Vietnam fears that China is playing for time in talks on the South China Sea and will use the delay to cement its grip on the disputed waters. Vietnamese state media highlighted comments by the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang, that…
Vietnam faces opportunities and dangers as the confrontation between China and the United States in the western Pacific becomes ever more explicit. APEC countries failed to deliver a final communique, for the first time in the organisation’s history, at their…
Vietnam has jailed more than fifty activists and bloggers this year as its crackdown on dissent gathers pace. The harshest treatment has been reserved for educated urban bloggers who have taken up the cause of vulnerable rural communities. On Friday,…
Protesting against the evils of foreign capital was once the sine qua non of orthodox Marxist behaviour, and yet the Communist party of Vietnam continues to target such activities in its harshest crackdown for years. In a Ho Chi Minh…
Vietnam is building on its close strategic ties with Russia at a time when Moscow is asserting its power in Asia on a scale not matched since the height of the Cold War. Vietnam placed orders for $1 billion dollars…
A meeting with President Putin and the visit of a British warship have come as a boost to Vietnam as it struggles to counterbalance the growing power of China in the South China Sea. President Putin told the visiting General-Secretary…
Shadow boxing in the South China Sea between China and the US and its allies is reaching a new level as Japanese naval vessels join a US task force in the region. Japan’s largest ship, the helicopter carrier Kaga, and…
Senator John McCain embodied the roller coaster ride of US-Vietnamese relations like no other figure. His death elicited heartfelt tributes from bitter foes on all sides of the conflict – from Vietnamese communist leaders as well as anti-communist refugees and…
Perhaps only Ho Chi Minh himself could have delivered a more telling indictment of the Communist party. Colonel, Bui Tin, who has died in Parisian exile at the age of 90, was the ubiquitous hero of Vietnam’s wars of independence…
Vietnam is risking a belligerent response from China with its latest gambit to increase dwindling oil and gas production in the South China Sea. A new agreement to involve two Japanese firms in the latest project could be seen by…