Vietnam and the Philippines yesterday pushed for stronger action to confront China’s aggressive behavior in the South China Sea at the first regional summit hosted by Myanmar.
A showdown between Chinese and Vietnamese ships near the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) — also claimed by Taiwan — has put a spotlight on long-standing and bitter maritime disputes.
Several members of the ASEAN bloc reject China’s claims to much of the South China Sea, saying parts of the sea are theirs, but few are willing to risk their political and economic relationship with the regional powerhouse.
Photo: AFP
A draft of the closing statement from the summit, obtained by The Associated Press, made no direct mention of China, and ASEAN foreign ministers who gathered on Saturday did little beyond expressing concern and calling for self-restraint.
However, Vietnam and the Philippines both made it clear they wanted more.
“China has brazenly moved its deep-water drilling rig escorted by over 80 armed and military vessels and many airplanes to the Vietnamese waters,” Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dzung was quoted as saying in a draft speech.
The vessels “fired high-powered water cannons and rammed straight into the Vietnamese public-service and civil ships, causing damage to many ships and injuring many people on board.”
He asked that concerns about the South China Sea be included in ASEAN’s final statement.
The standoff between China and Vietnam started on May 1 when China moved a deep-sea oil rig into waters close to the Paracel Islands in what most analysts believe was an especially assertive move to help cement its claims of sovereignty over the area.
China insists it is doing nothing wrong.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) yesterday said that the issue should not concern ASEAN and that Beijing was opposed to “one or two countries’ attempts to use the South China Sea issue to harm the overall friendship and cooperation between China and ASEAN,” Xinhua news agency reported.
ASEAN leaders also discussed tensions on the Korean Peninsula, reiterating their commitment to a region “free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction,” according to the draft of the final statement.
They also discussed the need to effectively tackle threats such as cybercrime, human trafficking and climate change, as well as food and energy security, human rights issues and efforts to create an ASEAN economic community.
Earlier in the day, protesters staged one of Vietnam’s largest ever anti-China demonstrations over the oil-rig standoff.
About 1,000 people, from war veterans to students, waved banners saying: “China. don’t steal our oil” and “Silence is cowardly” — a dig at Hanoi’s handling of the dispute — and sang patriotic songs in a park opposite the Chinese embassy in Hanoi.
War veteran Dang Quang Thang, 74, said: “Our patience has limits. We are here to express the will of the Vietnamese people to defend our territory at all costs. We are ready to die to protect our nation.”
Hundreds of plainclothes and uniformed police set up barricades to prevent protesters approaching the Chinese embassy compound, but made no move to break up the rowdy demonstration, even though the regime normally tightly controls any public expression of discontent.
Protests also broke out in central Danang town and Ho Chi Minh City yesterday.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most