Greedy America: Hollywood Is Paying an ‘Abominable’ Price for China Access

A kid’s movie has turned into a geopolitical nightmare for DreamWorks.
BY BETHANY ALLEN-EBRAHIMIAN 

A scene from "Abominable" taken in a theater and shared by Vietnamese media. 

Hollywood’s China reckoning has come. 

But unlike the NBA’s recent China debacle, this time it’s not the United States but China’s nearest neighbors who’ve had enough.
Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia have all expressed outrage at a map of China that flickers across the screen in a new film released in late September. 

The animated film, Abominable, is a joint production of DreamWorks and Pearl Studios, which is based in Shanghai. 

The map includes China’s infamous “nine-dash line”—the vague, ambiguously marked demarcation line for its territorial claim over most of the Vietnam East Sea.
The dispute points to a new problem for Hollywood as studios move closer to Beijing’s positions. Silence on China is nothing new—but positively pushing the Chinese government’s view of the world is.
Hollywood’s traditional self-censorship on China has market roots. 

China’s burgeoning market of movie-goers is expected to soon surpass the United States as the largest in the world. 

China’s censors have wielded this power adroitly, mandating that production companies abide by the party’s bottom lines in order to earn one of the 34 coveted spots allotted to foreign films for distribution in China each year. 

That has resulted in a deafening silence from Hollywood on the realities of Chinese Communist Party rule.
In the 1990s, several Hollywood films depicted oppression in Tibet, such as Seven Years in Tibet and Red Corner, and the Tibetan cause was popular among celebrities, most notably Richard Gere. 

But there hasn’t been a major film sympathetic towards Tibet since Disney’s 1997 film Kundun, for which Disney CEO Michael Eisner flew to Beijing to apologize to the Chinese leadership. 

Gere claims he has been frozen out of major films for his Tibet activism. 

The 2013 zombie movie World War Z altered the location of the origin of the zombie outbreak from China to North Korea. 

The 2016 film Doctor Strange changed the “Ancient One,” a Tibetan character in the original comic book series, to a white character played by Tilda Swinton. 

In the past decade, no major film has portrayed China as a military foe of the United States.
Omitting offending plot lines and characters was once enough to satisfy Chinese censors. 

But pressure has grown to include proactively positive depictions, particularly of Chinese science and military capabilities.
O. In the 2014 film Transformers: Age of Extinction, the Chinese military swoops in to save the day. One film critic described Age of Extinction as “a very patriotic film. It’s just Chinese patriotism on the screen, not American.” 

The payoff was enormous; Age of Extinction became the highest-grossing film of all time in China, raking in more than $300 million. (It no longer holds that record.) 

China saved the day again in The Martian, the 2015 science fiction film starring Matt Damon. 

NASA launches a special rocket carrying food for an astronaut stranded alone on Mars, but it explodes and NASA is out of options—until China’s space agency jumps into the plot out of nowhere, announcing it also has a special rocket it is willing to lend the Americans. (In fairness, the subplot was present in the original novel, not just introduced by the studio.) 

The Martian brought in $95 million at the Chinese box office.
The growing phenomenon of U.S.-China joint movie productions has also resulted in a proliferation of mediocre films that cast China in a conspicuously positive light. 

The 2018 B-grade shark flick The Meg, co-starring Chinese actor Li Bingbing, was one such coproduction. 

It features an American billionaire who finances a futuristic ocean research station located, in a narrative non sequitur, off the coast of China, run by brilliant and heroic Chinese protagonists.
Abominable appears to be another. 

It features a young Chinese girl who discovers a yeti on her roof. 

She decides to help the yeti find his way back home to the snowy mountains in the west, and they set off on a trek across China. 

It has gotten middling reviews: One critic wrote that the film is “so distinctive pictorially, and so manifestly good-hearted, that it’s easy to forgive if not quite forget the ragged quality of its storyline.”
But the Chinese government’s heavy-handed film regulation department seems to have gone a bridge too far. 

One scene in the movie includes a map of China on the young female protagonist’s wall. 

Nine slim dashes trace a U-shape around the Vietnam East Sea, a resource-rich body of water with numerous land features also claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Brunei.
China is the only country that recognizes this fallacious map. 

The nine-dash line has no basis in international law, which does not recognize any country’s sovereignty over open waters. 

In 2016, an international tribunal in the Hague also rejected China’s assertions of sovereignty over the Vietnam East Sea. 

Beijing has never clarified the line’s legal definition or even its precise location, likely because to do so would open its vague claims up to further legal challenge.
These issues will come into sharper focus as Beijing begins to demand positive submission, not just omission. 

China’s domestic film market has already shifted from censorship to forced inclusion of propaganda. 

Last year, as part of a sweeping reorganization that saw many Chinese Communist Party bureaus absorb the purview of government departments, the party’s propaganda office took over regulation of the film industry. 

The result has been even more heavy-handed censorship and more overtly patriotic content in films. Over the summer, six anticipated blockbusters were axed entirely, and China’s box office slumped.

FONOPs

U.S. warship challenges Chinese illegal claims in South China Sea

BY JESSE JOHNSON

The guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer prepares to refuel at sea with the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in the Pacific Ocean in November 2017

China sent military vessels and aircraft in an attempt to expel a U.S. warship asserting international freedom of navigation rights in the Paracel Islands of the disputed South China Sea on Friday.
The U.S. Navy said in a statement that guided-missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer had conducted a “freedom of navigation operation” (FONOP) without requesting permission from Beijing — or from Hanoi or Taipei, which also claim the archipelago.
The FONOP “challenged the restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and also contested China’s claim to straight baselines enclosing the Paracel Islands,” said Cmdr. Reann Mommsen, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet.
Under international law, ships of all states — including their warships — enjoy the right of innocent passage through territorial seas.
Mommsen said that the sailing had also “challenged China’s 1996 declaration of straight baselines encompassing the Paracel Islands.”
Beijing has effectively drawn a line around the entire Paracels archipelago in a bid to claim the entire territory, despite rival claims.
Mommsen noted that international law does not permit continental states like China to establish baselines around entire island groups. 

Using these baselines, China, she said, “has attempted to claim more internal waters, territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf than it is entitled under international law.”

The USS Wayne E. Meyer conducted a similar operation last month, sailing within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of the contested Fiery Cross and Mischief Reefs, two Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea.
That sailing came just days after the Pentagon issued a strong statement that accused Beijing of employing bullying tactics in the waterway, citing what it said was “coercive interference” in oil and gas activities in waters claimed by Vietnam.
Beijing claims much of the South China Sea, though the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims in the waters, where the Chinese, U.S., Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies routinely operate.
Neither Japan nor the U.S. have claims in the waters, but both allies have routinely stated their commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific.”
“U.S. forces routinely conduct freedom of navigation assertions throughout the world, including in the South China Sea, as a routine part of daily operations,” Mommsen said.
“The Freedom of Navigation Program’s missions are conducted peacefully and without bias for or against any particular country,” she added.
Washington has lambasted Beijing for its moves in the waterway, including the construction of man-made islands — such as those in the Paracel chain and further south in the Spratlys — some of which are home to military-grade airfields and advanced weaponry.
The U.S. fears the outposts could be used to restrict free movement in the waterway, which includes vital sea lanes through which about $3 trillion in global trade passes each year. 

The U.S. military regularly conducts FONOPs in the area.
Beijing says it has deployed the advanced weaponry to the islets for defensive purposes, but experts say this is part of a concerted bid to cement de facto control of the waters.
In a defense white paper released for the first time in years in July, China highlighted a new emphasis on “combat readiness and military training in real combat conditions” and China’s new war-fighting capabilities in the Western Pacific and South China Sea.
Beijing, the white paper said, “has organized naval parades in the South China Sea” and “conducted a series of live force-on-force exercises” while its air force “has conducted combat patrols in the South China Sea and security patrols in the East China Sea, and operated in the West Pacific.”

