Vietnam

Russia’s Asia “Pivot” with Focus on Energy

By DavidDayChina, Economic Development, Economic Security/Development, Energy, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, International Business, Intl Business in Asia, Japan, Korean Peninsula, Middle East, North Korea, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear, Oil & Gas, Our Media, PRC/China, Regional Security/Flashpoints, Russia, South Korea, Syria, Vietnam

In this broadcast,“Asia-in- Review” Host Hong Jiang explores Russia’s recent foreign policy and geopolitical shifts into Asia followed by its fascinating energy moves into the Region with international business lawyer & professor, David Day.

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The program starts with the recent Russian foreign policy moves into the Middle East after the U.S. Syria debacle, followed by the new Russian military arms sales to Egypt, and some discussion of Russia’s client nuclear state, Iran. The Russian geopolitical moves into Asia are next, as Hong Jiang discusses with Mr. Day, Putin’s recent trip to Vietnam, along with Russia’s (1) Kilo class submarine sales to Vietnam,(2) mutual defense pact, and then (3), new joint venture operations between Vietnam’s PetroVietnam and Russian energy companies for joint oil & gas exploration efforts in both the South China (“East Sea” in Vietnam) and the Artic Seas.

Next, the conversation turns to the critical and fascinating energy “pivot” that Russia is now engaged in, shifting its focus from its former European gas and oil pipeline customers to new pipeline developments with Japan, South Korea, and yes, even North Korea.

Russia’s foreign policy regarding The Korean Peninsula is also probed.

November 28, 2013

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China’s Confrontation in the Yellow Sea — Part of a Broader Strategy?

By DavidDayAll Southeast Asia, Articles, Blog, China, China, Energy, Energy, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Resource management/Extraction, Vietnam, Vietnam

China’s Confrontation in the Yellow Sea — Part of a Broader Strategy?

May 6, 2009 by davidfday

This most recent PRC interference with a U.S. Navy ship in the Yellow sea these past few days appears consistent with an ongoing, stepped-up PRC policy looking towards an expansion of its territorial claims well into international waters. To be sure, China’s territorial waters claims are not new, it is just that we are now seeing more aggressive and confrontational action on the part of the PRC. This most recent China/U.S. naval confrontation in the Yellow Sea follows last month’s nearly mirror-image confrontations of the U.S. Impeccable in the South China sea. These events bear careful watching as they pose the risk of misunderstanding, miscalculation and injury not only to the U.S. and China, but to competing territorial claimants in the Region as well as international maritime players.

Complicating this picture, we need to be mindful that Hanoi, having finally resolved a 30-year northern border dispute with China, is beginning now to focus on its age-old dispute with China over the South China sea’s Paracel and Spratley Islands. While, to be sure there are other national interests claimed over these islands, the Vietnamese are the most likely to pose intense resistance to China’s claims in the South China Sea.

August 19, 2013

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Gulf of Tonkin: The Record Set Straight…Finally

By DavidDayAll Southeast Asia, Critical National / Regional Security Issues, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Military, Our Media, Pacific Forum CSIS, Vietnam

The Gulf of Tonkin incident in early August of 1964 is a key point in American History. It is the flash of armed conflict that formally brought the United States into the Vietnam War (or, “American War” as the Vietnamese call it) through the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The actual history of this incident got all entangled in the politics of the time and resulted in a conventional wisdom/urban myth (check out the Wikipedia version here) which is 180 degrees from the actual facts.

In this program, Admiral Lloyd “Joe” Vasey, who investigated the incident contemporaneously, now sets the record straight. Interviewed by David Day, this is the very same Admiral Vasey that served as a junior officer to John McCain, Sr (Senator McCain’s father) during WW II and is the founder of the distinguished foreign policy thinktank in the Asia-Pacific Region, Pacific Forum, CSIS.

At the time this program was recorded, Admiral Vasey was 95 years old.

There were 2 U.S. destroyers involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The first, the USS Maddox was fired upon on August 2, 1964. There was no dispute that the Maddox was engaged on August 2. There was a bullet hole in the ship to prove it. Because the Maddox carried sensitive and classified electronic equipment onboard, the USS Turner Joy was immediately dispatched to defend the Maddox and got between the Maddox and the incoming North Vietnamese patrol craft as its “shield.” It is the August 4 attacks on the Turner Joy that have been disputed by history. Admiral Vasey corrects the twisted history here.

Admiral Vasey wrote an extensive article in the August, 2010 issue of Proceedings, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland and reprints can be ordered here.

