A diplomatic storm is expected this week when Vietnam sends a boatload of tourists to its military outposts in the disputed Spratly archipelago in the South China Sea.
Despite warnings from Beijing, its powerful northern neighbor, about violating China's territorial sovereignty, Hanoi has vowed to press ahead with the inaugural trip which it has billed as a trial run.
Today, around 100 people carefully selected for their political credentials will leave the southern business capital of Ho Chi Minh City for the seven-day round trip.
Duong Xuan Hoi, deputy director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said the boat tour, which is being conducted under the auspices of the Ministry of Defence, had been in the pipeline since 1998.
But it was only officially announced last month, prompting an angry reaction from China and a cautious one from the Philippines.
Along with Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei, they claim sovereignty over all or part of the Spratly Islands, which straddle vital shipping lanes and fishing grounds and are believed to contain vast oil and gas reserves.
Except for Brunei, all the claimants have military personnel scattered across the archipelago of more than 100 islets, reefs and atolls with a total land mass of less than 5km2.
Vietnam insisted on March 25 that it has "indisputable sovereignty" over the Spratlys, and that organizing such a tour within Vietnamese territory was "normal" behavior.
But China's foreign ministry called on Hanoi to respect a declaration signed in November 2002 by China and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to avoid any actions which may heighten tensions.
The tension escalated a week later when Vietnam warned Taiwan that construction of a bird-watching shelter on a reef 6km from the largest Spratly island, Taiping, now controlled by Taiwan, could lead to reprisals.
Taipei shrugged off the threat and reasserted its territorial integrity over the entire flashpoint archipelago, which lies around two-thirds of the way from Vietnam's southeastern coast to the southern Philippines.
In the past, squabbling among the claimants to the Spratlys has erupted into violence. The most serious incident occurred in 1988 when Chinese and Vietnamese naval forces clashed at Johnson Reef, resulting in the deaths of 78 Vietnamese navy personnel.
The communist neighbors clashed again in the Spratlys in 1992, and since then there have been numerous other incidents between the six claimants.
Diplomats and analysts, however, say this week's boat trip is unlikely to trigger similar skirmishes but instead will most probably result in another round of verbal jousting.
"Vietnam has chosen a relatively non-provocative act that has no military dimensions," said Carl Thayer, an Asian affairs expert at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.
He believes that Hanoi is prepared to sacrifice diplomatic goodwill for the opportunity to showcase its claims to the Spratlys.
"Vietnam will proceed with the tourist trip to demonstrate its sovereignty over the features that it claims. This is part of a long-term strategy that both Vietnam and China engage in.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,