--Ngăn chặn Trung Quốc, Mỹ chuyển 2/3 số tầu ngầm đến khu vực Thái Bình Dương
HAWAII 12-5 (NV) - Dồn dập một số biến cố trên biển Đông từ đầu năm đến nay, sự tranh chấp chủ quyền các quần đảo Hoàng Sa và Trường Sa và sự gia tăng quân sự nhanh chóng của Trung quốc đã thúc đẩy Hoa Kỳ chuyển một loạt tàu ngầm tấn công tối tân nhất từ Đại Tây Dương sang Thái Bình Dương.
Tóm lại, chiến lược khống chế Biển đông của Trung Quốc bao gồm cả ba lãnh vực ngoại giao, luật pháp và quân sự. Tuy nhiên điều khiến giới quan sát lo ngại nhất chính là việc Trung Quốc tăng cường tuần tra tại vùng Biển Đông. Trong bối cảnh Hải quân Hoa Kỳ vẫn hoạt động trong vùng, và lực lượng Hải quân các nước láng giềng không thụ động, không thể loại trừ những sự cố đáng tiếc như vụ va chạm giữa phi cơ do thám Mỹ và chiến đấu cơ Trung Quốc vào năm 2001.
HAWAII 12-5 (NV) - Dồn dập một số biến cố trên biển Đông từ đầu năm đến nay, sự tranh chấp chủ quyền các quần đảo Hoàng Sa và Trường Sa và sự gia tăng quân sự nhanh chóng của Trung quốc đã thúc đẩy Hoa Kỳ chuyển một loạt tàu ngầm tấn công tối tân nhất từ Đại Tây Dương sang Thái Bình Dương.
The United States government is planning to revive a bill that will punish China for artificially boosting its trade through "currency manipulation".
Members of the US Senate and Congress believe that China deliberately undervalues its currency by as much as 40 per cent so that Chinese goods remain cheap to foreign buyers.
"By illegally subsidising its exports through the undervaluation of its currency, China has distorted their gains from trade, created barriers to free and fair trade, harmed US industries and destroyed millions of US jobs," said a press release from the sponsors of a new bill.
The bill is likely to be introduced today by senators and congressmen from both the Republican and Democratic parties. In Congress, the bill has over 40 co-sponsors. The legislation could impose additional duties on Chinese goods until China allows the yuan to revalue.
Last year, while running for president, Barack Obama said he supported a Senate bill to tackle China's manipulation. "The Bush administration has failed to act on China's currency manipulation," he said, adding: "This is unacceptable." Hillary Clinton, the secretary of State, also supported the bill.
However, the legislation stalled last year and has been thwarted on a number of previous occasions.
Timothy Geithner, the Treasury secretary, labelled China as a "currency manipulator" repeatedly in his confirmation hearings before the Senate but has since backtracked in the face of strong pressure from Beijing.
A recent Treasury department trade report did not accuse China of artificially restraining the yuan, but merely said the currency was "undervalued". Since then, the yuan has weakened.
Mr Geithner is due to travel to Beijing at the end of this month and the new bill could prove an embarrassment.
The latest trade figures show that the US imported $15.6 billion (£10.21 billion) more in goods and services from China in March than it exported. The trade gap increased even as Chinese exports fell in general and US imports to China increased.
Đó là dự đoán của Chủ tịch Hội đồng Kinh doanh Mỹ-ASEAN Matthew P. Daley tại buổi họp báo tại Hà Nội chiều nay 13/5. Đại diện của Chevron, một tập đoàn dầu khí lớn của Mỹ, cũng phân tích tính hấp dẫn về môi trường đầu tư ở Việt Nam. Ông cho biết Chevron có mặt tại Việt Nam từ giữa những năm 90 của thế kỷ trước và hiện đang có nhiều dự án lớn ở Việt Nam. Hiện Chevron đã đầu tư 300 triệu USD vào dự án cung cấp khí gas để sản xuất điện tại khu vực Đồng bằng sông Cửu Long nhằm đảm bảo nguồn năng lượng chiến lược cho Việt Nam. Sử dụng khí để sản xuất điện sẽ hạn chế ô nhiễm môi trường và làm lợi cho Việt Nam khoảng 15 tỷ USD trong vòng 20 năm tới. Dự án này sẽ có tổng mức vốn là khoảng 4 tỷ USD, trong đó Chevron sẽ đầu tư khoảng 2.5 tỷ USD. Khi đó Mỹ sẽ trở thành nhà đầu tư nước ngoài số 1 tại Việt Nam.