Chinese ship inches closer to Vietnam coastline amid South China Sea tensions

By Khanh Vu

HANOI -- A Chinese survey vessel on Saturday extended its activities to an area closer to Vietnam’s coastline, ship tracking data showed, after the United States and Australia expressed concern about China’s actions in the disputed waterways.
The Haiyang Dizhi 8 vessel first entered Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) early last month where it began a weeks-long seismic survey, triggering a tense standoff between military and coastguard vessels from Vietnam and China.
The Chinese vessel continued to survey Vietnam’s EEZ on Saturday under escort from at least four ships and was around 102 kilometers (63 miles) southeast of Vietnam’s Phu Quy island and 185 kilometers (115 miles) from the beaches of the southern city of Phan Thiet, according to data from Marine Traffic, a website that tracks vessel movements.
The Chinese vessel group was followed by at least two Vietnamese naval vessels, according to the data.
Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.
A country’s EEZ typically extends up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers or 230 miles) from its coastline, according to an international UN treaty. 

That country has sovereign rights to exploit any natural resources within that area, according to the agreement.
Vietnam and China have for years been embroiled in a dispute over the potentially energy-rich stretch of waters and a busy shipping lane in the South China Sea.
China’s unilaterally declared “nine-dash line” marks a vast, U-shaped, expanse of the South China Sea that it claims, including large swathes of Vietnam’s continental shelf where it has awarded oil concessions.
On Friday, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and his Australian counterpart expressed their concern about China’s activities in the South China Sea, known in Vietnam as the East Sea.
Earlier in the week, the United States said it was deeply concerned about China’s interference in oil and gas activities in waters claimed by Vietnam, and that the deployment of the vessels was “an escalation by Beijing in its efforts to intimidate other claimants out of developing resources in the South China Sea”

Vietnam Won the U.S.-China Trade War But Is Now in Trouble Itself

The country is benefiting so much from the impasse that it’s at risk of being hit with punitive American duties.

By Xuan Quynh Nguyen and Nguyen Dieu Tu Uyen

Bau Bang in Binh Duong province is one of several industrial parks in Vietnam reporting a surge of interest from foreign manufacturers.

U.S. President Trump’s trade war has Peter Chang scrambling. 

Sixty components makers that supply Foxconn Technology Group and Samsung Electronics Co. have come knocking at his industrial park northeast of Hanoi in the past three months. 

They’re looking to skirt U.S. tariffs on Chinese products. 

“They need to get into Vietnam now—immediately,” says Chang, deputy general director of Shun Far Land Development Co., which operates the Thuan Thanh II Industrial Park, about a 45-minute drive from Hanoi. 

“We have our building team waiting.”
Chang is hastily negotiating with neighboring landowners to convert rice fields into assembly lines to take advantage of the sudden boom in business. 

He realizes, though, that it may not last. 

Even as foreign companies are lining up at Vietnam’s industrial parks, the Trump administration is increasing pressure on the country’s communist leaders to curb its growing trade surplus with the U.S.
Vietnam is caught between contradictory forces unleashed by the U.S.-China trade war: The country of 96 million people is benefiting so much from the impasse that it, too, is at risk of being hit with punitive American duties. 

Its leaders are trying to convince the Trump administration that they’re fair traders as they seek to protect exports to the U.S., which equaled 20% of gross domestic product last year and almost 26% in the first half of 2019.
The country’s young and comparatively cheap labor force, stable government, and business-friendly environment have turned the Southeast Asian nation into an appealing alternative to China. 

Intel Corp. and Samsung were early to spot its promise for manufacturing: Today they employ more than 182,000 workers combined at factories that assemble chipsets and smartphones. 

Makers of sneakers and video game consoles, among others, are looking to shift production to Vietnam in order to evade American tariffs on Chinese goods. 

Nintendo Co. and Sharp Co. are the most recent technology multinationals to announce plans to relocate operations there. 

On Aug. 1, Trump unveiled a new round—10% on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports—to take effect at the start of September.
Vietnam’s government granted investment licenses to more than 1,720 projects in the first six months of the year, up 26% from the same period last year. 

The country expects economic growth in 2019 of as much as 6.8%, among the fastest rates in the world. 

Yet its dependence on exports makes it particularly vulnerable to the surge in protectionism.

Cranes at a construction site at Bau Bang Industrial Park. 

Its annual trade surplus with the U.S. had already been growing at a rapid clip, reaching $40 billion in 2018. 

It totaled $25.3 billion in the first six months of this year, 39% higher than the same period last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. 

The Trump administration has seized on the worsening imbalance as evidence that Chinese companies are funneling made-in-China products through Vietnam to avoid tariffs, a practice known as transshipment. 

In July the U.S. slapped duties of more than 400% on steel imports from Vietnam.
Washington is dialing up the pressure on Hanoi in other ways. 

In May, Vietnam was added to the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of possible currency manipulators, a designation that could result in punitive measures. 

A month later, Trump, in an interview on Fox Business Network, described Vietnam as “almost the single worst abuser of everybody” when asked if he wanted to impose tariffs on the nation. 

“The United States has been clear with Vietnam that it has to take action to reduce the unsustainable trade deficit,” said U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in a written communication with the Senate Finance Committee released on July 29.
The threat of new duties against Vietnamese products is real, says Sian Fenner, a Singapore-based economist at Oxford Economics, noting that the nation’s textile, computer, and seafood exports to the U.S. are especially at risk. 

The Americans’ increasingly hostile rhetoric has some companies rethinking their Vietnam strategy. Eclat Textile Co., a Taiwanese company that manufactures sportswear for Nike Inc. and Lululemon Athletica Inc., says it needs to shift work out of Vietnam to hedge against the possibility of the country getting caught in Trump’s tariff assault.
Unlike China’s response to tariffs, Vietnam’s reaction most likely would be conciliatory for one simple reason: It needs the U.S. much more than the U.S. needs Vietnam. 

The U.S. shipped less than $10 billion worth of goods to Vietnam last year. 

The country says it’s committed to buying more American goods, from Boeing Co. jets to energy products—possibly liquefied natural gas—to help narrow its trade surplus. 

To further placate Trump, Vietnamese leaders could offer to expand market access to its service sectors, such as telecommunications, finance, and insurance, Fenner says.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, meanwhile, has directed officials to increase efforts to crack down on Chinese exporters that are rerouting products through the country. 

Vietnam is willing to engage in regular communications with the U.S. to “promptly resolve any issues that arise,” Nguyen Phuong Tra, Vietnam’s deputy foreign ministry spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement. 

The country’s leaders have been working to diversify its trade relationships, which in time will ease its dependence on the U.S. 

Vietnam has inked more than a dozen free-trade agreements in roughly the past two decades, including a just-signed deal with the European Union that will eliminate almost all customs duties.

Factories at Bau Bang.

Meanwhile, the industrial parks are besieged by companies looking to flee the U.S.’s China tariffs. 

At Bau Bang Industrial Park, north of Saigon, factory walls rise up from land where rows of rubber trees once stood. 

Housing for thousands of workers is being completed, as is a hospital. 

There’s a Taiwanese restaurant nearby. 

One of the enterprise zone’s operators gets visits from about 18 overseas suppliers a week. 

That’s triple the normal rate last year, according to Rose Chang, chief financial officer of DDK Group, which is involved in a joint venture with Warburg Pincus-backed Becamex IDC to operate a 200-acre section of the industrial park that will be home to Taiwanese companies making products such as headphones, baby strollers, and swimming pool and patio furniture.

