Vietnam and Russia clashed in waters near Vietnam:
China accused Vietnam on Thursday of intentionally colliding with its ships in the South China Sea, but called for talks to end a bitter row sparked by Beijing's parking of a giant oil rig in contested waters.
A senior foreign ministry official in Beijing demanded that Vietnam withdraw its ships after its southern neighbor asserted that Chinese vessels used water cannon and rammed eight of its vessels at the weekend near the rig. Hanoi said two vessels were badly damaged and six people were wounded in the worst setback to ties between the two Communist nations in years.
China claims almost all of the South China Sea as their territory in defiance of international law, and has the muscle to push smaller states around:
China has towed a deep sea drilling rig to a spot off Vietnam's coast in waters claimed by both. The rig has been escorted by a reported 70 Chinese craft that have rammed Vietnamese ships and fended them off with water cannons, raising tensions between the nations to their highest in years.
Why is China doing this? China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has begun acting on announced plans to drill for what is thought to be a wealth of oil and natural gas beneath those waters. The moves may also be a test of Vietnam's ability and resolve to defend its own claims, along with Washington's insistence on freedom of navigation there.
We take no position on the ownership of islands that would decide who has exclusive economic zones, but say that the parties should resolve claims peacefully; and we do insist that this is international waters for all other purposes. China just does what it wants.
UPDATE: The oil angle is apparently just the means to gain control, inverting the usual claims about any dispute involving oil. And China may be signaling that they will take on Vietnam is Vietnam resists China's effective annexation of the sea area:
One editorial urged Chinese forces to give Vietnam a ”lesson it deserves to get…. We believe Hanoi has no guts to attack China’s drilling platform directly.”
And China claims to see our hand in this:
China's foreign ministry blamed the United States on Friday for stoking tensions in the disputed South China Sea by encouraging countries to engage in dangerous behavior, following an uptick in tensions between China and both the Philippines and Vietnam.
Yeah. We encourage China's smaller neighbors to defend their rights under international law rather than just lying back and thinking of the Middle Kingdom while China does what it wants to them. We're awful.
China invaded Vietnam in 1979 to teach them a lesson, viewing Vietnam as an extension of Soviet plots against China.
Vietnam has lost the combat experience edge it had in that war. And China's weaponry is much better now. Although it seems unlikely that China would seek to teach Vietnam a lesson of that size, China could easily decide to use their growing naval power in a demonstration of their ability to do what they want in the South China Sea.
UPDATE: China's rulers are stoking nationalism to bolster their legitimacy in the absence of communist fervor among the people. Which is tricky to manage, since nationalism can inspire resistance to Chinese moves:
Vietnamese anger toward China is running at its highest level in years after Beijing deployed an oil rig in disputed waters. That's posing a tricky question for Vietnam's leaders: To what extent should they allow public protests that could morph into those against their own authoritarian rule?
That's a problem if both sides' rulers feel the need to act in ways that popular sentiment wants lest the rulers lose legitimacy in the people's eyes for talking the talk of nationalism but failing to walk the walk.