TQ khăng khăng đòi chủ quyền biển 12/5/2009
Các tuyên bố chủ quyền trên biển trước Liên Hiệp Quốc đặt Trung Quốc vào thế chống lại các láng giềng.
- China, Vietnam, Malaysia spar on sea law (UPI 13-5-09)
BEIJING, May 13 (UPI) -- China says a bid by Vietnam and Malaysia to challenge its territorial claims in the South China Sea is illegal and invalid.
"China has indisputable sovereignty, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over South China Sea islands and their adjacent waters," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu
A spokesman for the Chinese mission to the U.N. told the state-run news agency Xinhua that because of the opposition from Beijing, the CLCS will not consider the joint Vietnam-Malaysia submission.
China is jealousy protecting its rights in the South China Sea because it plays a vital role in the country's security and economy, providing a transportation route for 80 percent of its imported crude oil and holding rich reserves of natural gas, analysts told China Daily.
As China's navy grows and its interests spread across the world's continents, other Asian nations are looking ways to ramp up their own fleets
Last month, delegations from the naval fleets of 14 nations met at the Chinese port of Qingdao to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA-Navy). It was a chummy affair of joint exercises and processions at sea, overseen by white-clad officers in full regalia. In a speech there, Chinese president Hu Jintao trumpeted his country's emergence as a budding maritime power, while assuring foreign observers that China "would never seek hegemony, nor would it turn to arms races with other nations." Instead, Hu claimed, the retooled and expanding Chinese navy would lead the region into "harmonious seas."
But China's cuddly rhetoric has seduced few. In 2008, Beijing's annual military budget increased by almost 20% to $60 billion, according to official figures, though the Pentagon estimates that number could actually be closer to $150 billion. Its most recent report on the PLA warned grimly of China's ability to "develop and field disruptive military technologies" — tactics which the Pentagon thinks will change "regional military balances and... have implications beyond the Asia-Pacific." China's strategic interests now rim most of the world's continents and it remains embroiled in lingering territorial disputes with its neighbors. Though publicly muted, there is growing concern in capitals across the rest of Asia over Beijing's burgeoning pre-eminence. "There's no escaping the fact that, in the past ten years, China's negotiating power has increased while others have weakened," says C. Raja Mohan, a leading Indian foreign policy expert and professor at Singapore's S. Rajaratnam School for International Studies. (Read "China's Navy: How Big a Threat to the U.S.?")
In response to China's gains — which include putting out three new submarines a year since 1995 — neighboring countries have also set about beefing up their fleets. Just a week after the ceremonies in Qingdao, Vietnam announced its purchase of six kilo-class submarines from Russia. On May 2, the Australian government published a white paper outlining a twenty year, $74 billion plan to revitalize its navy so it could be ready, if need be, to counter a "major power adversary" — a thinly veiled reference to how some defense officials there imagine China's military project. "The front line of the Cold War may have been in Western Europe," says Andrew Davies, an expert on Asian military modernization at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a Canberra-based think tank. "But a future one could well be drawn through the western Pacific."
A decline in American influence is at the core of the region's changing geo-political landscape. For decades after World War II, the U.S. authored the status quo in Asia's waters, with a series of naval bases from Guam to Japan, and a high-powered presence of marine corps and air-craft carriers to back up its interests with muscle. In 1996, when tensions between China and Taiwan bubbled over into threats of war, Washington was able to check Beijing's aggression by deploying two carrier battle groups off Taiwan's shores. That kind of move is unthinkable now, not just because the US is entangled in costly operations in the Middle East, but because of China's growing stature and military resources. "We were in a period that was essentially unipolar," says Davies. "Now the U.S. and China are going to have to reach some sort of an accommodation."
Other nations in China's neighborhood are not holding their breath. Over the next five years alone, Asian navies will lavish an estimated $60 billion on upgrades and new technologies, outstripping all the combined spending of countries in NATO, excluding the U.S. Apart from China, the top Asian spenders include Japan and South Korea, nations that over the past 40 years relied on American military support to deter the communist states to their west. Now, Japan is due to launch its largest ship since World War II, a "Hyuga" class helicopter carrier — Japan's pacifist constitution forbids the use of carriers with more offensive aircraft — that is designed chiefly for anti-submarine warfare. Seoul paraded a similar 14,000 ton vessel at Qingdao.
