Krueger
BANNED
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2013
- Messages
- 264
- Reaction score
- 0
- Country
- Location
- China’s war drums beat
- AFP | MAY 17, 2014
A Vietnamese officer looks towards a Vietnamese Coast Guard ship sailing near China's oil drilling rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea. Source: AFP
Anti-China protesters wave flags and hold placards on a street outside a factory building in Binh Duong this week. Source: AFP
A STATE-RUN Chinese newspaper yesterday backed the use of “non-peaceful” measures against Vietnam and The Philippines as it considered the possibility of war in the strategically vital South China Sea.
Vietnam is experiencing its worst anti-China unrest in decades following Beijing’s deployment of an oil rig to disputed waters. At least one Chinese worker has been killed and more than 100 have been injured.
Reuters yesterday maintained reports that a doctor at a hospital near one area of rioting said he had seen 21 bodies and that at least 100 people were wounded.
A witness in an industrial zone in the same area said she had seen at least 13 bodies. Demonstrations have spread to 22 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces.
“The South China Sea disputes should be settled in a peaceful manner, but that doesn’t mean China can’t resort to non-peaceful measures in the face of provocation from Vietnam and The Philippines,” said the Global Times .
“Many people believe that a forced war would not convince some countries of China’s sincerely peaceful intentions.”
Beijing claims almost the whole of the South China Sea and Manila has provoked its fury by seeking UN arbitration in the dispute between the two.
China’s Foreign Ministry has condemned both Manila and Hanoi, and accused Vietnam’s leaders of “indulgence and connivance” with anti-China demonstrators for failing to rein in the protests.
At a news conference yesterday, Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Shen Danyang warned the riots could have repercussions for Vietnam’s business interests. “The incident has led Chinese companies to stop operations and suffer enormous property losses,” Mr Shen said.
The state-run China Daily weighed in, warning if the violence continued to escalate “it will only add to the distrust and enmity between the Vietnamese and Chinese peoples”.
“The lethal riots are proof that China’s calls for dialogue over the two countries’ conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea have fallen on deaf ears in Vietnam,” the paper wrote.
“That our restraint has been replied with such bloody violence is intolerable.”
The Xinhua news agency, meanwhile, wrote yesterday that Hanoi “bears unshirkable responsibility for the violent attacks against Chinese companies and nationals, and must ensure the safety of foreign companies and nationals in Vietnam”.
A top Chinese general on Thursday vowed his country would protect the oil rig.
“What we’re going to do is ensure the safety of the oil rig and ensure the operation will keep going on,” General Fang Fenghui, chief of the general staff of the People’s Liberation Army, said after talks at the Pentagon.
Vietnam had sent in ships to try to disrupt the drilling, he said through an interpreter, “and that is something that we are not able to accept”.
Mr Fang said China had shown restraint in the South China Sea and only now had set up an oil rig after other countries in the region had started drilling.
“I don’t believe there is any problem with China doing this drilling activity within its own territorial waters,” the general said.
Vietnam does not recognise the waters as being under Chinese authority. Mr Fang also suggested the US’s strategic “rebalance” to Asia had been exploited by some countries that wanted to check China’s economic power.
While Mr Fang held talks at the Pentagon, the US State Department reiterated its criticism of China’s “provocative” decision to install the oil rig.
