Vietnam police disperse protest at Chinese embassy over South China Sea standoff

By James Pearson
HANOI, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Vietnamese police on Tuesday broke
up a brief protest outside the Chinese embassy in Hanoi against
Beijing's maritime survey of an offshore block in the southeast
Asian nation's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a Reuters witness
said.
Vietnamese and Chinese ships have been in a weeks-long
standoff near the oil block, the latest confrontation in waters
that are a potential global flashpoint as the United States
challenges China's sweeping maritime claims. Protests in the authoritarian and Communist-ruled Southeast
Asian country are rare, and police dispersed the short-lived
demonstration of about 10 activists of the "No-U" group within
minutes.
"We are doing this in front of the Chinese embassy to show
our anger to the world," Le Hoang, one of the protesters, told
Reuters.
Vietnam accuses Chinese survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 and
its escorts of illegal activities in the country's exclusive
economic zone and continental shelf, and has demanded that China
withdraw all its ships. Last week, a Vietnamese fishermen's group urged the
government to take stronger measures to remove the ships, saying
they were disrupting fishing activities. "I really hope that Vietnam will launch a lawsuit in the
international court against China's violations and its illegal
nine-dash line," Hoang added.
The "No-U" group takes its name from the U-shaped "nine-dash
line" marking China's claims in a vast expanse of the South
China Sea, including large swathes of Vietnam's continental
shelf, where it has awarded oil concessions.
The Haiyang Dizhi 8, operated by the China Geological
Survey, and several Chinese Coast Guard ships were still in
Vietnam's EEZ as recently as Monday, the Washington-based Center
for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) said, using data from
maritime analytics company Winward.
Last week, Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh warned about
an increasingly complicated situation at sea, during a visit to
Vietnam's main strategic naval base in the central port city of
Cam Ranh, state media said.
Meeting China's top diplomat Wang Yi in Bangkok last week,
Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said the two sides needed to
maintain peace and stability and better manage maritime
disputes, Vietnam said in a statement.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticised
Chinese "coercion" in the disputed South China Sea, while Wang
Yi said maritime problems involving Vietnam should not interfere
with two-way ties.