Of course, with many Asian countries bound together by their dynamic economies, few analysts expect a full-blown arms race that could disrupt the region's growth. Mike McDevitt, a retired U.S. admiral and director of the strategic studies division at the Center for Naval Analyses in Washington D.C., envisions a more tacit struggle for strategic supremacy, based on stealth and surveillance. "There'll be a capabilities competition between the U.S. and China going on for the foreseeable future," he says, with navies seeking to interfere with rival sea lines of communication, probing maritime borders with deep sea patrols likely involving submarines capable of bearing ballistic missiles.
Two tense standoffs in recent months between American and PLA surveillance vessels near China's southern Hainan island may be an augur of what lies ahead. A new submarine base there gives Beijing a vital edge in the South China Sea, whose waters are contested by five other governments. The disputed Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes, which sit above reserves of natural gas, have been an ongoing bone of contention between China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Further afield, China and India, Asia's other rising giant, are locked in a protracted contest of influence over the Indian Ocean, with China setting up a "string of pearls" — or listening posts — from Burma to Pakistan. New Delhi has stepped up its own military ties with Hanoi in an attempt to keep Beijing busy in its own backyard.
Strategic analysts stress there's nothing wrong with emerging nations like India and China improving their naval prowess to match their heightened role in world affairs. "It is logical that these countries will build navies and project their power," says Raja Mohan. "The question is how does this all get managed?" As of yet, there is no regional treaty alliance in place, no new diplomatic structures like NATO in Europe, for example, that could reflect or bring order to the shifting power lines of the Asian 21st century. Last year, Japanese prime minister Taro Aso floated the idea of an "arch of freedom," a security consensus threading together democracies like India, Japan and Australia, but its obvious anti-Chinese subtext meant the notion gained little traction. "Nobody is going to sign up to an actual containment policy," says McDevitt of the Center for Naval Analyses.
For now, a cloud of uncertainty looms over the shape of things to come. Experts talk of China's maritime rise in the same continuum as that of the British Royal Navy in the days of Victorian empire, and the U.S. fleet during the Cold War. At present, China's naval capabilities are still that of a regional power — its own state planners aim for the PLA to finally have "risen" only in half a century's time. By then, the world could be very a different place. The Chinese navy could act as a stabilizing force — or a source of conflict that threatens its neighbors. "It should not shock us that they're going to be there, out and about," reckons McDevitt. "We might as well get used to it."
Ấn Độ sẽ nhận được từ Nga chiếc tàu ngầm có khả năng hạt nhân đầu tiên - chiếc Akula II, vào cuối năm nay theo một thoả thuận thuê tàu dài 10 năm giữa hai nước.
May 13, 2009, 13:12 GMT
Hanoi - As the deadline for countries to submit their final claims to maritime territory under the UN Law of the Sea Treaty expired Wednesday, Vietnam, China and four other countries remained at odds over who owns the South China Sea.
The dispute has sparked diplomatic protests and contributed to a recent rise in tensions between Vietnam and China. It has led to confrontations between US and Chinese naval vessels, and may be behind Vietnam's decision in April to order six state-of-the-art diesel attack submarines from Russia, at a cost of 1.8 billion dollars.
And for many Vietnamese, China's claim to sovereignty over the entirety of what Vietnamese call the East Sea is a step too far.
The current flurry of diplomatic protests stems from a deadline imposed by treaty, which gave signatory nations until Wednesday to submit their claims to exclusive economic zones above their continental shelves. Such zones can extend up to 350 nautical miles (about 650 kilometres) from the shore.
Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei all claim part or all of the Spratly and Paracel Islands and the South China Sea waters around them. The area is believed to contain substantial undersea oil reserves.
All four nations submitted their claims to UNCLOS, the UN body that administers the treaty, last week. Taiwan, which also claims the islands, cannot submit a claim because it is not a signatory state.
China quickly rejected Vietnam's and Malaysia's claims, which overlap the most with China's.
On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said China has 'indisputable sovereignty over the South China islands.' He called Vietnam's submission to UNCLOS 'illegal and invalid.'
China submitted its own claims to UNCLOS, but a Vietnamese government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the German Press Agency dpa the Chinese document did not present its claims to the South China Sea. China claims the entirety of the sea as its own territorial waters, and does regards the Law of the Sea's terms as applicable.
China's South-East Asian neighbours have begun to resolve their more modest marine territorial claims between themselves, hoping to present a united front. Vietnam and Malaysia, which have no conflicting claims, presented a joint submission to UNCLOS.
