... strategic partnership. With the situation in the South China Sea worsening, Hanoi has lately been expanding its arms purchases from Russia, as it has happened with the Project 1241 corvettes. Beyond arms sales, Russia plays a major role in fostering the Vietnamese military capabilities, which are also aimed at countering any threat within the South China Sea.
The Philippines is another country with which Russia has been cooperating in the energy field. In 2019, President Duterte asked Russia to carry out
offshore oil and gas exploration
in what he defines the “West Philippine Sea”, namely ...
... billion into Vietnam in 2014 alone, the US has only offered to clean up chemically contaminated parts of the country some 40 years after the Vietnam War ended. Presumably, both the offer of weapons and nationwide decontamination is subject to strict Vietnamese compliance over the United States’ glaring anti-China stance in the South China Sea.
Yesterday’s bitter enemies are today’s strategic partners whenever history is reinterpreted with facile sleaze.
But history cannot be easily brushed aside, even if the UN Court of Arbitration in The Hague rules in favour ...
... another.”
What happened next is a textbook case of how an old statement can get re-framed and amplified amid heightened international tensions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry
reacted
by heralding the two countries’ converging position on the South China Sea, a remark that the state-run
Xinhua News Agency
dubbed “applauding.” Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry also followed suit, with spokesman Le Hai Binh
saying
that the dispute should be settled by “all countries concerned.”
Many pundits saw this heated exchange as proof that the booming Russia-China partnership ...
Experts and diplomats from the US, Europe and Asia took part in the 7th South China Sea International Conference “
Cooperation for Regional Security and Development
” that took place in Vietnam’s Vung Tau city on November 23-24, 2015.
The conference discussed the impact of key trends in the global development on the situation in the water area, legal aspects of territorial disputes, as well as ways to reduce conflict potential....
... Wikimedia.org
The difficult problem facing Vietnam is how to
escape being used as a pawn in someone else's
game on the one hand, and to leave the door open
for possible contacts with China's new leadership
of on the other
Following the events in the South China Sea, the Vietnamese leadership faces a difficult choice. On the one hand, China is infringing Vietnam's sovereign rights to the islands in the South China Sea, having arbitrarily established the nine-dash area covering 80% of the Sea. On the other hand, Vietnam’s ...
