Tensions Mount as Chinese Sink Vietnamese Fishing Boat

More tensions in the South China Sea...

From Bloomberg (via Drudge):

Vietnam and China traded barbs over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat, their most serious bilateral standoff since 2007 as China asserts its claims in the disputed South China Sea.  

“It was rammed by a Chinese boat,” Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said by phone of the Vietnamese vessel, with the crew of 10 rescued after the scrap. The incident occurred after some 40 Chinese fishing vessels encircled a group of Vietnamese boats in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, the government in Hanoi said in a statement on its website.  

China said the Vietnamese vessel capsized after it rammed a Chinese fishing boat, having intruded into a “precautionary area” around an oil rig that China has located near islands claimed by both Vietnam and China.  

“We once again urge the Vietnamese side to stop immediately all kinds of disruptive and damaging activities and avoid in particular dangerous actions on the sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing.  

[...]  

“The message China is sending Vietnam is, this area of water is Chinese territory,” Ha Hoang Hop, visiting senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, said by phone of the boat sinking. “Yesterday a spokesman for China said Vietnam’s claims are ‘ridiculous.’ They are escalating things at sea and with their language.”

China’s placement of the rig near the contested Paracel Islands sparked violent protests in Vietnam this month and led China to send ships to evacuate workers from the country after three Chinese nationals were killed. It spurred confrontations between coast guard vessels, including the use of water cannons and accusations of boats being rammed. China says the rig is in its territory and that it has long drilled in the area.

This ongoing issue in Asia merits close attention. As China's economy, which is based on completely wrong economic theories, flounders, China could become very aggressive as it desperately attempts to add resources, territory, and wealth from its surrounding countries. Let's not forget that China has done this before. Unfortunately many of these neighboring nations-- Vietnam not among them-- have heavily relied upon the United States for protection. If China becomes aggressive while Obama is still in the White House, countries like Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and others are on their own. And if Obama succeeds in major crippling the U.S. economy and/or the military, any Chinese aggression for the next several years will go unchallenged by the America-- aside from sanctions, idle threats, and such.

Obama has done an unprecedented job at destabilizing the world and encouraging thuggery among rival nations. Even Carter wasn't this bad.