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Japan offers vessels to Vietnam to boost its sea strength
Thanh Nien News ^ | 1 August 2014 | Thanh Nien News

Posted on 08/11/2014 9:49:19 AM PDT by Army Air Corps

Japan will give six navy boats to Vietnam to boost its patrols and surveillance in the East Sea (aka South China Sea), Japan's foreign minister said on Friday, in the latest sign of a strengthening of alliances between states locked in maritime rows with China.

The used vessels, worth 500 million yen (US$4.86 million), would be accompanied by training and equipment to help the coastguard and fisheries surveillance effort, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after talks with Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh.

The deal represents a notable shift in the two countries' close diplomatic and investment ties towards defense, a move likely to irk an increasingly assertive China that is pressing hard on claims to nine-tenths of the potentially energy-rich sea, and worrying much of the region.

"Japan's actions are understandable, since all claimant countries suffer from Chinese assertiveness," Yun Sun, a China security policy expert with the Stimson Center, a Washington-based think tank, told Thanh Nien News.

"But then certainly, such 'alignment' of positions is perceived as hostility by China," she said.

Kishada told a news conference in Hanoi.on Friday that international security is getting more "complicated."

"Prosperity only comes with stability in the South China Sea and the East China Sea," he said. "I hope this equipment will strengthen the ability of Vietnam's coastal enforcement authorities."

Vietnam enjoys tight business ties with Japan, its biggest investor, but relations with Hanoi's largest trade partner, China, are at their worst in three decades.

Beijing's May 2 deployment of a drilling rig in waters Vietnam's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone lit the fuse on simmering anti-China sentiment in Vietnam, worsened by accusations that the southeast Asian country's fishing boats were deliberately rammed by Chinese vessels.

(Excerpt) Read more at thanhniennews.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Japan
KEYWORDS: china; japan; vietnam

1 posted on 08/11/2014 9:49:19 AM PDT by Army Air Corps
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To: Army Air Corps

“...”Japan’s actions are understandable, ....”

58,195 names on a wall in DC might disagree with Japan... if they were able to speak up.


2 posted on 08/11/2014 9:56:15 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: NFHale

The two nations are moving forward to counter the PRC. Fighting China is one of the few things that unifies the Vietnamese.


3 posted on 08/11/2014 10:00:08 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Army Air Corps

“...to counter the PRC...”

Yeah... I guess I understand that.

Something about working with communists just bugs the crap out of me. Especially after so many of our people died. And Japan is an ally of ours.. I guess one could make the same comparison with us and Japan, re WWII...


4 posted on 08/11/2014 10:02:52 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: NFHale
58,195 names on a wall in DC might disagree with Japan... if they were able to speak up.

Between WWI and WWII, we lost 400K men mostly fighting the Germans, who also slaughtered over 10m non-combatants. We got over that. We also lost 100K men to the Japanese during WWII, which featured events like the Bataan Death March, and the vivisection of captured American bomber crews in Japan. We can get over a war during which we burned the country down and killed over a million of their young men in combat.

5 posted on 08/11/2014 10:03:29 AM PDT by Zhang Fei (Let us pray that peace be now restored to the world and that God will preserve it always.)
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To: Army Air Corps

I am no fan of Vietnam, not even now - or maybe better not yet until...........

But, Japan has been doing, peacefully, what its militarist imperialists were trying to do by force all of the first half of the last century - build and all Asian co-prosperity sphere. The problem was that Japan of the first half of the last century was trying to do it all by force of arms.

The time since then has shown Japan that it CAN play a major role in such an all Asia co-prosperity sphere, doing so based on mutual and free trade, without insisting it be part of a Japanese empire.

Now China is behaving as if it wants to be the “new Japan of the WWII era”, and Japan may wind up being the beneficiary as it continues to prove its peaceful cooperation with Asian partners can lead to strengthening security interests, not selfishly for Japan but mutually for partners who share the same concerns, as many Asian nations do about China now.


6 posted on 08/11/2014 10:05:49 AM PDT by Wuli
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To: NFHale

Today the Communists in Vietnam are old farts who are just clinging to power in their dying days, their days are numbered.


7 posted on 08/11/2014 10:06:47 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: Army Air Corps

very small boats apparently


8 posted on 08/11/2014 10:08:08 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: dfwgator

Bingo. Over half the population was born after 1975.


9 posted on 08/11/2014 10:10:46 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Zhang Fei

I understand what your saying. But it just doesn’t sit right with me.

“...We can get over a war during which we burned the country down and killed over a million of their young men in combat...”

Some people, who lost family there, can’t.


10 posted on 08/11/2014 10:12:56 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: GeronL

Regardless of the size of the craft, this action is pretty much guaranteed to anger the PRC.


11 posted on 08/11/2014 10:14:12 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: dfwgator

They’re still communists. Their days SHOULD be numbered.

I hear you... it just rankles me.

It’s Monday, and I’m grumpy...


12 posted on 08/11/2014 10:15:23 AM PDT by NFHale (The Second Amendment - By Any Means Necessary.)
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To: Army Air Corps
this action is pretty much guaranteed to anger the PRC.

ChiComs rival Muslims in always being outraged at something.

13 posted on 08/11/2014 10:15:59 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: ThanhPhero

Ping.


14 posted on 08/11/2014 10:24:50 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: Army Air Corps
Honest Abe's Pre-Owned Naval Vessels!

Coming soon - Honest Abe's Pre-Owned Drones, Air Defense Systems and ABM systems! Unbelievably low prices for countries threatened by China!

15 posted on 08/11/2014 12:06:37 PM PDT by Thud
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To: NFHale

There are few actual communists in Viet Nam. It is more like a Mafia government. The Vietnamese look up to America. Viet Nam is getting rich following the American example - at least the example of a generation or two ago. Viet Nam would really like to have American protection against China. Clinton and Bush understood that America needs Viet Nam as a bulwark against China. Viet Nam’s communism, even if sincere, is no more than authoritarianism without the USSR to back it up. The USSR isn’t there anymore. China is and China is Viet Nam’s deadly enemy even as China strives to rise to the level of being America’s deadly enemy.


16 posted on 08/13/2014 6:27:42 PM PDT by ThanhPhero (Khach san La Vang hanh huong tham vieng Maria)
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To: NFHale

So how do you feel about Germany? Should we have refused aid to Germany after WWII?


17 posted on 08/13/2014 6:28:49 PM PDT by ThanhPhero (Khach san La Vang hanh huong tham vieng Maria)
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