Admiral Vasey was Chief of Staff for Commander Seventh Fleet. Subsequently, he commanded a fleet of destroyers, was Secretary to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and chief strategist for CINCPAC. He served as a submarine officer in the invasion of North Africa and then in the Pacific through World War II.

October 8, 2012

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Yet Another China Foreign Policy Stumble: The South China Sea

By DavidDayAll Southeast Asia, All Southeast Asia, Articles, Blog, China, China, China, Energy, Food Security, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Oil & Gas, Philippines, Regional Security/Flashpoints, Resource management/Extraction, South China Sea Claims, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam

China has had a number of foreign policy gaffes over the past couple of years and its very recent attempt at imposing a fishing ban in the South China Sea (known to the Vietnamese as the “East Sea”) is yet another stumble. Attempting to protect and encourage the replenishment of fishing stock during the spawning season, China announced on May 11, 2011 a fishing ban to run from May 16 through August 1 over an area hotly contested by several South East Asia countries, most notably by Vietnam.

While replenishing the fishing stock may well be a noble ideal, China’s unilateral action is guaranteed to gin up a firey defiance by the Vietnamese, with fishermen ignoring the ban, boat seizures and violent confrontations– all too predictable.

Vietnam has a 1000 mile coastline to protect and its Eastern Sea is an essential part of its defense perimeter that it has, and will continue to jealously protect. China knows this all too well– given its historical battles and scrapes with Vietnam in these same waters over the millennia.

China’s unilateral muscle-flexing in the South China Sea is hardly simply to protect the fishing stock which Vietnam’s marine industry depends upon. China had to know full well that its fishing ban would necessarily force a response from Vietnam and give the PRC an opportunity to reinforce its imprimatur over the disputed waters.

For Vietnam, the Eastern Sea is its “line in the sand.” Vietnamese public opinion will not stand for any moves by China to nip bites out of Vietnamese waters. China knows this but its policymakers blundered ahead anyway.

Defiance by little colorful Vietnamese fishing boats is one thing. China did not anticipate, however, the announcement by the Vietnamese Navy that it now intends to conduct live firing exercises off of Vietnam’s central coast directly into waters affected by the fishing ban.

Such are the perils of unilateralism–especially when you have a little sleeping tiger to the south.

June 11, 2011

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Wording of Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence Subject of Communications between Ho Chi Minh and His American Collegues in the OSS

By DavidDayAll Southeast Asia, Articles, Blog, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam History-related

65 years Ago -While Japan surrendered aboard the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Vietnam Declared Independence with the words of Thomas Jefferson

By David Day September 3, 2010.

Happy 65th Independence Day (September 2, 1945) to all of my Vietnamese friends and colleagues in Vietnam and abroad.

: Ho Chi Minh at the independence day of Democratic Republic of Vietnam, September 2, 1945

Most Americans do not know that it was on this date, as the formal Japanese surrender ceremonies were taking place aboard the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, that Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnam’s independence from colonial rule. He stepped up to a rostrum in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh Square and, carefully borrowing the key portion of the precise text of Thomas Jefferson, delivered the Declaration of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The English translation of this portion Ho’s exact text is as follows:

” ‘All men are created equal. They are endowed by their
Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life,
Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness….’

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration
of Independence of the United States of America m 1776. In
a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are
equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be
happy and free.” (–President Ho Chi Minh).

Most Americans do not know this history. They also do not know that Uncle Ho carefully worked over this portion of his text with his American OSS colleagues by communications with them from a shophouse in Hanoi’s Old Quarter where he worked on the draft Declaration. Some of his OSS colleagues were there in the crowd at Ba Dinh Square when he delivered this famous Declaration of Independence.

Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap (in white suit) with American colleagues in the OSS “Deer Team” at Pac Bo Vietnam in the Summer of 1945

Another interesting pinprick of history here is that elderly people (now) in Hanoi who were on hand to witness Uncle Ho’s Declaration of Independence have told me that during the course of Uncle Ho’s speech, they looked up in the sky above his head and could see the insignia on an American warplane flying overhead (to presumably witness this historic event or to show support).
We were friends with Uncle Ho then and today, he would be pleased that the United States and Vietnam are now friends once again.

Happy 65th Independence Day!

June 23, 2010

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Russia’s Asia “Pivot” with Focus on Energy

China’s Confrontation in the Yellow Sea — Part of a Broader Strategy?

China’s Confrontation in the Yellow Sea — Part of a Broader Strategy?

Gulf of Tonkin: The Record Set Straight…Finally

Yet Another China Foreign Policy Stumble: The South China Sea

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