BEIJING, China – China should give Vietnam a “lesson it deserves to get” if Hanoi ratchets up tension in the South China Sea, an aggressive editorial in state-run media said Tuesday, May 6.
The editorial in the Global Times newspaper comes after Vietnam reacted furiously to a decision by Beijing to move a deep-water drilling rig into disputed waters for the first time.
Hanoi labelled the move “illegal” and demanded the rig be withdrawn from the area close to the Paracel islands – claimed by Vietnam but controlled by China, which calls them Xisha.
China took control of the whole group of islands after a battle with the US-backed South Vietnamese regime in 1974, as US troops withdrew from Vietnam.