Workers return to their residences inside Bau Bang Industrial Park.

Kinh Bac City Group, which operates similar parks across the country, has hosted visitors from 90 foreign companies this year that are exploring moves into one of its northern Vietnam industrial parks, says Phan Anh Dung, deputy general director. 

On a recent morning, he was taking a break after meeting with representatives of a Chinese company looking to set up operations in one of the group’s parks, about 45 kilometers (28 miles) from Hanoi. 

GoerTek Inc., an Apple Inc. supplier based in China, has begun construction on a $260 million factory expansion there. 

“I have never seen anything like this before,” Dung says. —

President Trump warns China is 'ripe' for new tariffs and suggests Vietnam could be next

President Trump also attacks Germany and Japan as he set off for the G20 summit in Osaka

The Guardian

President Donald Trump issued stark warnings before departing Washington for the G20 summit in Japan. 

President Donald Trump flew to the G20 summit on Wednesday sounding warnings that China was “ripe” for new tariffs and suggesting that Vietnam, which he called “the single worst abuser of everybody”, could be next.
Air Force One took off on a fiercely hot day from Washington and President Trump seemed to promise heat of his own when he meets leaders of the G20 countries in Japan.

Declaring that he enjoyed a strong hand in the trade war with China, he made clear he’ll be in no mood to give much ground when he holds closely watched talks with Xi Jinping on Saturday.

“China’s economy is going down the tubes – they want to make a deal,” President Trump said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

President Trump has already imposed levies on $200bn of Chinese imports in an effort to force Beijing to adhere to intellectual property laws. 

The president indicated he was also ready to slap tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports, worth more than $300bn.
“You have another $325bn that I haven’t taxed yet – it’s ripe for taxing, for putting tariffs on,” he told Fox.
During Wednesday’s interview, President Trump also hinted he might impose tariffs on Vietnam, describing the country as “the single worst abuser of everybody”.

“A lot of companies are moving to Vietnam, but Vietnam takes advantage of us even worse than China. So there’s a very interesting situation going on there,” President Trump said.

President Trump said that that the China trade tariffs were only hurting China, while the US was benefiting from the situation.
“What is happening is people are moving out of China. Companies are moving out of China, by the way, some are coming back to the United States because they don’t want to pay the tariff,” he said.
President Trump did say that a previous threat to tax remaining trade at 25% could be changed to a less harsh 10%.
The two sides said they were close to a deal before talks broke down in May.
“We were about 90% of the way there,” the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, told CNBC television, adding he was looking forward to the Trump-Xi talks but stressing there would be no deal for “the sake of a deal.”
“I hope the message that we want to hear is that they want to come back to the table,” Mnuchin said.
President Trump’s aggressive attempt to rewrite the rules with China are part of a wider policy of fixing what he says is a system rigged against the United States.
“Almost all countries in this world take tremendous advantage of the United States. It’s unbelievable,” he said in his lengthy interview.
Casting his eye over the wider landscape, President Trump also lashed out at close partners Germany and Japan.

He described Germany – part of the bedrock of the US alliance with western Europe – as “delinquent” for not paying enough to NATO’s budget.
“So Germany is paying Russia billions and billions of dollars for energy, okay,” he said. 

“So they are giving Russia billions of dollars yet we are supposed to protect Germany and Germany is delinquent! Okay?”
President Trump aired a similar complaint about Japan, Washington’s closest ally in Asia and host of the G20 summit, which has been under the protection of a US military umbrella since its defeat in the second world war.
“If Japan is attacked, we will fight World War III. We will go in and protect them with our lives and with our treasure,” he said. 

“But if we’re attacked, Japan doesn’t have to help us. They can watch it on a Sony television.”
Speaking to reporters at the White House, President Trump remained coy on expectations for his meeting at the G20 with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.

President Trump has been criticised for what opponents see as an oddly opaque relationship between the two leaders and he did little to dispel the controversy.
“I’ll have a very good conversation with him,” President Trump told reporters. 

“What I say to him is none of your business.”

Made in Vietnam: US-China tensions spark a manufacturing shift but not without growing pains

• Companies are starting to question whether it’s time to shift production out of China due to the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.
• Many firms are already making the move to other countries, with Vietnam as a major beneficiary of tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

By Jessica Bursztynsky

Multinational companies are starting to question whether it’s time to shift production out of China due to the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.
Many firms are already making the move to other countries, with Vietnam as one of the major beneficiaries of tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
President Donald Trump is set to meet with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping at the G-20 summit in Japan later this week, where the two leaders are expected to restart stalled trade talks.
However, if talks were to prove unsuccessful the White House has threatened to place 25% tariffs on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese goods, essentially all remaining imports into the U.S. from China.
Some companies, such as Brooks Running — which is part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway — are not waiting to see if the additional China tariffs will go into effect. 

CEO Jim Weber said back in May that Brooks would be “predominantly in Vietnam by the end of the year.” 

He also said about 8,000 jobs will move there from China.
Such relocation plans raise the question of whether Vietnam can become the new China. 

CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla reports from Hanoi, ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting, with a look at Vietnam’s manufacturing boom and whether it can be sustained.

Vietnamese firms are starting to grow to try to accommodate the influx of companies, mostly apparel and shoe makers.
Textile firm TNG Investment & Trading told Quintanilla that it’s never seen an expansion like this before. 

Last year, the firm hired 3,000 employees, bringing its total to 15,000.
TNG’s Linh Nguyen said it had to build an apartment complex just to accommodate the additional employees. 

“In order to grow the business, it’s more important for us to build a home for the people than actually building a factory.”
The demand for technical skills is growing in Vietnam, and the Vietnamese government has a goal of training 2 million people in vocational schools.
More than 90% of students trained in technical skills, such as welding or making electronics, can get hired, said professor Nguyen Quang Huy. 

He told CNBC that it’s “very easy to get a job, and a lot of companies need more people.”
However, Vietnam still lacks much of the infrastructure that has enabled China to become a manufacturing epicenter.
Ramping up the ability to transfer goods from Vietnamese factories to ports will be key. 

Across the country, railroad lines are sparse compared with China’s, highways are smaller, and it’s still an agrarian economy largely focused on rice.
Vietnam is building a deep-water port that can make transfers easier, but that won’t open for another three years.

Chinese Love Vietnam Property for All the Wrong Reasons

The market for luxury apartments looks a lot like the mainland’s did 10 years ago. Investors lured by the familiar aspects should think again.
By Shuli Ren

A property boom with Chinese characteristics.
Looking for the hottest residential real estate in Asia? 

Go to Saigon. 
Ever since Vietnam allowed foreigners to own apartments in July 2015, its luxury housing sector has been on a tear. 

Three years ago, when local developer Dai Quang Minh launched the first residential complex in the Thu Thiem area – a 657 hectare grassy plot across the Saigon River from the central business district – the going rate was $2,000 to $2,800 per square meter. 

The Metropole, a nearby project slated for June, will likely cost more than twice as much, between $4,500 to $6,500 per square meter.
Last year, luxury home prices soared 17 percent, while the rest of the residential market stayed largely flat, says Dung Duong, a research analyst at CBRE Group Inc., a real estate services firm.
It’s no surprise, then, that most Vietnamese are priced out. 

In 2018, only 23 percent of luxury homes were sold to locals, outpaced by mainland Chinese, CBRE estimates. 

South Koreans and Hong Kong residents followed closely behind.
To the Chinese, Saigon is irresistible. 

