Rough seas are seen underneath a maritime platform in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago. Photo: Tuoi Tre The new year rang in a series of devastating winter storms ranging from the “bomb cyclone” hitting the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. to the deadly storm Eleanor battering Western Europe – examples of extreme weather which many scientists […]
A recent report appears to suggest that Vietnam has placed rocket launchers on five bases in the Spratly Islands, pointing them toward Chinese facilities.
Should Beijing refuse to honor a potential ruling against their claims of sovereignty, we can expect China to again attempt to assert its economic muscle to persuade other regional nations to settle the disputes bilaterally.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Vietnam this week, the first by a Chinese president in ten years, drew mixed reaction among the Vietnamese.
Beijing attempted to quash any mention of the South China Sea dispute prior to Tuesday’s meeting in Kuala Lumpur of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Here in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the local government last week ordered its travel and tourism departments to draw up a feasibility study for tours to the Truong Sa (Spratly) islands, which Vietnam currently occupies.
I had not given much thought to the flight plan of the airline I recently booked to go back to the U.S. from Vietnam, but recent events in the airspace over the South China Sea prompted an online search. As I discovered, my commercial flight will be flying not far from where a U.S. surveillance plane was warned on Wednesday to leave by a Chinese radar operator.
On Mischief Reef, in the South China Sea just off the coast of the Philippine island of Palawan, Chinese workers are busy dredging sand and creating an island on top of partially-submerged coral reefs.