Cold War heats up in Asia

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-270514.html



Cold War heats up in Asia
By Peter Lee
May 27, '14

The People's Republic of China decided to defy the "pivot to Asia" by parking its HYSY 981 drilling platform-protected by a flotilla of various vessels perhaps not including PLAN ships- in waters that Vietnam considers part of its economic exclusion zone (EEZ).

Vietnam has been displeased, to put it mildly. It has reached out to the Philippines, indicating that it may support Manila's legal challenge to the nine-dash-line, which Beijing uses to stake its geopolitical claims in the South China Sea, or perhaps institute a legal case of its own.

A Vietnamese deputy prime minister is also visiting Washington at US Secretary of State John Kerry's invitation, apparently to provide optics for an expected US congressional resolution condemning PRC activities in the South China Sea. The visit also raises the specter (for the PRC) of a US return to Cam Ranh Bay, the massive US-built naval base on the southish Vietnamese coast.

Many Western observers believe that the PRC has blundered into the pivot's clever trap, and its aggressive moves are simply driving its neighbors into the welcoming arms of the United States, enabling a more forward military presence for the US around China's borders, and justifying US claims to a central role in the region as security guarantor.