As early as 2016, marketing brochures touted the city as Vietnam’s Shanghai, and Thu Thiem as a newer Pudong, the glitzy central business district that rose from abandoned farm land. 

As they see it, Vietnam now is China a decade ago – a politically stable Communist country that can reap riches through exports and a friendly relationship with the U.S.
And for Chinese investors used to sky-high prices at home, Vietnam's luxury apartments seem like a good deal. 

Earlier this year, China Vanke Co., the third largest developer on the mainland, launched a riverside project in Shanghai’s Pudong with units priced at more than $15,000 per square meter, more than double the Metropole project.
There’s a major pitfall to that logic, however. 

Vietnam today looks nothing like China did 10 years ago.
There’s little point to a luxury condo without nearby infrastructure to support it. 

Keppel Land Ltd.’s Estella Heights is a case in point. 

Advertized for its family friendly location – across a busy highway is a residential area full of international schools and small cafes – the apartment complex has beautiful rooftop swimming pools and a children’s play area. 

Yet, right now, there’s no overhead bridge to walk to the school district. 

Plans to start one are hazy at best.
As for that metro every real estate agent is talking about: It’s being delayed – again. 

The city broke ground on its first subway line in 2012, but financial problems, such as ballooning costs and unpaid bills to Japanese contractors, keep coming. 

The finish date was pushed to 2020 from 2017, and even this deadline may not be met. 

Shanghai, in contrast, finished its first metro line on schedule in 1995. 

It’s built a dozen more since.
From a fiscal viewpoint, the comparison is equally stark. 

At 61 percent of GDP, public debt is edging close to its legal cap of 65 percent, giving Hanoi limited means to spend on infrastructure. 

Ten years ago, China had much more flexibility. 

To insulate its economy from the fallout of the financial crisis, Beijing launched a 4 trillion yuan ($586 billion) fiscal stimulus, building roads, metros and railways that transformed Chinese cities into efficient transportation hubs.
Even if Vietnam decided to lift its public debt ceiling, there’s very little wiggle room. 

A dwindling global trade pie puts the nation’s current account surplus at only 2.7 percent of GDP. China, on the other hand, had a surplus of more than 10 percent a decade ago. 

At that point, Shanghai looked like a big construction site; Saigon feels alarmingly quiet right now.
Back in 2006, apartments at riverfront locations in Shanghai’s Pudong district went for roughly $1,800 per square meter. 

In Saigon, you’re paying more for 20-year-old infrastructure. 

This market is getting too heated – and yet 80 percent of all buyers last year said they purchased for investment purposes. 

What gives?
Meanwhile, all of this is bad news for the Vietnamese. 

At this pace of foreign buying, Saigon is looking like it’s being colonized all over again.

Chinese Satellite

Vietnam’s Communist Party Ousts Historian Who Criticized Its China Policy

By Mike Ives

The historian Tran Duc Anh Son said that Vietnam has irrefutable claims to islands in the South China Sea that China claims as its own.

A prominent Vietnamese historian who criticized his government for not doing more to challenge Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea has been ousted from Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party over comments he made on Facebook.
The political purge of Tran Duc Anh Son, an expert on Vietnam’s claims in the South China Sea, is a rare window into how the party handles dissent among its rank-and-file members.
It may also underline the sensitivities around Vietnam’s handling of its relationship with China, its largest trading partner and former imperial occupier.
Vietnam’s state-run news media reported last week that Dr. Son, who is in his early 50s and worked for years at a state-run research institute in the central city of Danang, was expelled for posting "false" information and violating a code that governs party members’ behavior.
“I knew this day would come,” Dr. Son said in an interview over a messaging service.
He closed his Facebook account this week, saying he needed more time to work on book projects and transition to a new job as the director of a publishing house.
Dr. Son said the Facebook comment that got him in the most trouble was a short question he posed last September under a cartoon that obliquely criticized the government.
A character in the cartoon said: “Seventy-three years ago they corralled people to a rally to listen to the Declaration of Independence. Seventy-three years later they forbid people to gather to celebrate Independence Day.”
That was an apparent reference to a famous 1945 speech by Ho Chi Minh in which the Vietnamese dictator declared his country’s independence from France, and an oblique criticism of the Communist Party’s current leaders, who have escalated repression of political dissidents.
Dr. Son said the question he wrote underneath the cartoon — “Is this true?” — prompted a monthslong investigation by Danang’s Communist Party Central Committee.
He said he was also investigated for a Facebook comment — “How have things become this bad?” — that he left under a post featuring two articles in the state-run news media about the country’s education minister.
Even though many Vietnamese have low opinions of the Communist Party, its members generally avoid criticizing it for fear of repercussions that would affect their livelihoods, said Mai Thanh Son, a senior researcher at the state-affiliated Institute of Social Sciences in central Vietnam.
“The expulsion of Tran Duc Anh Son is a thoughtless decision,” he said.
“It’s like releasing a tiger into the forest, and it contributes to stripping away the cowardly face of the ruling apparatus that the party represents.”
In January, a cybersecurity law took effect in Vietnam that requires technology companies with users there to set up offices and store data in the country, and disclose user data to the authorities without a court order.
Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law was meant to let the government better surveil its critics on Facebook, the country’s most popular social media platform.
Facebook declined to comment on the record about Dr. Son’s account.
The Foreign Ministry did not respond to emailed questions about Dr. Son’s expulsion from the party, including whether his criticism of Vietnam’s South China Sea policies had played a role.
Vietnam has clashed repeatedly at sea with China, which claims most of the waterway as its own. Notably, in 2014 a state-owned Chinese oil company towed an oil rig to waters near Danang, provoking a tense maritime standoff and anti-Chinese riots at several Vietnamese industrial parks. The Communist Party fears a repeat of such anti-China-fueled Vietnamese nationalism, because critics question why the government does not take a harder line against Beijing.
Chinese officials and scholars seek to justify Beijing’s claim to sovereignty over South China Sea waters that encircle the disputed Paracel and Spratly archipelagos by citing maps and other evidence from the 1940s and ’50s.
But Dr. Son and other Vietnamese historians argue that the Nguyen dynasty, which ruled present-day Vietnam from 1802 to 1945, wielded clear administrative control over the Paracels, decades before post-revolutionary China showed any interest in them.
Dr. Son is a former director of a fine arts museum in Hue, Vietnam’s imperial capital, and a specialist in Nguyen-era porcelain.
He developed an interest in Vietnam’s territorial claims as a student poking around archives of old maps and documents.
In 2009, officials in Danang asked him to pursue his research on Vietnam’s maritime claims on the government’s behalf.
He subsequently spent years traveling the world in search of material, including as a Fulbright scholar at Yale University.
Dr. Son has said the historical evidence of Vietnam’s maritime claims is so irrefutable that the government should mount a legal challenge to China’s activities in waters around some of the sea’s disputed islands, as the Philippines successfully did in a case that ended in 2016.
“I’m always against the Chinese,” he told The New York Times during an interview in 2017.
But he said at the time that Vietnam’s top leaders were “slaves” to Beijing who preferred to keep the old maps and other documents hidden.
“They always say to me, ‘Mr. Son, please keep calm,’” he said.
“‘Don’t talk badly about China.’”
The city of Danang, where Dr. Son lives and works, once had a reputation for its powerful, family-based networks that were willing to ignore dictates from the central government, said Bill Hayton, an author of books about Vietnam and the South China Sea and an associate fellow at Chatham House, a research institute based in London.
But Mr. Hayton noted that Vietnam’s current leadership, led by the Communist Party’s general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, has lately disciplined some key Danang political figures, including firing Nguyen Xuan Anh, the head of the city’s Communist Party Central Committee.
Even though Danang officials presumably supported and financed Dr. Son’s research, he added, “the current Vietnamese leadership does not want to rock the boat with Beijing and seems determined to keep a lid on criticism of China’s actions in the South China Sea.”

