From Xinhua
BEIJING — Shutting out third parties, which mostly meddle for their own gains, ending the oil rig tension in the South China Sea will come down to how China and Vietnam perceive each other.
A Vietnamese fishboat is chased by a Chinese Maritime Police Bureau ships near the disputed Paracel Islands near the disputed Paracel Islands on May 27, 2014 in At Sea. Dozens of Vietnamese and Chinese vessels square off near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)
Like a personal relationship, the closer two countries are, the more complicated their relations will be.
China and Vietnam go way back, overlapping history mixed with friendship and fallings-out. Now though, Vietnam’s repeated provocation against a Chinese oil company’s normal operation near the Xisha Islands has created the tensest situation between the two countries in the past few years.
What has happened can not be changed but what the two countries do from now on will not only affect their bilateral ties but also regional stability and security.
China has made it quite clear what it will do.
At the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Shanghai last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping promoted a common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security strategy for Asia.
This approach was reiterated at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last week.
From a perspective of a zero-sum game, Vietnam surely needs to worry about an increasingly stronger and bigger neighbor like China.
However, this is not the game China is going to play. President Xi called it a Cold War mentality.
Read the full story from Xinhua.
