China’s recent successive trespassing on Vietnamese waters and attacks on its ships have caused an alarm and prompted the non-profit international scholars’ forum Boston Global Forum to call on the United States and the European Union to immediately send naval ships with the mission to observe China’s activities in Vietnamese waters.
In early May of this year, China illegally sent its US$1 billion-worth oil drilling rig named Haiyang Shiyou-981 and an armada of armed military boats and aircrafts into Vietnam’s waters and rammed and fired water cannons at the Vietnamese coast guard and fisheries surveillance ships. This happened not only once but many times which caused destruction to both police and civilian Vietnamese vessels and worse, physical hurt to the crews.
This repetitive and obviously intentional navigational encroachment of China on Vietnamese waters led the Boston Global Forum to build a new Initiative with the main purpose of executing fast and specific action to avoid war and ensure peace in the East Sea or South China Sea, as it is internationally known. The Initiative requires an urgent solution to the rising crisis between China and Vietnam by deploying naval ships to the territories concerned as observers before the conflict between the two countries eventually escalates into a full-blown war. The special Initiative also aims to facilitate an open dialogue, specifically hold an international conference, among the leaders of the involved nations namely the United States, Asia and the United Nations.
Renowned Professors Michael Dukakis and Joseph Nye have been tasked to be the moderators during the discussion while United States Secretary of State John Kerry will host the event. It will be live-streamed so that everyone globally will be able to join in and express their own opinions through the social media and Boston Global Forum website itself. The international conference will be held on July 2, 2014 but the place has yet to be finalized though as it will take place either in Boston, Massachusetts or somewhere else.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already demanded a cease on China’s continuous attacks on Vietnamese waters from a representative of the Chinese embassy in Hanoi. It is hoped that the Boston Global Forum’s Initiative will address and finally put a stop to China’s incessant bullying on Vietnam’s territorial waters as not only ships are destroyed but human lives more importantly. China’s tendency to claim international or specific territories as its own has become a serious concern not only between it and Vietnam but all over the world.
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