Chinese Aggressions

South China Sea: Indonesia And Vietnam Prove Duterte Wrong
By Panos Mourdoukoutas

Indonesia joined Vietnam recently to challenge Duterte’s doctrine in the South China Sea.
That’s the notion that any Asian-Pacific country that dares to tame Beijing’s ambitions to control the entire South China Sea will face war with China.
This week, Indonesia drew a “red line” in the South China Sea establishing fishing rights in areas where China claims “overlapping” rights, according to BenarNews.
Indonesia’s move comes roughly two years after the country renamed its maritime region in the southwest part of the South China Sea as the “North Natuna Sea,” asserting sovereignty in the area.
Meanwhile, Vietnam has been taken its own steps to tame Beijing’s ambitions to control the South China Sea. 

Last month, Hanoi pushed for a pact to outlaw many of China’s ongoing activities in the South China Sea. 

Like the building of artificial islands, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments; and the Air Defense Identification Zone—a conduct code China initiated back in 2013.
Chinese, Indonesian, and Philippines Shares
These activities are part of Beijing’s efforts to assert complete dominance in the South China Sea and push the US out.
“Although China does not want to usurp the United States’ position as the leader of the global order, its actual aim is nearly as consequential,” says Oriana Skylar Mastro in “The Stealth Superpower: How China Hid Its Global Ambitions,”published in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs. “In the Indo-Pacific region, China wants complete dominance.; it wants to force the United States out and become the region’s unchallenged political, economic, and military hegemon.”
That’s why America has stepped up patrols in disputed South China Sea waters, asserting its willingness to keep the waterway an open sea to all commercial and military vessels.
And that has provided some sort of insurance for Indonesia and Vietnam against an unmeasured response from China.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s and Vietnam’s moves have proved Duterte wrong: standing up to China doesn’t lead to war.
So far, financial markets in the region have been discounting these developments as “noise,” rather than something more serious, focusing instead on the trade war between Beijing and Washington. 

But they could come back to haunt markets once the trade war is settled.
A growing conflict between China on the one side and America on the other over who will write the navigation rules for the South China Sea raises geopolitical risks for the global economy. 

And it adds to investor anxieties over the fate of international trade and the economic integration of the Asia-Pacific region.

Chinese expansionism

Vietnam Dares What Philippines Didn't
By Panos Mourdoukoutas

In the South China Sea disputes, Vietnam dares to do what the Philippines didn’t: challenge China’s mission to turn the vast waterway into its own sea.
That’s according to a recent Reuters report, which claims that Vietnam is pushing for a pact that will outlaw many of China’s ongoing activities in the South China Sea. 

Like the building of artificial islands, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments; and the Air Defence Identification Zone—a conduct code China initiated back in 2013.
This isn’t the first time Hanoi is challenging China’s claims in the South China Sea. 

Back in July of 2017, Vietnam granted Indian oil firm ONGC Videsh a two-year extension to explore oil block 128, according to another Reuters report.
And that’s something Beijing loudly opposed.
In recent years, China has considered the South China Sea its own. 

All of it, including the artificial islands Beijing has been building in disputed waters, and the economic resources that are hidden below the vast sea area. 

And it is determined to use its old and new naval powers to make sure that no other country reaches for these resources without its permission.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte understands Beijing’s determination very well. 

Back in April of 2018 he reversed his earlier decision to raise the Philippine flag in disputed islands, following Beijing’s “friendly” advice.
A year before that incident, the Philippines and its close ally, the U.S., won an international arbitration ruling that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea. 

Yet Duterte didn’t dare enforce it. 

Instead, he sided with Beijing on the dispute, and sought a “divorce” from the U.S.
Duterte’s flip-flops saved peace in the South China Sea by changing the rules of the game for China and the US, at least according to his own wisdom.
That doesn’t seem to be the case with Vietnam– which also claims parts of the waterway.
And it has a strong ally on its side: the US, which has been trying to enforce the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, and save peace, too!
So far, financial markets in the region do not seem that concerned, at least for now. 

Instead, they have been focusing on the economic fundamentals rather than the geopolitics of the region; and on the rising interest rates in the US.

China, Vietnam, and Philippines Shares

But things may change in the future, as an escalation of South China Sea disputes could add to investor anxieties fueled by the US-China trade war.

Tough South China Sea talks ahead as Vietnam seeks to curb China's actions

Reuters

An aerial view of China occupied Subi Reef at Spratly Islands in disputed South China Sea on Apr 21, 2017. 

HONG KONG -- Tough negotiations lie ahead over a new pact between China and Southeast Asian nations aimed at easing tensions in the South China Sea, as Vietnam pushes for provisions likely to prove unpalatable to Beijing, documents reviewed by Reuters suggest.
Hanoi wants the pact to outlaw many of the actions China has carried out across the hotly disputed waterway in recent years, including artificial island building, blockades and offensive weaponry such as missile deployments, according to a negotiating draft of the ASEAN Code of Conduct (COC) seen by Reuters.
The draft also shows Hanoi is pushing for a ban on any new Air Defence Identification Zone -- something Beijing unilaterally announced over the East China Sea in 2013. 

Chinese officials have not ruled out a similar move, in which all aircraft are supposed to identify themselves to Chinese authorities, over the South China Sea.
Hanoi is also demanding states clarify their maritime claims in the vital trade route according to international law – an apparent attempt to shatter the controversial "nine-dash line" by which China claims and patrols much of the South China Sea, the draft shows.
"Going forward, there will be some very testy exchanges between the Vietnamese and China in particular over the text of this agreement," said Singapore-based Ian Storey, a veteran South China Sea expert, who has seen the draft.
"Vietnam is including those points or activities that they want forbidden by the Code of Conduct precisely because China has been carrying these out for the last 10 years."
Le Thi Thu Hang, a spokeswoman at the Vietnam Foreign Ministry, said negotiations on the Code of Conduct had made some progress recently, with Vietnam actively participating and other countries showing "their constructive and cooperative spirit".
"Vietnam wishes related countries to continue their efforts and make a positive contribution to the negotiation process in order to achieve a substantive and effective COC in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, contributing to the maintenance of peace, stability and security in the East Sea (South China Sea) in particular and in the region in general," she said.
Singapore’s Foreign Ministry, the chair of the 10-nation ASEAN bloc for 2018, did not respond to a request for comment.
“We cannot comment right now but Thailand certainly supports discussion on the single negotiating draft,” said Busadee Santipitaks, a spokeswoman for Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which takes over as ASEAN chair in the new year.

CHINA SEEKS BAN ON OUTSIDER DRILLS
The draft also confirms earlier reports that China wants military drills with outside powers in the South China Sea to be blocked unless all signatories agree.
In addition, Beijing wants to exclude foreign oil firms by limiting joint development deals to China and South East Asia. 

Experts expect both elements to be strongly resisted by some ASEAN countries.
"That is unacceptable," one Southeast Asian diplomat told Reuters, referring specifically to the suggested ban on military drills with countries outside the region.
In a statement sent to Reuters, China's Foreign Ministry said negotiations on the code were confidential, and it could not comment on their content.
The next round of working level talks is expected to take place in Myanmar in the first quarter of next year, the Southeast Asian diplomat said.
In August, Chinese and ASEAN officials hailed the initial negotiating text as a milestone and a breakthrough when it was endorsed by the foreign ministers of ASEAN and China.
It will be negotiated over the coming year by senior ASEAN and Chinese officials and has not yet been released publicly.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last month called for the pact to be sealed by 2021, a timetable some envoys and analysts are sceptical can be reached.
"There's a lot of tough work ahead - that figure seems to have just been plucked from the air," one senior Asian diplomat said.

