The Washington-led ambush of China over the disputed South China Sea at the region's top security forum on Friday marks a landmark shift in Sino-US ties and exposes deepening strategic fault lines in Asia.
Even as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton figuratively waded into the South China Sea in Hanoi, US and South Korean naval vessels prepared to stage large-scale exercises in the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, close to China's northeast - adding to the tensions of the new landscape.
HANOI, Vietnam -- The Obama administration on Friday waded into thorny territorial disputes over islands in the South China Sea declaring their resolution to be a U.S. "national interest" in a move likely to irritate China.
At a regional security forum in Vietnam, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington was concerned that conflicting claims on the Spratly and Paracel island chains interfere with maritime commerce, hamper access to international waters in the area and undermine the U.N. law of the sea.
What happened to China's much vaunted "soft power" and "good neighborly" diplomacy about which we have heard so much in recent years? China's supposed "soft power," always overstated, has passed from the scene in short order.
Over the past few months, the Chinese have not-so-softly declined to invite Secretary of Defense Gates to visit Beijing; called the South China Sea a "core interest" (akin to claiming that the sea is China's territorial water); threatened to retaliate if the United States proceeds with the sale of additional F-16s to Taiwan; and refused to so much as condemn the North Koreans for killing 46 South Koreans sailors in cold blood.
22 July 2010
10:50
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HANOI—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed the advancement of U.S.-Vietnam relations as a model for reconciliation among former wartime foes during her first visit to Hanoi as Washington's chief diplomat.
But the former First Lady was blunt Thursday in pressing the Southeast Asian country to improve its respect for human rights amid signs its communist leaders are intensifying a crackdown on democracy advocates, Internet bloggers and religious leaders.
In a famous maxim, China's late leader Deng Xiaoping urged his countrymen to "hide your brightness, bide your time". That was more than 20 years ago. It now seems China's leaders have finished biding their time.
In an assertive redefinition of its place in the world, China has put the South China Sea into its "core national interest" category of non-negotiable territorial claims - in the same league as Taiwan and Tibet. China has drawn a red line down the map of Asia and defies anyone to cross it.
On October 8, 2009, a woman from Hanoi named Tran Khai Thanh Thuy was on her way to Hai Phong, a city on Vietnam’s coast, to witness the trial of six pro-democracy activists. But she would never reach the courthouse. Instead, she was met by a police roadblock and ordered to return to her house until further notice. That night, two intruders entered her home and beat her with bricks in front of her husband and daughter, as police officers looked on from outside. The police then arrested Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and charged her with assault.
Tran Khai Thanh Thuy’s trial took place in February of this year and lasted one day. A key piece of prosecution evidence was a photo of one supposed victim with a bandaged head, which Vietnamese bloggers later showed had been crudely altered. “It’s a fabrication and total slander,” Tran Khai Thanh Thuy said of the charges. “I protest this trial, and I did not come here to suffer this.” The court sentenced her to three and a half years in prison, but she did not hear the verdict because the judge had thrown her out of court for talking out of turn. Human Rights Watch issued a statement calling the trial “Kafkaesque.”
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