Vietnam in live-fire drill amid South China Sea

Vietnam is holding live-fire drills in the South China Sea amid high tensions with China over disputed waters.

A Vietnamese naval officer said the "routine" drills were being held about 40km (25 miles) off central Quang Nam province, outside the disputed area.

The second stage of the exercise will be held at night; shipping has been warned to stay clear of the area.

Chinese state media denounced the exercises as a military show of force to defy Beijing.

The drills are taking place within days of an escalation in the long-standing maritime border dispute between China and Vietnam.

The South China Sea includes important shipping routes and may contain rich oil and gas deposits.

Vietnam last month accused China of cutting the exploration cables of an oil survey ship. In a similar incident last week it said a Chinese fishing boat had "intentionally rammed" the exploration cables of another of its boats.

China said that its fishing boats were chased away by armed Vietnamese ships in the incident last Thursday.

The fishing net of one of the Chinese boats became tangled with the cables of an Vietnamese oil exploring vessel, which was operating illegally in the area, and was dragged for more than an hour before it was cut free, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

China accused Vietnam of "gravely violating" its sovereignty and warned it to stop "all invasive activities".
'Official sanction'

The BBC's Southeast Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey says that military drills are not usually given such advance public prominence and the timing is extremely sensitive.

A Vietnamese naval officer said the "routine annual training" exercises have "nothing to do with the recent incidents involving China".

The first part of the nine-hour drill is being held around the uninhabited island of Hon Ong - well within Vietnamese territorial waters.

A second phase of live firing lasting about six hours will be staged at night, officials said.

China has not commented officially on the naval exercises, but a newspaper controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, the Global Times, said the drills were "a military show of force to defy Beijing".

Demonstrations have been held in Hanoi for the second weekend in a row, calling for China to get out of Vietnam's territorial waters.

Demonstrations are not usually tolerated in Communist Vietnam, but the authorities appear to be allowing protests related to the South China Sea dispute, our correspondent says.

China is engaged in maritime border disputes with several countries.

The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have rival claims in the area. The US has also expressed concern about China's rising naval ambitions.

Inform sincerely to the people:

There are situations when silence does not help avoid danger, but on the contrary increase the danger as it makes people misbelieve that silence means feebleness.

Opposing via foreign affair channel is necessary, but not yet enough to make use of the international unition that Vietnam really needs in this moment. More than anyone else, those who based on the strength of the people to liberate and unify the country understand the value of the right to be informed and the right to act of the people.

China has pushed forward the invasion on the East Sea. That is obvious to the world: We have to oppose strongly!

China has violated all the terms and conditions which they have signed: We have to oppose strongly!

The Chinese Navy has harassed, terrorized fishermen from the middle part of Vietnam on parts of the sea where they have fished since the time of their forefathers: We have to oppose strongly!

We have to inform to the whole country and to the most remote areas with the life stories of our people who have been harassed, have been imprisoned and have been robbed and have gone bankrupt on the East Sea.

In short: Inform sincerely to the people!

Paracel and Spratly Islands belong to Vietnam! We should not be satisfied with the meeting of Vietnam specialists with international specialists to confirm that quietly. Those meetings are important, but we also need to confirm the sovereignty in schools, in historical and geographical lessons taught on the whole country.

I feel surprised and painful to see that on Lý Sơn island - the starting place of fishermen who firmly stick to fishing on the sea parts of Paracel islands - the island which stands in the frontline of the war to confirm the sovereignty of Vietnam of Paracel islands - their descendants do not know anything about the geography of the islands which their ascendants have been imprisoned by the Chinese Navy.

Many Vietnam administrative maps still lack of Hữu Nhật and Quang Ánh islands - places with deep emotion and meanings, as it is there that their ancestors in Paracel Navy group have sacrificed!

