J

strong>June 4, p12

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung delivered the opening keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a multilateral forum for defense diplomacy, in Singapore on Friday. Dung called for 'strategic trust' among Asia-Pacific members and announced that Hanoi would be joining international peacekeeping operations for the first time.

Your comments:

China fears the strong unity of ASEAN and it does not require all members to equally commit to the same level of assertive stand to confront them.

As long as ASEAN recognizes that Chinese aggression is detrimental to regional growth and takes measures to prevent China from bullying smaller South China Sea claimants, China will change its tune and its act.

After all, China does not have any real allies, despite being a major economy and having significant cash reserves.

It's expansionist policies, criminal contempt for neighbors, lack of respect for  historical facts, extreme self-fed nationalism and lawless disregard for international institutions, contribute to its self-destructive isolation.

Henry Yorio