Two scoundrels acting tough

VIETNAM AND THE PHILIPPINES ARE TRYING to make a scene over their maritime territorial disputes with China. A football game between the two armies on an island controlled by Vietnam in the South China Sea on Sunday is the latest shameless farce the two countries have staged.

Turning a blind eye to the fact that the South China Sea islands have long been China's territory and even their own old maps marked the nine-dash lines in the area as belonging to China, both countries are behaving like scoundrels on the street.

Hundreds of ships sent by Vietnam have been trying to interfere with the construction of a floating drilling rig by a Chinese oil firm near China's Xisha Islands for weeks. And in March, the Philippines tried to send supplies to a warship that it grounded on China's Ren'ai Reef in the late 1990s, in a bid to claim ownership of it, to display its defiance at China's sovereignty over the island.