DEAD LETTER
The code builds on an earlier declaration on the South China Sea signed between ASEAN and China in 2002.
That document did not prevent the vital international trade route emerging as a regional flashpoint amid China's military rise and its extensive programme of island building on disputed reefs since 2014.
The United States and other regional powers including Japan and India are not part of the negotiations, but take a strong interest in the waterway that links Northeast Asia with the Middle East and Europe.
Several countries, including Japan, India, Britain and Australia, have joined the United States in gradually increasing naval deployments through the South China Sea. 

They are often shadowed by Chinese naval ships.
Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnam's military and diplomacy at Australia's Defence Force Academy, said Hanoi was expected to prove a tough negotiator but would need support among other ASEAN members to hold a firm line against China.
The Philippines successfully challenged Beijing's South China Sea claims in an international arbitration case in 2016, but has reversed policy under Rodrigo Duterte, who has avoided confronting China as he seeks to secure billions of dollars of loans and investments for his infrastructure programme.
The 19-page draft remains vague in key areas including its precise geographic scope, whether it will be legally binding and how disputes will be resolved.
Bonnie Glaser, a regional security expert at the Centre for International and Strategic Studies in Washington, said she believed China's more controversial proposals would prove unacceptable to several key ASEAN members, as well the United States and its allies.
"People I have spoken to in the US government say that it is clearest evidence yet that China wants to push the US out of the region," she said.

VIETNAMESE SEE SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES AS ASSAULT FROM CHINA

The South China Sea dispute, along with memories of the 1979 border war, run deep in the Vietnamese national psyche, making SEZs viscerally unpopular

BY BENNETT MURRAY

The Vietnamese government is confronting a rising tide of public anger as its parliament debates a controversial bill to create three new special economic zones (SEZs), raising fears of Chinese encroachment on Vietnamese soil.
Although Vietnam already has 18 SEZs, the new concerns largely stem from a provision that would allow 99-year leases in some cases within the three new zones in Quang Ninh and Khanh Hoa provinces, as well as on Phu Quoc Island. 

The bill does not explicitly mention any particular country but it is widely presumed China, Vietnam’s largest trading partner, would dominate investments in the SEZs.
Attempting to allay concerns, Prime Minister Nguyen Xhan Phuc announced on Thursday the government would adjust the 99-year time frame but did not elaborate.
“In recent days, we have listened to a lot of intellectuals, the people, members of the National Assembly, senior citizens and overseas Vietnamese,” Phuc said.
Activists stage a rally marking the 42nd anniversary of the 1974 naval battle between China and then-South Vietnamese troops over the Paracel Islands, in front of the statue of Vietnamese King Ly Thai Tô in Hanoi. 

Nguyen Chi Tuyen, a Hanoi-based dissident blogger with 42,500 Facebook followers, said he rarely saw such public interest in the National Assembly, a legislature that usually acts as a rubber stamp for the Communist Party’s Central Committee.
“This time they’ve got a lot of attention from the people, not just activists or dissidents but the normal people,” he said, adding that anti-China sentiment has fuelled anger.
He was unimpressed by Phuc’s pledge to adjust the 99-year lease provision.
“It’s not how long, but this is one kind of selling our land to foreigners under the so-called SEZs,” Tuyen said.
With popular Vietnamese anger towards China simmering over Beijing’s maritime claims in the South China Sea, Le Dang Doanh, a retired senior economic adviser to the government and member of the Communist Party, said he fears an explosive response from the public should the bill pass. 

That the proposed SEZ in Quang Ninh province is not far from China’s Guangxi autonomous region is of particular concern, he added.
Vietnamese security officers move a sign advising people not to take photographs near the Chinese embassy in Hanoi after authorities forcibly broke up small protests against China in May 2014. 
“If now the Chinese occupy the three special economic zones, especially the one in Quang Ninh, it will trigger a very strong reaction from the Vietnamese people,” said Doanh, adding that he had signed a petition asking to postpone passage of the law.
Tuyen said the South China Sea dispute, along with memories of the 1979 border war, run deep in the national psyche, making SEZs viscerally unpopular.
“We have a long history with the Chinese people, they always want to invade our country, so it is dangerous to allow them to use these SEZs to control our country,” he said.
In recent years, the maritime dispute has prompted rare public protests in the one-party communist state. 

Demonstrations turned violent in 2014 following China’s deployment of the Hai Yang Shi You 981 oil rig in the South China Sea, with at least 21 killed and 100 injured in clashes targeting Chinese-owned factories, although many were owned by firms from other countries. 

The government has since cracked down on anti-China protests.
Nguyen Quang A, a retired banker and prominent pro-democracy activist, said the government must guard against suspicions it has become too cosy with fellow communists to the north.
“There are a few issues which are very dangerous for the legitimacy of the Communist Party in Vietnam, and that is one,” said Quang A, himself a former party member.

China's expansionism fuels protests in Vietnam

Popular opinion has concluded that China will be the main beneficiary of pending economic policy in Vietnam, triggering two weeks of protests. The proposed economic zones will enable Chinese companies to take over the coast with little regard for the environment or fishermen. 

By Martin Petty

Protests by thousands of people in cities across Vietnam are showing just how easy it is to unite public opinion and mobilize dissent when an issue has one key ingredient: China.
The demonstrations, which are technically illegal, sprung up for a second consecutive week on Sunday, stoked by fears that proposed coastal economic zones for foreigners would be beachheads for an invasion of Chinese businesses.
The proposal makes no mention of China. 

But Vietnamese minds were already made up, with popular Facebook posts reinforcing deep-rooted suspicion that Chinese interests are influencing state policy.
Central to the issue is a combustible mix of generations of anger over Chinese bullying, and a lack of faith in Vietnam's ruling communist party to do anything about it.
"The government underestimated the amount of anti-China sentiment in the country," said Murray Hiebert, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"There's a constant undertone among many in Vietnam that the government isn't doing enough to protect the country's sovereignty against China," Mr. Hiebert added.
Social media such as Facebook, used by half of Vietnam's 90 million people, makes such fervor easy to stoke and hard to contain.
After protests spanned cities nationwide, the National Assembly last week postponed its vote on the economic zones until October.
Security was tightened on Sunday to prevent protests in major cities, but thousands still gathered in central Ha Tinh province, many with signs saying "No leasing land to Chinese communists for even one day."
Tensions are likely to persist as long as China pushes its Belt and Road initiative to advance its overseas business, and takes stronger action to fortify its claims over almost the entire South China Sea.
China has been accelerating construction and militarisation in the Spratly and Paracel islands claimed by Vietnam, and in March pressured Hanoi to suspend some major offshore oil drilling for the second time in the space of a year.
The Vietnamese government's resistance to Chinese pressure has been very limited.
The communist party top brass rarely acknowledges anti-China sentiment even exists in Vietnam. 

