By Nguyen Thanh Trung — Many eyes are fixating on the incoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leader’s meeting, which is slated to take place from November 11-12 in the central Vietnamese city of Danang, where Vietnam aims to take…
By Alexander Vuving — Although the military enjoys a privileged position in Vietnam’s political system, force modernization has not been a priority in government spending for most of the last three decades. Upon recovery from a severe economic crisis that…
By Alexander L. Vuving — Since the South China Sea reemerged around 2008 as a hotspot of simmering conflict, conventional wisdom has held that tension in the area is driving an arms race among its littoral countries. Experts, journalists, and…
By South China Sea Expert Working Group — This is the first product of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) CSIS Expert Working Group on the South China Sea, which seeks to chart a feasible model for claimants to manage the maritime…
In this episode we discuss altering the U.S. policy approach to the South China Sea. Where does the South China Sea rank in the pecking order of U.S. policy interests? How much risk should America be willing to take over these…
By Gregory Poling & Geoffrey Hartman — The Seventh Annual CSIS South China Sea Conference on July 18 brought together security, legal, and environmental experts to review events of the past year. The participants had a lot of ground to…
In this episode we discuss maritime coercion in the Asia Pacific. Chinese actions in maritime Asia have led to a great deal of concern and commentary since disputes in the East and South China Seas have come to the forefront in…
By Minh Vu — Fulbright University Vietnam (FUV) has attracted much attention because it was born out of Vietnam-U.S. bilateral engagement. However, as the university welcomes its first class in September, FUV will become more than just a diplomatic achievement.…
By Murray Hiebert & Gregory Poling — Fan Changlong, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, was scheduled to make a two-day official visit to Hanoi on June 18-19 before joining Vietnam’s defense minister Ngo Xuan Lich for a series…
By Shannon Hayden — Members of the Asia-Pacific security community, and particularly those from Southeast Asia, wanted to be reassured by U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s remarks at the June 2-3 annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, but odds are…