Sunday, May 18, 2014

Here they go again


Vietnam and China have never been natural friends. Throughout their history they have done more fighting than handshaking. And now, as China pushes into shared ocean areas the Vietnamese, like the Japanese and the Filipinos find them selves in a fighting mood.
China has evacuated more than 3,000 of its citizens from Vietnam because of anti-China rioting there and is sending five ships to evacuate more, state-run Xinhua news service reported Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if Vietnam would allow the Chinese rescue ships to dock, given continuing skirmishes between the two countries over a disputed Chinese oil platform that ignited riots in Vietnam.

The first ship set off from Haikou in China’s southern-most province of Hainan at 8 a.m. Sunday (8 p.m. Saturday EDT), China’s Transport Ministry said in statement. It was expected to reach Vietnam within 18 hours.

China’s Foreign Ministry said that more than 3,000 Chinese nationals had been evacuated as of Saturday afternoon. They returned to China with the assistance of the Chinese Embassy in Vietnam, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement...

Crowds in Vietnam started protesting and rioting after it was reported last week that China was moving an oil drilling platform, the Haiyang Shiyou 981, into contested waters in the South China Sea, about 140 miles from Vietnam. China and Vietnamese boats rammed each other, with the Chinese reportedly firing water canons. The skirmishes continued through Saturday, according to reports in Vietnamese news media.

Thanh Nien News reported Saturday that the Chinese fleet guarding the oil rig had grown to 130 vessels, and were continuing to launch “attacks” on Vietnamese ships. These included ramming fishing boats and Vietnamese surveillance vessels, according to Thanh Nien...

China and Vietnam fought a three-week war in 1979, after more than 200,000 Chinese troops invaded Vietnam as punishment for Hanoi’s invasion and ouster of Chinese ally Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge. Tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians died on both sides in the fighting, which now rarely is mentioned officially in either country.

Since then, relations between the two communist countries have improved, despite tensions over China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea. Now, however, there are fears the oil rig skirmishes could escalate into another war.
So when do we start running arms and supplies into Vietnam along the Barack Hussein Obama Trail?

Comments:
Not that easy a decision. The Chinese make all our electronic shit nowadays, the Vietnamese mostly just make our sneakers. So pissing off the Chinese would cost our lords and rulers more money than pissing off the Vietnamese. Most likely we're going to stay out of it and let them do whatever the fuck they're gonna do.

As for the Vietnamese and Chinese history, there is a long list of invasions and counter-invasions that occurred over the course of a thousand years between the two peoples, so yeah, they'll do business with each other when they have mutual interests in common, but they ain't ever gonna be friends.

 

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