> The Hanoi government has complained to Beijing about postings on Chinese
> websites that detail plans for an invasion of Vietnam. Chinese officials
> have dismissed the posts as the ramblings of a hypernationalist
> minority. But the diplomatic flare-up is seen as an indication of rising
> tensions between the two nations over the potentially oil-rich South
> China Sea. There, China has been pressuring Western oil firms to cancel
> joint exploration projects with Vietnam in waters that Beijing also claims.
>
>
>
> The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that the invasion plans
> have been posted on the popular Chinese web portal Sina.com and at least
> three other websites. Analysts interviewed by the SCMP characterized the
> posted "invasion plans" as the work of kooks, with little military value.
>
>
>
>     The supposed plans detail a 31-day invasion, starting with five days
> of missile strikes from land, sea and air and climaxing in an invasion
> involving 310,000 troops sweeping into Vietnam from Yunnan, Guangxi and
> the South China Sea. The electronic jamming of Vietnamese command and
> communications centers is mentioned, along with the blocking of sea
> lanes in the South China Sea....
>
>
>
>     "Vietnam is the strategic hub of the whole of Southeast Asia.
> Vietnam has to be conquered first if Southeast Asia is to be under
> [China's] control again," the plans say. "From all perspectives Vietnam
> is a piece of bone hard to be swallowed."
>
>
>
> The SCMP added that Vietnamese officials were baffled that the postings
> remained online after they registered their complaints, since Beijing
> can easily block any Web content that has been brought to its attention.
>
>
>
> The Straits Times, a Singapore daily, reported that Chinese officials
> have assured Vietnam that the postings do not reflect Beijing's official
> position.
>
>
>
> The web postings come as China and Vietnam are squaring off over
> exploration projects in the South China Sea in areas that both claim. In
> July, Beijing had warned the American oil giant ExxonMobil to scrap an
> exploration deal with Vietnam, reported the World Tribune. The report
> suggested that Vietnam had a better case for its claim to potentially
> oil-rich fields off its coast. But China is flexing its growing
> political muscle by asserting its claim to nearly the entire South China
> Sea.
>
>
>
>     A Hong Kong newspaper says Beijing's diplomats have threatened
> retaliation if ExxonMobil goes ahead with a preliminary agreement with
> the Vietnamese state oil firm PetroVietnam. The deal covers exploitation
> in the South China Sea off Vietnam's south and central coasts, according
> to the Sunday Morning Post....
>
>
>
>     The Hong Kong newspaper quoted unidentified sources saying Exxon
> Mobil was confident of Vietnam's sovereign rights to the blocks it was
> now seeking to explore. But it is clear that ExxonMobil could not
> dismiss China's warnings out of hand given the rapidly increasing
> Chinese market for crude oil and oil products....
>
>
>
>     Last year, Chinese media targeted an agreement between Vietnam and
> BP near the Spratlys maintaining that those islands had been an
> "indisputable part of Chinese territory since ancient times." The
> Spratlys, like other island groups in the region, are uninhabited rocky
> outcroppings and coral but are in an area that may contain large oil and
> gas deposits.
>
>
>
> Reuters reported that China and Vietnam are actually cooperating in oil
> and gas exploration in the Gulf of Tonkin off Vietnam's north coast. But
> in waters further south, the two sides are at odds. The territorial
> dispute in southern waters led British oil giant BP to scotch its plans
> for exploration there.
>
>
>
> Once united by their communist ideology, relations between Vietnam and
> China cooled in the 1970s, particularly when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in
> late 1978 to oust the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime. Partly in
> retaliation, China invaded Vietnam a few months later, as detailed by
> Global Security. The two sides fought a nasty one-month border war that
> left tens of thousands dead before Beijing retreated. Border clashes
> continued throughout the 1980s.
>
>
>
> That history helps explain Vietnam's sensitivity to public "invasion
> plans" on Chinese websites, no matter how bogus they might be.
>
>
>
> In the past two decades, relations have warmed as both countries moved
> ahead with pragmatic market reforms, despite several ongoing territorial
> disputes. In addition to the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South
> China Sea, the countries are also battling for influence over
> neighboring, resource-rich Laos. A commentary in the Asia Times argued
> that Laos is likely to increasingly tilt toward China, despite the
> landlocked country's historically close ties to Vietnam.
>
>
>
>     Laos is of increasing strategic importance to both China and
> Vietnam, two of Asia's fastest growing countries. Vietnam's interests
> lie primarily in securing its long land border with Laos and developing
> greater access to markets in Thailand. For China, Laos provides a
> growing avenue to export products to wider Southeast Asia, particularly
> from its remote and less-developed, landlocked southwestern regions....
>
>
>
>     Some analysts here predict that the balance of influence inside the
> ruling Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) could soon shift in
> Beijing's favor, as senior Lao leaders fade from the political scene and
> younger, more market-savvy cadre lacking experience in the communist
> revolutionary period assume positions of power.
>
>
>
> http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0909/p99s01-duts.html
>
>
>
> http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df64691...
>
>