DECEPTION A WAY OF LIFE IN CHINA China draws heavily from two famous historical military bluffs and Sun Tzu’s teachings, in its day-to-day life. The legendary stories revolve around Li Guang and his 100 horsemen (144 BC), and Zhuge Liang… Read More ›
China’s extensive damming of the upper Mekong River has reduced water flows, threatening downstream countries Cambodia and Vietnam with environmental harm and food shortages, said experts in advance of a summit meeting of the multilateral Mekong-Lancang Cooperation group. The summit,… Read More ›
If Hanoi files an official complaint in its South China Sea dispute with Beijing, it could lose more than it win. Pundits are predicting that Vietnam will soon file a complaint under the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea… Read More ›
COVID-19 (C-19) event is posing serious challenges for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2020. But Vietnam, as current ASEAN chair, is trying to make the best of the situation and demonstrate leadership. As 2020 marks a… Read More ›
China says every effort will be made for peaceful reunification with Taiwan as long as there remains hope; force is the last resort. But, Taiwan wants peaceful freedom from tyranny; force is the last resort. There is no hope for… Read More ›
Now that Vietnam appears to have won its health war against Covid-19 after recording zero deaths and winning international praise for its crisis management, speculation is rising the nation could also be an economic winner of the pandemic. According to… Read More ›
Trying to be polite or indirect while not taking no for an answer does not give anyone a right to make trouble. When someone gives a decisive, “No,” decent people accept that answer, then move on somehow. But, China doesn’t… Read More ›
Google is planning a big production shift from China to Vietnam,Nikkei Asian Review reports. Two sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei the company has already started work converting an old Nokia factory in northern Vietnam so that it can… Read More ›
Chinese incursions into Vietnam’s EEZ are by no means a new phenomenon. The most serious recent incident occurred in 2014, when China deployed an oil rig into Vietnam’s EEZ, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the two neighbors. The current situation… Read More ›
Conflicts with China are helping Taiwan. The trade war is driving manufacturing away from China toward Taiwan, Vietnam, and Burma, among others. China’s travel ban on Taiwan for openly supporting the Hong Kong protests is pushing the Taiwanese to implement… Read More ›
Buffoons became naysayers this week, arguing that tit-for-tat military drill concessions would be the path to peace and that progress without finality in Hanoi surmounted to failure. Trump knows exactly what he is doing. Progress without “too much too fast”,… Read More ›
The California-based ‘The Drive – War Zone’ has this description of Kim Jong-un’s armored train: “…These trains also pack critical communications gear, spaces for a small army of heavily armed guards, as well plenty of room for support staff and… Read More ›
Nations and peoples of the free world are reaching toward each other. The EU reached out to Taiwan and Taiwan was grateful. Taiwan reached out to CNN and CNN did an interview. Kim Jong Un is likely on a train… Read More ›
China is still the world’s No. 2 economy and is still the monster of emerging markets, but regardless of those bonafides, Xi Jinping’s country is losing the trade war in nearly every way imaginable. The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng… Read More ›
North Korea inches further and further toward talks with the US. China fears this. If Kim Jong-Un get in the same room as the man who wrote The Art of the Deal, North Korea could become a stronger ally to… Read More ›
As talks between Kim and Trump march forward, China is resigned to the new situation at its eastern border and is focusing on other areas, specifically trade. In truth, China’s main trade opponent is not the US, but Vietnam. Vietnam’s… Read More ›
At the APEC summit in Vietnam, Putin told Trump that Russia had not interfered in the 2016 election. Putin was sincere. At the same time, Taiwan is beefing-up cybersecurity, ostensibly to counter “daily” and “Russian style” attacks originating in China…. Read More ›
After President Trump warned that North Korea must never make any more threats, North Korea is making more threats than ever. Trump mentioned Hawaii and Guam in his warning, North Korea mentioned Hawaii and Guam in this week’s threats. Again,… Read More ›
China’s growing use of non-conventional means to assert control over the South China Sea is raising concerns among neighboring countries and regional military planners. Analysts say that in “front line” flash points in the vast waterway, Beijing is deploying coast… Read More ›
The Japanese government said on Wednesday it is ready to provide Vietnam with new patrol ships, in its latest step to boost the maritime law-enforcement capabilities of countries locked in territorial rows with China. On Tuesday, Japan agreed to provide… Read More ›
Vietnam has discreetly fortified several of its islands in the disputed South China Sea with new mobile rocket launchers capable of striking China’s runways and military installations across the vital trade route, according to Western officials. Diplomats and military officers… Read More ›
China has reportedly announced that it has been outdone by US technology. This implication came from the statement that it can only respond to the US “freedom of navigation” exercises by sending nuclear subs to the South China Sea. While… Read More ›
The following is based on a translation of a report in Chinese media: Global Times says in its report yesterday that it took 6 years and 6 billion yuan (USD940 million) for China to build its first homegrown deep sea… Read More ›
The following is based on a translation of a report on a Chinese news site: A report on Chinese news site mil.huanqiu.com cites Taiwan’s Central News Agency as saying that Vietnamese Defence Minister Phùng Quang Thanh said that Vietnam attached… Read More ›
With Australia firmly in the geopolitical mix, no one is publicly talking about China and containment, but all strategies are going in that direction. A recent cover of India Today magazine has Prime Minister Narendra Modi dressed up as Superman,… Read More ›
