Vietnam accelerated island-building efforts in contested waters of the South China Sea, drawing a rebuke from Beijing and concentrating attention on a growing maritime dispute.
China said it would take “necessary measures” to combat the Vietnamese effort, outlined in a recent US think tank report, insisting that the region was its “inherent territory.”
Several Southeast Asian countries contest that interpretation, however, and have accused Beijing of using aggressive tactics to force them into giving up their maritime waters: This month, a Chinese naval destroyer came close to ramming a Philippine coast guard vessel, an incident that “underscores how a single miscalculation could spark a wider conflict,” a Bloomberg columnist warned.