Beijing wrong to assume US won't back Vietnam in standoff: US expert

• Staff Reporter
 
• 2014-06-13
 
• 09:31 (GMT+8)

A Vietnamese vessel is intercepted by a Chinese vessel after entering waters near the Haiyang Shiyou 981 rig, May 2. (Photo/Xinhua)

China should not assume that the United States will not use military force against it to defend Vietnam, according to an American strategist.

Ernest Z Bower, a senior analyst focused on Southeast Asia at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, has been highly critical of China since the tense standoff between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels last month over China's Haiyang Shiyou 981 oil rig deployed in waters off the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea.

"It is clear that China's new assertiveness is triggering anxieties among its neighbors," Bower said in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle published on May 13.

Later, Bower told the Washington Times: "Beijing has decided that Washington is distracted and doesn't have the gut for a serious intervention and so they made this geopolitical move of placing this drilling rig on the Vietnamese continental shelf."

While the US has condemned China's actions in the South China Sea as "provocative," most political analysts say that there is no way the US will fight a war for Vietnam over this bilateral conflict.

Bower, however, does not agree, saying whether the US will provide Vietnam with military support will depend on the circumstances, adding that Beijing should not misjudge the situation.

Bower said he can't say for sure under what circumstances the US will resort to military intervention, but he believes the view that the US won't activate its military no matter what China does to Vietnam is an error in judgment.