Vietnam has hit back against China at the UN’s New York headquarters, ordering Beijing to withdraw an oil rig from the South China Sea and stop “interfering” with maritime safety in an ongoing territorial row.
The Vietnamese mission to the UN asked its position paper to be circulated to the General Assembly after China sought support at the international organization on Monday.
Hanoi and Beijing are embroiled in a bitter war of words, trading accusations over maritime confrontations near an oil rig that China moved into contested waters near the Paracel Islands (西沙群島, Xisha Islands), which are controlled by Beijing, but claimed by Taipei and Hanoi.
Vietnam demanded that China withdraw the oil rig, “escort vessels from Vietnam’s maritime zones and stop all activities that are interfering with maritime safety and security, and affecting regional peace and security,” the document said.
The Vietnamese government called on its Chinese counterpart to “promptly commence government-level negotiations” on sovereignty over the contested waters.
In the document it sent to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, China alleged that Vietnam rammed Chinese vessels more than 1,400 times near its oil drilling operations in the South China Sea.
Tensions over the oil rig sparked violent anti-China riots in Vietnam last month that Beijing says killed four Chinese citizens, while Hanoi puts the number at three Chinese.
China claims nearly all of the South China Sea and has become increasingly assertive in staking those claims against Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia, who all have rival claims to parts of the sea.
Amid the escalating territorial spats, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel on Wednesday proposed that China and Southeast Asian nations call a moratorium on actions seen as provocative in a bid to cool tensions in the sea.
Russel said he made the suggestion as “food for thought,” not as a formal proposal, as he met regional counterparts in Myanmar to prepare for a regional summit later this year.
“The claimant states themselves could identify the kind of behavior that they each find provocative when others do it and offer to put a voluntary freeze on those sorts of actions on the condition that all the other claimants would agree to do so similarly,” Russel told reporters during a conference call. “So for example, would they be willing to make a pledge as simple as not to occupy any of the land features in the South China Sea that are currently unoccupied?”
Russel said that the Chinese delegation at the talks in Myanmar offered a “spirited and vigorous defense” of its position, but voiced hope that Beijing understood that other nations’ statements were “offered not in the spirit of condemnation, but in the spirit of compromise.”
The US has pushed for years for a code of conduct to lay out rules to prevent the escalation of incidents in the South China Sea, but Russel acknowledged that tensions have been “going up quickly.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not