Forty-three years after Richard Nixon made his famous visit to China, that country has seemingly decided to take a page from the former U.S. president’s Treasury Department. As China lowers the value of the yuan, the country’s economic policy makers… Read More ›
China’s economy is tanking if you look at sales reports, or, no, wait, it’s going up if you ask the Chinese. China is also losing the in the battle for Vietnam’s alliance: Moscow is now buddy-buddy with Hanoi. Taiwan’s internal… Read More ›
Russia-Vietnam ties that seemed to be cooling after the end of the Cold War are warming up all over again. More than 20 years after Moscow abandoned its largest foreign base, Russian military aircraft are once again welcome visitors at… Read More ›
Is China starting down a path similar to that followed by Japan and Germany before 1945, when nationalism backed by new economic clout led to overconfidence and adventures which eventually proved disastrous? The question needs asking in the context of… Read More ›
The United States has spotted a pair of mobile artillery vehicles on an artificial island that China is building in the South China Sea, a resource-rich stretch of ocean crossed by vital shipping lanes, American officials said. China’s construction program… Read More ›
The U.S. military is considering using aircraft and Navy ships to directly contest Chinese territorial claims to a chain of rapidly expanding artificial islands, U.S. officials said, in a move that would raise the stakes in a regional showdown over… Read More ›
The secretary-general of Southeast Asia’s 10-member trade and security bloc Sunday said the group can’t agree to China’s use of its so-called nine-dash line to claim the contested waters of the South China Sea as Beijing continues its land-reclamation efforts… Read More ›
India has warned that it is prepared to use force to secure its economic interest in the South China Sea. India has placed allegations that Beijing had deliberately hampered its rival oil and gas exploration efforts. As China and India… Read More ›
Southeast Asia’s major economies drew more foreign direct investment combined than China for the second straight year in 2014, as growth in their giant neighbour cooled. But by country, inflows into the region were uneven, swayed by political change and… Read More ›
The following is a translation from Chinese media: In addition to the artificial islands China has been building on Johnson South Reef, Cuarteron Reef, Hughes Reef, Mckennan Reef, Gaven Reef, Eldad Reef, Fiery Cross Reef and Mischief Reef, China has… Read More ›
Microsoft will close two Chinese factories that it acquired when it bought Nokia’s handset business in April 2014, cutting 9,000 jobs.. The report by MarketWatch said the two factories were in Beijing and Dongguan, and that some equipment and production… Read More ›
The economic turbulence in China has another hidden layer to it – losing jobs to Southeast Asia as multinational companies relocate their manufacturing units to those countries as a way to enhance cost efficiency. “I definitely think Southeast Asia is… Read More ›
A nudge by air in 2013. A probe by sea in 2014. Will China take a crack on land in 2015? For the sake of world peace, let’s hope not. However, China’s nudge and probe record, especially over the last… Read More ›
After his successful charm offensive in central and eastern Europe, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang directed the same offensive at South East Asia. According to a Reuters report, the Chinese government’s mouthpiece Xinhua said in its report yesterday that Li has… Read More ›
To this question the Philippines gives a positive answer. In its report today Reuters quotes the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry as saying, “The Vietnamese position is helpful in terms of promoting the rule of law and in finding peaceful and nonviolent… Read More ›
Vietnam and China moved their sabre-rattling over the South China Sea into the legal arena this week as Hanoi lodged a submission with an arbitral tribunal at The Hague and rejected a Chinese position paper. Beijing swiftly dismissed Vietnam’s challenge…. Read More ›
The following is a translation from Chinese media with commentary: The website of the US National Interest magazine published on November 30 the article “America’s Next Big Challenge: Countering China’s Diplomatic Blitzkrieg” by Richard Javad Heydarian, an Assistant Professor in… Read More ›
Vietnam on Tuesday showed off its two most powerful warships in the first-ever port call to the Philippines, but an official said it was not trying to challenge China’s superior naval forces amid tension in the South China Sea. Hanoi… Read More ›
In my post “China’s Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” on January 28, 2012, I said: “Decades ago, Japan shed lots of blood to fight for the establishment of its Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere but failed disastrously. However, it seems that… Read More ›
It is no secret that the South China Sea is an area of conflict and controversy, but understanding the interests and role of the United States in that region is not intuitive. The situation centers on competing territorial claims by… Read More ›
Vietnam is becoming a proxy against China in any future possible confrontation in the South China Sea or South Asia as a whole. On Oct. 28 India announced that it would sell naval vessels to Vietnam in exchange for an… Read More ›
Quite a few Chinese believe a naive Chinese girl’s prediction that China will fight a war with Vietnam for reunification. It will be one of the six wars she believes that China will fight within the coming five decades. I… Read More ›
China‘s intensifying efforts to redraw maritime borders have its neighbours, and the U.S., fearing war. But does the aggression reflect a government growing in power – or one facing a crisis of legitimacy? In the tranquil harbours that dot the… Read More ›
Last’s week’s misunderstanding quickly transformed to rage with images of police, out of harm’s way, calmly reaching to pepper spray non-threatening bystanders, one at a time. Hong Kongers’ support for Occupy Central soared from “geek” to “peak” within a day…. Read More ›
Almost 40 years after their war, the U.S. and Vietnam have long since stopped being enemies. Trade between them has grown to more than $20 billion. Yet one major obstacle to a full rapprochement remains: the U.S. embargo on lethal… Read More ›