On Friday, house speaker Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan skirted the issue, saying the legislature "appreciates the people's patriotism and their profound concerns about important issues."
Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong weighed in on Sunday to reassure the public about the economic zones, which have 99-year leases, but also made no specific mention of China.
The June 10 protests were in large part peaceful, but turned violent in central Binh Thuan province, where vehicles were set ablaze and angry mobs hurled rocks and charged at riot police.
Tran Vu Hai, a prominent lawyer, said the anger had been festering for years in Binh Thuan, where China is blamed for assaulting fishermen, polluting the land with a Chinese-built power plant, and for deforestation to mine minerals exported primarily to China.
Hai said people were venting fury not only at China, but at a local government, which is perceived as being corrupt and enslaved by destructive Chinese commercial interests.
"They don't investigate why people are irritated and they don't solve the people's problems," he said. "The trust in the authority in that area has already been lost."
The turnout and coordination of protests is now emboldening ordinary Vietnamese, but also complicating the party's difficult balancing act of tolerating some dissent while keeping it under control.
That risks angering a vital trade partner that can hold Vietnam's economy hostage.
The protests are being taken seriously by China; its diplomatic missions in Vietnam held meetings last week with Chinese business groups, local government and local media.
In one of several postings on the embassy's website, it said charge d'affaires Yin Haihong "demanded" that Vietnamese authorities protect Chinese businesses and citizens.
Ms. Yin said the embassy had been informed by the Vietnamese authorities that people with "ulterior motives" had "deliberately misrepresented the situation and linked it to China."
The recent rallies follow similar protests in 2014 after China's deployment of an oil rig off central Vietnam, and months of demonstrations in 2016 over an environmental disaster at a steel plant run by Taiwan's Formosa Plastics.
Responding to questions from Reuters, Vietnam foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang made no mention of China but said "extremists" had "incited illegal gatherings." 

Lawmakers say it is time to revisit a long-delayed law to regulate demonstrations. 

The constitution allows freedom of assembly, but protests are often broken up by police and participants held for "causing public disorder."

Others say it's time to listen more to public opinion.

Chinese Peril

China’s control over economic zones leads to more protests in Vietnam

Protesters held signs that said “No leasing land to Chinese communists for even one day” and “Cybersecurity law kills freedom”.
AP

Vietnamese police have arrested eight more people after protests a week ago over a proposed law on special economic zones that protesters fear would fall into the hands of Chinese investors.

The men from the south central province of Binh Thuan were accused of disturbing public order, opposing officials and damaging state property, the state-run Tuoi Tre newspaper reported.
Protests against the law took place across the country, including in the southern commercial hub of Saigon where seven people were arrested for allegedly disturbing security and opposing officials.
Protesters fear the three proposed special economic zones, where land could be rented for up to 99 years, would be dominated by investors from China.
Lawmakers have postponed the passage of the law until October.
Security on Sunday was tight in many cities and provinces in Vietnam, with a large presence of police in public areas. 

But in central Ha Tinh province, live-stream footage on Facebook showed thousands of people attending a Sunday mass protesting peacefully against the laws.
Protesters held signs that said “No leasing land to Chinese communists for even one day” and “Cybersecurity law kills freedom”.

Witnesses said there were no clashes with police during the two-hour protest.
The Vietnamese government has vowed to punish “extremists” it said had instigated rare clashes with police in Binh Thuan province. 

Protesters hurled bricks and Molotov cocktails at police, damaging some government buildings.
Charge d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Vietnam, Yin Haihong, said on Friday that the cause of this incident was internal affairs in Vietnam and there was no connection with China.
“However, the incident still has a negative impact on Sino-Vietnamese relations;” Yin said in an embassy statement.

American Is Detained After Joining Anti-China Protest in Vietnam

By Austin Ramzy
Protesters in Saigon, Vietnam, on Sunday held banners denouncing a proposal to create special economic zones favorable to China.

HONG KONG — An American citizen was among dozens of people arrested in Vietnam this week during protests against proposed special economic zones that have raised fears of Chinese encroachment.
The American, Will Nguyen, was visiting Saigon ahead of his graduation this summer from a master’s program at the University of Singapore, according to a statement from his family and friends.
Mr. Nguyen, 32, a Houston native who graduated from Yale, took part in protests on Sunday. 

He was “beaten over the head and dragged into the back of a police truck,” after the authorities moved to quash the demonstrations that day, according to the statement.
A video from the protests shows Mr. Nguyen, with blood smeared across his face, being dragged by a group of men. 

He is later shown standing in the bed of a pickup truck topped with emergency lights.
He was taken to a police station, but his current whereabouts and physical condition are not known, the statement said.
Mr. Nguyen’s family fled South Vietnam after the war that led to its collapse, he wrote in a recent piece for the website New Naratif that discussed the conflict and the country’s history of divisions between North and South.
“He is a proud Vietnamese-American, and passionate about his studies, specifically Southeast Asian studies, in which he majored,” his sister, Victoria Nguyen, said by email.
Pope Thrower, spokesman for the United States Embassy in Hanoi, said the embassy was “aware of media reports that a U.S. citizen was arrested in Vietnam.”
Will Nguyen, 32, of Houston, has been studying at the University of Singapore.

“When a U.S. citizen is detained overseas, the U.S. Department of State works to provide all appropriate consular assistance,” he added. 

“Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”
From Saigon, Mr. Nguyen posted a series of tweets documenting the protests on Sunday, with crowds of people marching down city streets.
“I can’t stress how enormous of an achievement this is for the #Vietnamese people,” he wrote. 

“The people are exercising their civic duty to protest injustice.”
One image he posted shows a protester who was struck by police officers lying on the street while another person helps him. 

Another shows a protester holding a sign that reads, “No Chinese Land Lease Even 1 Day.”

Mr. Nguyen’s family has not been able to reach him, but his hosts at an Airbnb rental did reportedly speak with him shortly after his detention. 

Police officers showed up at the apartment two days later to confiscate his laptop, passport, credit cards and a change of clothes, his family said.
In addition to the special economic zones, protesters said they were concerned about a proposed cybersecurity law. 

The state-controlled news media in Vietnam reported that 102 people were arrested Sunday in the southeastern province of Binh Thuan, where thousands of protesters blocked a highway and later set fire to public buildings. 

Protests were also reported in Hanoi, the capital.
The proposed special economic zones would give leases of up to 99 years to foreign investors in three areas that would have fewer administrative restrictions than the rest of the country. 

The proposal has stirred fear that it would undermine national security by giving China control over parts of Vietnamese territory.
Vietnam and China have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, and Chinese efforts to extend control have set off protests in Vietnam. 

In 2014, China moved an offshore drilling rig into waters that Vietnam considers part of its exclusive economic zone, which prompted large demonstrations and efforts by Vietnam to force the rig to move.
The two countries fought a brief but bloody border war in 1979, when China invaded Vietnam in an attempt to punish its neighbor for toppling the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Axis of Evil

Vietnam detains 100 after anti-China economic zone protests turn violent
BBC News
Protests turned violent in Binh Thuan province -- where more than 100 people were detained
Scores of people have been detained by Vietnamese police amid protests against plans for special economic zones (SEZs) that many fear will be dominated by Chinese investors.
Molotov cocktails and rocks were lobbed at the People's Committee Headquarters in south-eastern Binh Thuan province, where police said 102 people were held.
The proposed law would give foreign investors 99-year leases on SEZ land.
MPs had been set to vote on it this week but this has been delayed.
The decision to postpone the vote in an attempt to defuse the protests was seen as a major concession by the ruling communist party in response to large-scale street demonstrations.
The chairwoman of parliament, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, said that people's opinions "will always be heard".
China's embassy in Hanoi has warned its citizens to be careful, referring to the protests as "illegal gatherings" that had included some "anti-China content".
Demonstrators had gathered in various parts of the country over the weekend, including the major urban centres of Hanoi, the capital, and Saigon.
Some carried anti-China banners, including one reading: "No leasing land to China even for one day."
Protests in the cities were quickly suppressed, but authorities faced much greater public anger in Binh Thuan, where demonstrators threw rocks, set vehicles alight, and briefly occupied the local government headquarters. 

State media outlets said dozens of police officers were injured.
On Monday, police formed barricades with their shields across roads into the town, and numerous explosions could be heard, as tear gas was fired into the crowd.
At a fire station attacked by protesters, riot police have laid down their shields and equipment and withdrawn in an apparent peace gesture.

