Tin từ Voice of Russia Radio:
Google divides South China Sea - Google phân chia lại Biển Đông
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_05_17/75019938/ Garibov Konstantin May 17, 2012 14:54
Google has settled its conflict with Vietnam by correcting a mistake made by its map service and ‘returning’ the Spratly Archipelago and the Paracel Islands to Vietnam. Earlier, those areas were not assigned to Vietnam in Google maps.
Google đă giải quyết cuộc xung đột với Việt Nam bằng cách sửa chữa một sai lầm được thực hiện bởi dịch vụ bản đồ và 'trả lại' quần đảo Trường Sa và Hoàng Sa cho Việt Nam. Trước đó, những khu vực này không được chỉ định cho Việt Nam trong bản đồ của Google.
It required diplomatic interference to sort out this error. In Vietnam’s opinion, Google committed cartographical aggression by taking those islands away from Vietnam and thus violating Vietnam’s territorial integrity. On the other hand, it still remains to be seen how China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan will take Google’s noble gesture because they also consider those islands part of their territories.
Google Maps usually avoids getting mixed up in territorial disputes. Meanwhile, analyst Alexey Voskresensky from the Russia-China Centre of the Institute of the Far East at the Russian Academy of Sciences does not rule out that this situation is politically charged.
“Google had problems in China because China introduced partial censorship of the Internet, which strongly affected Google’s interests. To a certain degree, this situation could be considered Goggle’s revenge. It turns out that Google has aggravated tension in connection with this territorial dispute in the South China Sea.”
Another fact is also interesting. After Vietnam and Google came to an amicable agreement, the US Federal Court of Appeals confirmed that information about cooperation between the National Intelligence Agency and Google will remain secret. However, the Court responded to human rights activists’ claim to disclose the nature of the links between Google and the National Intelligence Agency. Another version is that Google was protecting someone’s interests in the territorial dispute about the islands in the South China Sea. It sounds likely because US Defense Minister Leon Panetta recently voiced the US position. He personally promised the Philippine Foreign Minister Alberto del Rosario military aid in case of a conflict between Manila and Beijing regarding the Scarborough Shoal, or Huangyan Island, in the South China Sea. Director of the Centre of Strategic Research of China at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia Alexey Maslov believes that Washington is pursuing geopolitical aims.
“The US is trying to reinforce the Philippines in this dispute. Its main aim is to weaken China’s position in Asia, so as to prevent China from becoming the sole leader. Hard to say how reasonable this aim is. For many countries today, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia, China is more than Asia’s leader, it is a country which determines the new style of the Asian economy. The US is trying to interfere in Asia’s economic, social and political life.”
At present, fears are growing in the Philippines that China is preparing for a war for the South China Sea. Beijing is flatly denying these charges. At the same time, on Wednesday Hanoi remonstrated against Beijing’s ban on fishing in some areas of the South China Sea. China explained this by the season factor. Evidently, after settling the map conflict with Google, Vietnam has run against the Great Wall of China. A few days ago, in connection with the worsened confrontation with Manila, Beijing warned that no one should hope to annex even an inch of Chinese land. This means that the tiff between Vietnam and Google is far from over yet.
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