Binh Minh News

Vietnam's foreign minister has asked his Indonesian counterpart to investigate and clarify reports that the Indonesian navy shot and wounded two Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea, the foreign ministry said on Friday. Pham Binh Minh told Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi by telephone that the reported incident was "very serious ... and not appropriate with the strategic partnership relationship between Vietnam and Indonesia," the Vietnamese foreign ministry said in a statement. "Vietnam is deeply concerned about this incident and proposes Indonesia to quickly investigate and clarify the incident and inform Vietnam of the results and to stop repeating similar acts," Minh was quoting as saying.

Vietnam has extended an Indian oil concession in the South China Sea and begun drilling in another area it disputes with China in moves that could heighten tensions over who owns what in the vital maritime region. The moves come at a delicate time in Beijing's relations with Vietnam, which claims parts of the sea, and India, which recently sent warships to monitor the Malacca Straits, through which most of China's energy supplies and trade passes. Vietnam granted Indian oil firm ONGC Videsh a two-year extension to explore oil block 128 in a letter that arrived earlier this week, the state-run company's managing director Narendra K. Verma told Reuters.

Vietnam has approved a foreign consortium's plan to invest around $315 million in a seaport and industrial zone complex in northern Quang Ninh province, the government said on Saturday. The licence was handed on Friday to the consortium including CDC International Corp from Cayman Island, Asia Infrastructure Development Co from Hong Kong and Singapore's Tien Ich Trung Dong Co, said in a report on the government's website. Construction is slated to start next year with full completion in 2036, it said. While the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, with Vietnam one of the 12 signatory nations, looks uncertain after the U.S. presidential election, the Southeast Asian nation is still receiving record foreign investment due to its numerous trade accords, cheap labour and relative stability.

Vietnam welcomed a ruling by an international arbitration court concerning the South China Sea on Tuesday, saying it strongly supports peaceful resolution of disputes, while reasserting its own sovereignty claims. "Vietnam welcomes the arbitration court issuing its final ruling," foreign ministry spokesman, Le Hai Binh, said in a statement. The ministry said it would issue a more detailed comment on the content of the ruling at a later time and reasserted Vietnam's claim of sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly island, and its jurisdiction over its Exclusive Economic Zone.

Vietnam has asked Japan to provide vessels to strengthen its coastguard, a Japanese official said on Thursday, in the latest sign of growing ties among the states locked in maritime rows with China. The request emerged during talks between visiting Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, a Japanese spokesman said. "Vietnam wants new vessels," Masato Otaka told reporters, adding that timing, methods of delivery, costs and quantity of vessels had not yet been decided. Vietnam has been modernising its military, and recently bought six advanced Kilo-class submarines from Russia. Russia and India are the main source of advanced weapons, training and intelligence cooperation.

China has been building artificial islands on reefs in the many disputed areas around the South China Sea. The unprecedented land reclamation currently being conducted by China is increasing tensions with the U.S. and its allies, according to Pacific Fleet Commander Harry Harris. The land reclamation by China in contested islands of the South China Sea is raising serious questions over whether Beijing intends confrontation or cooperation with other regional powers, according to The Wall Street Journal. Nations in the region are furious, and international business is worried that these new islands dominate major shipping lanes. This new phase of the long conflict between China…

China and Vietnam agreed on Monday to use an existing border dispute mechanism to find a solution to a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, saying they did not want it to affect relations. The two countries have sought to patch up ties since their long-running row erupted in May, triggered by China's deployment a drilling rig in waters claimed by the communist neighbours, which lead to confrontation at sea between rival vessels and violent anti-Chinese protests in Vietnam. After a meeting between China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, and Vietnam Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh in Hanoi, China's foreign ministry said they had agreed to "appropriately handle the maritime problem".

China's top diplomat will visit Vietnam next week, China said on Friday, five months after he last visited during a period of tension over a Chinese oil drilling rig working in part of the South China Sea both countries claim. State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister, will arrive in Vietnam on Monday for meetings with Vietnam Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh, China's foreign ministry said in a statement. The two would discuss "Sino-Vietnam bilateral cooperation", the ministry said. It did not elaborate.

