Japan PM Shinzo Abe meets Vietnamese leaders, promises patrol boats for South China Sea

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday that Japan will provide six patrol vessels to Vietnam as a part of a fresh yen-loan offer totalling 120 billion yen (US$1 billion) to the Southeast Asian country to help its maritime safety efforts amid China’s expanding activities at sea.

Abe’s stop in Vietnam completes a tour through an arc of a region where Japan stakes a leadership claim in the face of China’s growing dominance and uncertainty over what policy change Donald Trump will bring as US president.

“We will strongly support Vietnam’s enhancing its maritime law enforcement capability,” Abe said, while emphasising that the dispute over the South China Sea should be settled through talks and in accordance with international law.

China claims almost all the South China Sea, through which about US$5 trillion worth of seaborne trade passes every year. Vietnam and four other countries also have claims in the sea, believed to have rich deposits of oil and gas.

Tokyo has no territorial claims there, but worries about China’s growing military reach into the sea lanes. Japan has a separate dispute with China over a cluster of tiny islets in the East China Sea.