Protests are a rare sight in Vietnam

Why are the economic zones controversial?
The bill offers companies operating in the SEZs greater incentives and fewer restrictions, in an attempt to promote growth in target areas.
But protesters suspect that the communist government will award Chinese investors leases in the three economic zones in the north-east, south-east and south-west of the country, and that this would be a pretext for Chinese control over Vietnamese land.
In Binh Thuan, anti-Chinese sentiment combined with simmering anger over industrial pollution and land disputes, to ignite a flammable cocktail of local grievances, says BBC South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head.
Demonstrators are also objecting to a cyber security bill, scheduled for a vote on 12 June. 

Human Rights Watch says it would give the government broad powers to quash dissent online.

Why the anger towards China?
China once colonised Vietnam, the two countries fought a border war less than 40 years ago, and Vietnam contests Chinese control of a number of islands in the South China Sea.
As a result, Vietnam's leaders must always tread a delicate line between maintaining relations with their powerful neighbour, and avoiding provoking anti-Chinese sentiment in a fiercely nationalist population.
Roughly $5 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, and a number of countries claim disputed islands there.
Vietnam has seen protests over the maritime disputes in recent years, including in 2014, when Chinese citizens fled the country in their thousands after violence targeting foreign-owned businesses.

Protesters bring China issue to the fore
By Giang Nguyen

This is the biggest challenge for Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc since his government was sworn in more than two years ago with a pledge to stamp out corruption and revitalise the economy.
The three special economic zones are meant to be "mini Singapores" - business-friendly environments complete with high-tech hubs.
But Phuc appears to have underestimated deep-seated resentments against China, and the speed at which protesters can utilise social media to organise street marches in cities including Hanoi and Saigon.Protesters like those who marched in Saigon have said they will demonstrate again
While some are fearful of the Chinese influence in Vietnam under the economic zone proposals, others are concerned about plans for a new cyber security bill. 

The latter has angered Facebook users in particular, who fear the authorities will be given too much power, while online surveillance could become the norm.
Critics said the government had lost touch with reality as it tried to push two controversial laws through a parliament where many MPs are openly against both.
Those against the SEZ law include three advisers to the PM.

Axis of Evil: Hanoi selling out economic zones to Beijing

By Paul Nguyen Thanh

Hanoi – "What the authorities are doing is selling out our country to China," said Mr Thuận, a Catholic elementary school teacher, reacting to upcoming trade agreements between the Vietnamese government and its Chinese "communist brothers".
Like him, millions of Vietnamese fear that the authorities will subject the country to the will of Beijing, when on 15 June the National Assembly votes a bill on "special administrative-economic zones".
In particular, lawmakers will decide on the creation of three important Chinese economic hubs in Vân Đồn (Quảng Ninh province), Bắc Vân Phong (Khánh Hòa) and on Phú Quốc Island (Kiên Giang).
If approved, thanks to special incentives, the plan would allow Chinese red capitalists to acquire, for 99 years, the rights to exploit the areas, located in regions of significant geopolitical and historical interest.
The Vietnamese, at home and abroad, are afraid that these areas may become tô giới, kingdoms dominated by China, thus undermining national sovereignty.
Vân Đồn is a strategic island district in the northeastern province of Quảng Ninh, on the border with China.
Located off the Bay of Bái Tử Long, it includes 600 islands and reefs covering an area of ​​more than 550 km2.
Established in 2006, the Special Economic Zone in ​​Bắc Vân Phong covers ​​1,500 km2 and is a major tourist and economic centre.
From this area it is possible to monitor the trade routes that crisscross the South China Sea, which is Beijing’s goal.
Phú Quốc island, 574 km2, provides instead control over the Gulf of Thailand, a fundamental passage for ships that sail the Pacific and Indian oceans.
Justifying the concerns of the citizens, former parliamentarian Nguyễn Minh Thuyết said yesterday that "The Spratly and the Paracel Islands have already ended up in the hands of Beijing. To these must be added the forests along the border, key areas for Vietnam, as well as the coasts of Nha Trang, Đà Nẵng and Vũng Áng, in Hà Tĩnh province.”
"These areas are being intensively exploited and the environment is devastated. The pollution of soil, water and air is damaging the health of the millions of people who live there."
For Nguyễn Xuân Nghĩa, a well-known Vietnamese-American journalist and an international economics expert, "The contents of the draft law on the three autonomous special economic zones concern the survival of the nation and its people. We must consider that the three areas could be given in concession to a foreign country for almost a century."
Over the years, Vietnamese and international experts have said that "the main projects of the Chinese government in Vietnam have failed or have damaged the environment in a terrible way".
These include the Highland Bauxite Project, the Formosa Steel Company plant in Vũng Áng (Hà Tĩnh province), and projects in Dung Quất and Nhân Cơ projects etc.
Despite this, the Vietnamese government continues to pursue a very risky economic policy.
Experts warn that, once in control of these three economic zones, Beijing could deploy armed forces to protect its interests.
Once they have granted the concession, Vietnamese authorities will no longer have access to the territories.
"I am a Catholic, and my voice is of little importance,” Mr Thuận told AsiaNews.
“I cannot call on the Vietnamese to protest against the government. However, what the authorities are doing is selling out our country to China. Catholics must become aware of this and help save the nation.”
"By getting these territories, China could control almost all of Vietnam by 2020, exercising its 'soft power' on the local economy, finance and culture. If this happens, Catholicism would be even more threatened by communism and would face immense difficulties."

Axis of Evil

U.S. slaps heavy duties on Chinese steel shipped from Vietnam
Reuters

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Commerce Department on Monday slapped steep import duties on steel products from Vietnam that originated in China after a final finding they evaded U.S. anti-dumping and anti-subsidy orders.
The decision marked a victory for U.S. steelmakers, who won anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties against Chinese steel in 2015 and 2016 only to see shipments flood in from elsewhere. 

The industry has argued that Chinese products are being diverted to other countries to circumvent the duties.
U.S. customs authorities will collect anti-dumping duties of 199.76 percent and countervailing duties of 256.44 percent on imports of cold-rolled steel produced in Vietnam using Chinese-origin substrate, the Commerce Department said in a statement.
Corrosion-resistant steel from Vietnam faces anti-dumping duties of 199.43 percent and anti-subsidy duties of 39.05 percent, it said.
The department has said it would apply the same Chinese anti-dumping and anti-subsidy rates on corrosion-resistant and cold-rolled steel from Vietnam that starts out as Chinese-made hot-rolled steel.
The duties will come in addition to a 25 percent tariff on most steel imported into the United States that resulted from the Trump administration’s “Section 232” national security investigation into steel and aluminum imports.
Although the steel subject to the latest anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties was processed in Vietnam to be made corrosion resistant or cold-rolled for use in autos or appliances, the Commerce Department agreed with the claims of American producers that as much as 90 percent of the product’s value originated from China.
The global steel industry is struggling with a glut of excess production capacity, much of it located in China, that has pushed down prices.
The decision followed a European Union finding in November that steel shipments from Vietnam into the EU also circumvented tariffs.
The Commerce Department said that after anti-dumping duties were imposed on Chinese steel products in 2015, shipments of cold-rolled steel from Vietnam into the United States shot up to $215 million annually from $9 million, while corrosion-resistant steel imports rose to $80 million from $2 million.
The case stems from a petition filed by U.S. producers ArcelorMittal USA, Nucor Corp, AK Steel Holdings Corp and United States Steel Corp alleging that Chinese producers began diverting their steel shipments to Vietnam “immediately” after the duties were imposed.