China Seeks to Coerce Vietnam With Sea Maneuvers, U.S. Says
- State Department condemns escalating ‘efforts to intimidate’
- ‘The situation is getting much more serious,’ analyst says
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China is taking “aggressive steps” to coerce Southeast Asian nations into halting work with international oil and gas companies in the energy-rich waters off of Vietnam, the U.S. said.
The deployment of a government-owned survey vessel with armed escorts “is an escalation by Beijing in its efforts to intimidate other claimants out of developing resources in the South China Sea” and forcing them “to work only with China’s state-owned enterprises,” Morgan Ortagus, the State Department spokeswoman, said in a statement on Thursday.