China's top diplomat scolded Vietnamese officials during talks in Hanoi on Wednesday for "hyping up" a row over a Chinese oil rig drilling in disputed waters in the South China Sea, in tough comments that suggest relations will remain rocky. State Councilor Yang Jiechi also told his hosts that the rig's activities in waters also claimed by Vietnam were "completely legal", China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a daily briefing in Beijing. Yang, who outranks the country's foreign minister, made the remarks in a meeting with Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh. Before the visit, experts had said many obstacles remained to resolving one of the worst breakdowns in Sino-Vietnamese relations since the neighbours fought a brief war in 1979.

Vietnam said on Wednesday a Chinese oil rig at the center of an increasingly bitter territorial dispute appeared to be on the move again, as China denied Vietnamese accusations that it had sent warships to the scene. The rig's deployment triggered anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month that killed at least four workers. Scores of Vietnamese and Chinese ships, including coastguard vessels, have squared off around the rig despite a series of collisions after the platform was towed to the area in early May. In a statement, Vietnam's Directorate of Fisheries said the rig had shown signs of moving towards the east and southeast. China had 119 vessels in the rig's operating area, it added, including six naval ships and four circling military aircraft.

Vietnam says will "resolutely defend its sovereignty." China says Vietnam making "irresponsible accusations" against it; Philippines submitted arbitration case against China in March. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said his government was considering various "defence options" against China, including legal action, following the deployment of a Chinese oil rig to waters in the South China Sea that Hanoi also claims. Dung's comments, given in a written response to questions from Reuters, were the first time he has suggested Vietnam would take legal measures, and drew an angry response from China, which insisted the rig was in its sovereign waters.

Vietnam flooded major cities with police to avert anti-China protests on Sunday in the wake of rare and deadly rioting in industrial parks that deepened a tense standoff with Beijing over sovereignty in the South China Sea. China has evacuated more than 3,000 nationals following the attacks on Chinese workers and Chinese-owned businesses last week, and Beijing had sent five ships on Sunday to bring more people home, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Several arrests were made in the capital Hanoi and commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City within minutes of groups trying to start protests, according to witnesses, as Vietnam's communist rulers stuck to their vow to thwart any repeat of last week's violence in three provinces in the south and centre.

As a thousand Vietnamese rioters stormed his factory on Tuesday night, smashing windows and ripping down Chinese-language signs, Taiwanese executive Henry Yeh hid with a colleague in the back of a fire truck, clutching the only weapon he could find: a golf club. "With that many people surrounding us, it was useless. I was afraid they would kill us," said Yeh, 27, who works for a Taiwan textile company at an industrial park in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City. Yeh and his colleague eventually escaped unscathed. Others were not so fortunate. What started as heated but peaceful nationwide protests against Chinese oil-drilling in a patch of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam exploded into two days of rioting that left hundreds of Chinese, Taiwanese and Korean factories damaged or destroyed.

China 's Foreign minister condemned Vietnam in an Urgent Phone Call with the Southeast Asian Country's Deputy Prime minister over Anti-Chinese protests that have killed up to 21 people, the Official Xinhua News Agency reported on Friday. Foreign Minister Wang Yi told Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh in the Call on Thursday night that " Vietnam bears unshirkable Responsibility for the violent attacks against Chinese companies and nationals ", Said the report. China Also sent a working group, led by Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Jianchao , toVietnam on Thursday to Deal with the Aftermath of the Riots, Xinhua Said.

Thousands of Vietnamese set fire to factories and rampaged in industrial zones in the south of the country after protests against Chinese oil drilling in a part of the South China Sea claimed by Vietnam, officials said on Wednesday. The brunt appears to have been borne by Taiwanese companies in the zones in Binh Duong and Dong Nai provinces as rioters mistook the firms to be Chinese-owned. Vietnamese officials gave few details, but said gates to factories were smashed and windows were broken. Police said they were investigating. A Singapore foreign ministry spokesman said the premises of a number of foreign companies were broken into and set on fire in the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks (VSIP) I and II in Binh Duong.