Credit photo – This aerial photo taken through a glass window of a military plane shows part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, May 11, 2015.
TAIPEI, TAIWAN – China has renamed scores of islets and underwater landforms in the South China Sea, a move some analysts say is intended to push back against Vietnamese naval incursions in the disputed waterway.
- “The Chinese have perceived the Vietnamese exploiting their vulnerability and the inability to react to them during COVID-19, so now that the Chinese are back online there’s a sense that ‘we need to punish Vietnam for this,’” said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center, a research center in Washington.
- Two Chinese government ministries have renamed 25 islets and 55 submerged features in the South China Sea that stretches from Hong Kong to Borneo, the country’s Civil Affairs Ministry said on its website April 19.
- This act, though it doesn’t automatically give China more legal sovereignty than five other Asian governments with claims to the resource-rich sea, helps repel Vietnam after a string of upsets that culminated in February, analysts believe
Source: Voice of America
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