Vietnam invited the Philippines to join that submission, but Philippine Ambassador Laura Del Rosario told dpa her government could not participate, in part because of overlaps between the Philippine and Malaysian claims.
Del Rosario said the efforts to present a common position of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) were frustrated by Beijing.
'No matter how much we try to work together, China still refuses to deal with us except on a bilateral basis,' Del Rosario said. 'If we say okay, you deal with us, four ASEAN claimants, China refuses.'
Vietnam and China generally enjoy close relations, but the conflict over maritime resources is a persistent source of tension.
'Vietnam and China have agreed not to make the situation in the East Sea more complicated,' said Bui Hong Phuc, Vietnam's former ambassador to China. 'But because each country is strengthening its territorial claims, it causes conflict.'
But Vietnamese and Western analysts said privately that Vietnam's acquisition of Russian submarines seems to be part of a strategy to counter the growing strength of the Chinese Navy.
No other country in the region comes close to matching China's naval power, but submarines represent an asymmetric threat that could deny the Chinese control over the area if they attempt to seize the islands by force.
The one naval power that can match the Chinese, the United States, maintains it has no position on the territorial dispute, but it does insist on the maintenance of the Law of the Sea's right to free passage for all ships outside of countries' 12-nautical mile territorial waters.
China may not agree. In January and March, US naval vessels were obstructed by Chinese ships in international waters south of the island of Hainan. US efforts to defend the right of free passage have been hampered by the fact that it is not a treaty signatory.
Protesting the Vietnamese and Malaysian submissions, China demanded that they be considered void until bilateral agreements have been worked out. That may take a long time. Disputes over the Spratlys and Paracels date back to at least the 1970s.
In the meantime, Vietnam is making sure it has options.
'China is strengthening its naval forces,' Phuc said. 'Why shouldn't Vietnam do that too?'
Theo các chuyên gia, chiến lược của Trung Quốc bao gồm 3 yếu tố chính : thiết lập cơ quan hành chánh đặc trách mọi vấn đề liên quan đến Biển Đông, phái tàu xuống tuần tra thường xuyên trong vùng, tăng cường hạm đội Nam Hải chuyên trách vùng biển phiá Nam Trung Quốc
Về yếu tố thứ nhất, vào tháng tư vừa qua, một cơ quan thuộc bộ Ngoại giao Trung Quốc mang tên Vụ Biên giới và Đại Dương đã chính thức đi vào hoạt động. Theo thông báo hôm mồng 5 tháng năm vừa qua của phát ngôn viên bộ ngoại giao Trung Quốc, thì Vụ này chuyên trách các vấn đề liên quan đến biên giới trên bộ và trên biển của Trung Quốc, phân định ranh giới và giải quyết các tranh chấp, hoạch định chính sách biên giới cũng như tham gia đàm phán về các đề án đồng khai thác với nước ngoài. Ba chuyên gia được xem là dày dạn kinh nghiệm trong lãnh vực thương thuyết biên giới cũng như luật biển đã được cử đứng đầu cơ quan này.
Song song với việc sử dụng lực luợng tàu thuyền gọi là ''dân sự'' để bảo vệ các quyền lợI của mình tại vùng biển Đông, từ đầu thập niên 90 đến nay, Trung Quốc càng lúc càng củng cố uy lực cho hạm đội Nam Hải của họ. Đây là lực lượng chịu trách nhiệm vùng Quảng Đông cũng như khu vực Biển Đông.
Theo các thông tin báo chí, Bắc Kinh hiện đang có ý định điều các khu trục hạm lớn nhất của họ từ Hạm Đội Bắc Hải xuống Hạm Đội Nam hải, trong lúc các hàng không mẫu hạm họ dự trù chế tạo trong thời gian tới đây sẽ được giao cho Hạm ĐộI ở phiá Nam.
Tóm lại, chiến lược khống chế Biển đông của Trung Quốc bao gồm cả ba lãnh vực ngoại giao, luật pháp và quân sự. Tuy nhiên điều khiến giới quan sát lo ngại nhất chính là việc Trung Quốc tăng cường tuần tra tại vùng Biển Đông. Trong bối cảnh Hải quân Hoa Kỳ vẫn hoạt động trong vùng, và lực lượng Hải quân các nước láng giềng không thụ động, không thể loại trừ những sự cố đáng tiếc như vụ va chạm giữa phi cơ do thám Mỹ và chiến đấu cơ Trung Quốc vào năm 2001.
