Vietnam hopes for Chinese restraint in South China Sea in 2020

SINGAPORE, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Vietnam said it hoped China
would show restraint in the South China Sea next year after a
Chinese oil survey vessel and its escorts spent months within
Vietnam's exclusive economic zone in what Hanoi called a blatant
violation of its sovereignty.
Vietnam, the region's most forceful challenger of China's
extensive maritime claims to the busy waterway, will take on the
rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN) in 2020.
"I hope that during our chairmanship China will show
restraint and refrain from these activities," Vietnam's deputy
foreign minister, Nguyen Quoc Dung, said at a lecture at The
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
"What China did is very alarming and also kind of
threatening not only Vietnam but also other countries that see
the potential of being threatened in the future," he said.
China's claims within its so-called "Nine-Dash Line" in the
South China Sea are a source of friction with ASEAN members
Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei as well as with the United
States.
But China's closest allies within the Southeast Asian bloc
have historically opposed taking tougher words or action against
China, which is nonetheless negotiating a code of conduct with
regional states.
The Vietnamese minister said it wasn't that other ASEAN
countries supported China's actions, but that they did not
protest in the same way.
More than $3 trillion a year in trade pass through the
waterway, which also has oil and gas reserves and historic
fishing grounds for the surrounding countries.
The Chinese oil survey vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 left Vietnam's
extended economic zone in late October after more than three
months there. Beijing said it had been carrying out a scientific
survey in Chinese-controlled waters. (Editing by Lincoln Feast.)