming so they can get carbon taxes.
Waste incinerators without proper emissions filters can release the carcinogen dioxin, said Wu Yixiu, head of the environmental group Greenpeace’s toxics campaign in East Asia. Several neighbors of the Hangzhou site cited that risk and noted that incinerators in Germany must filter out the toxin.
The city now has to bury more than 5,000 tons of landfill waste, which exceeds the capacity of its existing incinerators, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The report also said local governments would invite waste incineration experts to address public concerns about the project and start a dialogue with ‘‘citizen representatives.’’
Wu said that starting such outreach at the project’s launch would have prevented tensions from boiling over and possibly avoided the protests.
‘‘I don’t think this is a rational and reasonable way for the public and local government to handle this issue,’’ Wu said.
‘‘This should have been discussed within a conference room where local people are invited, where they can express their opinions rather than go to the street,’’ she said. “Once it goes to street, the government is left with no choice.’’
With more Chinese challenging authorities on environmental issues, protests are emerging as a rare, viable threat to official power, Wu said. ‘‘Pollution affects people everywhere. With political issues or economic issues, it’s much more complicated. It’s harder to find such unity.’’
Another neighbor, who identified herself only by her family name, also Wu, demanded her government simply talk straight with people, at least when it came to protecting them from dioxin.
I feel like I have a lot in common with the Chinese.
‘‘They should have gone overseas to learn how to do this,’’ she said of local officials.
They won't learn it here.
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"Chinese lawyer, others held in Tiananmen clampdown" by Gillian Wong | Associated Press May 07, 2014
BEIJING — Chinese authorities detained a well-known rights lawyer and several other people Tuesday in an apparent bid to deter activists from marking the upcoming 25th anniversary of a brutal military suppression of prodemocracy protesters.
************
The Chinese government has never fully disclosed what happened during the crackdown on prodemocracy protesters that killed hundreds, possibly more, and has branded the protests a ‘‘counterrevolutionary riot.’’
Authorities try to stifle any public activities that remember those who died.
Pu had taken part in the 1989 demonstrations when he was a graduate student. The tumultuous protests lasted seven weeks until army troops backed by tanks crushed the unarmed protesters.
Public discussion of the crackdown remains taboo in China, making the seminar in Beijing on Saturday to discuss the June 4, 1989, military crackdown on demonstrators in Tiananmen Square — reports of which trickled out to the public by social media postings — an unusually bold event despite being held in a private residence and attended by only about a dozen people.
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Also see:
6 injured in hacking attack at Chinese station
Facebook seeks China office
China’s real estate market stumbles
Slower growth may continue, China says
Slowing Chinese economy likely to pinch US, too
Oh, if it is not the weather then it is the Chinese to blame for government and corporate mismanagement that has resulted in a destroyed economy. Heard that song-and-dance before.
"Over the last few days, it has become clear to me that attending a classical music performance in today’s China might be unlike hearing a concert anywhere else in the world, rather dispiritingly."
The Globe is kind of getting on my nerves now, so time to sink this post.
