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strong>May 15, Online/AP

A 1,000-strong mob stormed a Taiwanese steel mill in Vietnam overnight, killing a Chinese worker and injuring 141 others, Taiwan'€™s ambassador and police said Thursday, the first deadly incident in a wave of unruly anti-China protests prompted by Beijing'€™s deployment of an oil rig in disputed seas.

The unrest is emerging as a major challenge for Vietnam'€™s authoritarian and secretive leadership, and is hurting the country'€™s reputation as a safe investment destination. It risks inflaming an already tense and dangerous standoff between patrol ships from both countries in the South China Sea close to the rig, which Hanoi is demanding Beijing withdraw.

Your comments:

Vietnam, the Philippines, ASEAN and their allies should work together to formulate sanctions strategies against Chinese aggression, just like what the US and NATO did to Russia in the Ukraine crisis.

It probably won'€™t do much, but will send the message to China'€™s policy makers. Vietnam and the Philippines could sanction individuals or entities from China.

For example, ban Huawei in participating in domestic ICT tenders in respective country.

FMN

The problem is that ASEAN is a loose association and inevitably one member'€™s external relations are not the concern of the rest. Indeed some member states may not even want to antagonize China.

Jagera

In the latest news, Beijing has vowed to continue drilling, and if the drilling was at Indonesia'€™s Natuna then China probably would say the same thing, and where China would see its drilling at Natuna as '€œconducting normal activity'€ regardless of Indonesian protests even to the United Nations like Vietnam did.

China says its oil rig will continue drilling in contested waters in the South China Sea, despite deadly anti-Beijing riots in Vietnam.

Eddy Saf