QUOTE
Excerpt from report by Hong Kong newspaper South China Morning Post website on 5 September
["Vietnam Protests Over Chinese 'Invasion Plans'"; headline as provided by source]
Vietnam has formally protested to China over so-called "invasion plans" appearing on mainland websites that purport to detail the complete military occupation of the country by China.
Hanoi has twice summoned senior Chinese diplomats to voice its concerns over the material which, while unsourced and apparently unofficial, has alarmed diplomatic and military elites in the Vietnamese capital after appearing repeatedly over the past month.
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 centres is mentioned, along with the blocking of sea lanes in the South China Sea.
"Vietnam... is a major threat to the safety of Chinese territories, and the biggest obstacle to the peaceful emergence of China," the plans posted on Sina.com and at least three other websites say.
"Also, 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.
"From all perspectives, Vietnam is a piece of bone hard to be swallowed."
In a statement to the South China Morning Post, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung confirmed Beijing officials had been asked "to act so that such negative articles will not appear again since these may be harmful to... bilateral relations".
"This is irrelevant information which goes against the trend of peace, friendship and cooperation for development in the region and the world and is not in the interests of the fine relationship existing between Vietnam and China," Mr Dung said.
He added that China acknowledged Vietnam's request and "stated that the... article did not reflect the position of the government of China".
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing, meanwhile, said the "different voices" on the internet represented individual acts "by only a handful of people, which by no means represented China's stance".
"The Chinese government attaches importance to the development of Sino-Vietnamese relations and is actively committed to strengthening publicity of the Sino-Vietnamese friendship," he said.
Vietnamese government sources said they were perplexed that articles remained online, as they believed China actively policed the content of mainland sites.
Many officials believe the articles may have been sparked by rising tensions over the disputed South China Sea, where Beijing has recently been trying to pressure international oil firms into pulling out of their exploration contracts with Vietnam.
The Post reported in July that Chinese envoys had warned ExxonMobil -the world's largest oil firm -that its future mainland business could be at risk unless it pulled out of deals in Vietnam's southern and central oil fields. ExxonMobil executives say Vietnam's legal position is strong.
Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based military expert, described the internet-based plans, one of which was subtitled "One battle to set the region in order", as a joke.
"It is, at most, a game by a few military amateurs and it has no military value at all," he said. [passage omitted]
Carl Thayer, a veteran Vietnamese military analyst at the Australian National University, said it was unthinkable that China would consider such an invasion in the modern regional context, but he warned that the case highlighted the potential for "extreme nationalism" on both sides. [passage omitted]
China is Vietnam's biggest source of imports and both governments have worked to rebuild ties in recent years, despite lingering tensions after the brief but bloody border conflict of 1979.
As well as deepening fraternal ties between communist party leaders, both sides have made progress in solving disputes over the 1,400km land border and the Gulf of Tonkin. Rival claims to the potentially oil-rich grounds beneath the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea remain a key point of friction, however.
Originally published by South China Morning Post website, Hong Kong, in English 5 Sep 08.
© 2008 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
["Vietnam Protests Over Chinese 'Invasion Plans'"; headline as provided by source]
Vietnam has formally protested to China over so-called "invasion plans" appearing on mainland websites that purport to detail the complete military occupation of the country by China.
Hanoi has twice summoned senior Chinese diplomats to voice its concerns over the material which, while unsourced and apparently unofficial, has alarmed diplomatic and military elites in the Vietnamese capital after appearing repeatedly over the past month.
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 centres is mentioned, along with the blocking of sea lanes in the South China Sea.
"Vietnam... is a major threat to the safety of Chinese territories, and the biggest obstacle to the peaceful emergence of China," the plans posted on Sina.com and at least three other websites say.
"Also, 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.
"From all perspectives, Vietnam is a piece of bone hard to be swallowed."
In a statement to the South China Morning Post, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung confirmed Beijing officials had been asked "to act so that such negative articles will not appear again since these may be harmful to... bilateral relations".
"This is irrelevant information which goes against the trend of peace, friendship and cooperation for development in the region and the world and is not in the interests of the fine relationship existing between Vietnam and China," Mr Dung said.
He added that China acknowledged Vietnam's request and "stated that the... article did not reflect the position of the government of China".
A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing, meanwhile, said the "different voices" on the internet represented individual acts "by only a handful of people, which by no means represented China's stance".
"The Chinese government attaches importance to the development of Sino-Vietnamese relations and is actively committed to strengthening publicity of the Sino-Vietnamese friendship," he said.
Vietnamese government sources said they were perplexed that articles remained online, as they believed China actively policed the content of mainland sites.
Many officials believe the articles may have been sparked by rising tensions over the disputed South China Sea, where Beijing has recently been trying to pressure international oil firms into pulling out of their exploration contracts with Vietnam.
The Post reported in July that Chinese envoys had warned ExxonMobil -the world's largest oil firm -that its future mainland business could be at risk unless it pulled out of deals in Vietnam's southern and central oil fields. ExxonMobil executives say Vietnam's legal position is strong.
Song Xiaojun, a Beijing-based military expert, described the internet-based plans, one of which was subtitled "One battle to set the region in order", as a joke.
"It is, at most, a game by a few military amateurs and it has no military value at all," he said. [passage omitted]
Carl Thayer, a veteran Vietnamese military analyst at the Australian National University, said it was unthinkable that China would consider such an invasion in the modern regional context, but he warned that the case highlighted the potential for "extreme nationalism" on both sides. [passage omitted]
China is Vietnam's biggest source of imports and both governments have worked to rebuild ties in recent years, despite lingering tensions after the brief but bloody border conflict of 1979.
As well as deepening fraternal ties between communist party leaders, both sides have made progress in solving disputes over the 1,400km land border and the Gulf of Tonkin. Rival claims to the potentially oil-rich grounds beneath the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea remain a key point of friction, however.
Originally published by South China Morning Post website, Hong Kong, in English 5 Sep 08.
© 2008 BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1545...inese_websites/
Those water around Vietnam become hot now
