Special to WorldTribune.com

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

The Xi Jinping leadership may have overplayed its hand when it moved a deep-sea oil rig into waters near the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea that are also claimed by Vietnam.

This assertive act has provoked a series of anti-Chinese developments the vehemence of which has not been seen in the past decade.

Anti-Beijing demonstrations in Hanoi, which started last weekend, deteriorated into attacks on several hundred Chinese and Taiwanese factories in different Vietnamese cities on Monday and Tuesday, May 12 and 13.

Of perhaps more significance is that two heavyweight countries within the ASEAN bloc — Malaysia and Indonesia — have given at least indirect support to Vietnam and the Philippines, the two ASEAN members that have been most vocal in their condemnation of “Chinese neo-imperialism.”

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  “Chinese neo-imperialism”, ASEAN, Behind Beijing’s high stakes sovereignty disputes in S. China Sea: Trouble at home, oil rig, Paracel Islands