Fear does not roll back the peril:

I very well understand the difficult and sensitive standpoint of Vietnamese leaders with hopes to prevent the people, who have experienced pains in history, from suffering new losses. Vietnam history has witnessed more than a few times when the people had shed their blood: 1974, 1979, 1988…

But fear does not roll back the peril.

73-years-old elder Bùi Thượng – a diving contest championship in Lý Sơn – is well aware of this. “When encounter a shark, you have to face it, look straight into its eyes. Only then it won’t attack you”, he said.

There are times when we have to face things. That’s the matter of being dead or alive. Facing first means telling the truth, and only the truth.

In Bình Châu and Lý Sơn, I have interviewed fishermen who risk their life everyday to go on fishing. They said they had clashed with fleets of Chinese fishing boats that come very close to the islands, only about 20 nautical miles away. Those Chinese fishing groups are well-organized and are supported by the Chinese Navy. For Vietnamese fishermen, they go out on the sea with unsafe feelings. And when doomed, they are caught, imprisoned, seized of fish and equipments, and there are large debts to pay. There are people like Mr. Tiêu Viết Là from Bình Châu village, who was caught four times by the Chinese.

Subsidies from the government are negligible. Very brave are they to go on fishing in such situations!

The widows of those fishermen who went missing mysteriously in Đá Bông Bay area, a kind of “Bermuda triangle” of Spratly archipelago, now live solely and lonely since their only “properties” are their husbands. Being full or hungry is all up to their husbands.

There’s even one with no money to build a “wind grave” for her husband. In rain seasons, there’s no money to repair the roof of the one-room-house. Where to find money for her children’s tutoring lessons when the children’s study is the only hope for the rest of this utterly miserable widow’s life?

Two millions VND of subsidy from the government for this and that place do not change the twist of their lives.

We have to raise our voice. We have to talk about them!

They must be eligible to receive official supports from the government, a prior plan, and at least they must have food, necessities and medicines provided. Their children must have free education and health care. They must be considered as the country’s children. To protect them and their mothers is to protect the sea and the islands, is to protect the country in the most realistic and efficient way.

In such circumstances, no one have the right to reduce the responsibilities of China. Try talking about “strange boats” with fishermen in the middle part of Vietnam, they will adjust them immediately to “Chinese boats”. To them, there’s nothing strange.

Many Vietnamese have told me: “The Chinese are very cunning”. Are the Chinese leaders “cunning”? Escalating disputes, China is creating conditions for ASEAN countries whose benefits are threatened come close to each other.

They create a new front line. It means that they have to pin here their forces, have to redirect parts of investment which are needed in business development into a costly adventure which they will surely get bogged down.

It’s over for the time when they apparently appropriated Paracel islands, apparently sank Vietnam transferring boats at Gạt Ma bank. China is developing rapidly, yet such a development is piercing deeply into the inner contradictions, is amplifying social inequalities. It’s not necessary to be a foreteller to see the difficulties of Beijing are right ahead but not yet behind. And when the time comes, they have to answer.

In Lý Sơn, I had an occasion to attend a very meaningful ritual which presents the will of the islanders: When a fisherman went missing due to sea storms or some mysterious reasons, the family which can afford to build a grave and invite a priest will hold a very original ritual, may even be unique, to call the spirit of the dead to get into a clay puppet with incantation. This puppet is then buried into a grave called “wind grave”, so that family members can come to visit. Superstitious? Maybe. But it’s not just that. I think this has a profound meaning: this hundred-years-old ritual presents the will of the alive that they are determined to regain from the sea, from the enemies the most precious and bring them back to the families and the country. That is a very clear message to the invaders: “ Whatever you do, we will still attach to the fishermen, to the sea, to the culture and to the country. For those things, no one, no force is able to appropriate.”

Translated by Tan Do,

from Vietnamese version by Nguyễn Ngọc Giao.

For original article, see

http://tuanvietnam.vietnamnet.vn/2011-06-08-bien-dong-so-hai-khong-day-lui-hiem-hoa