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Tokyo’s move to give Hanoi navy boats likely to irk China

HANOI — Japan will give six navy boats to Vietnam to boost its patrols and surveillance in the South China Sea, said Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida yesterday in the latest sign of a strengthening of alliances between states locked in maritime rows with China.

Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida attending a media briefing with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh after their meeting at the Government Guesthouse in Hanoi on Aug 1, 2014. Photo: Reuters

Japan's Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida attending a media briefing with his Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh after their meeting at the Government Guesthouse in Hanoi on Aug 1, 2014. Photo: Reuters

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HANOI — Japan will give six navy boats to Vietnam to boost its patrols and surveillance in the South China Sea, said Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida yesterday in the latest sign of a strengthening of alliances between states locked in maritime rows with China.

The used vessels, worth 500 million yen (S$6 million), would be accompanied by training and equipment to help the coastguard and fisheries surveillance effort, Mr Kishida said after talks with Vietnamese counterpart Pham Binh Minh.

The deal makes good an announcement by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at May’s Shangri-La Dialogue security summit to provide maritime aid to the Philippines and Vietnam as part of Tokyo’s aim to play a greater regional security role.

Yesterday’s announcement is likely to irk an increasingly assertive China that is pressing hard on claims to nine-tenths of the potentially energy-rich sea and worrying much of the region.

“Global security is getting more complicated ... prosperity comes only with stability in the South China Sea and East China Sea,” Mr Kishida said.

“I hope this equipment will strengthen the ability of Vietnam’s coastal enforcement authorities.”

Vietnam enjoys tight business ties with Japan, its biggest investor, but relations with Hanoi’s largest trade partner, China, are at their worst in three decades. Analysts believe that has sharpened the debate in Vietnam’s secretive Communist Party over long-term foreign policy strategy.

Beijing’s May 2 deployment of a drilling rig in waters Hanoi claims as its exclusive economic zone led to rare protests, rioting and arson in Vietnam aimed at Chinese factories, although Taiwan facilities were worst hit. The rig was moved out of contested waters on July 16, a month before schedule.

Beijing is not showing any sign of easing off on its maritime push. It will hold live-fire drills for five days from Tuesday off its coast in the East China Sea opposite Japan and in the Gulf of Tonkin, which borders both China and Vietnam, said the Ministry of National Defence.

The Japanese support for Vietnam will include radar equipment and the vessels are to be handed over by year-end, said a Japanese government source, who requested anonymity.

Tokyo’s already fragile ties with Beijing have soured over competing claims to uninhabited East China Sea islets that the former refers to as Senkaku and the latter calls Diaoyu.

Beijing also has overlapping South China Sea claims with Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Brunei and Manila, to which Hanoi has recently cosied up and says it may follow in pursuing international legal action against China.

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