China’s recent practice of making claims on things that other countries already had their flags on is creating new military agreements, if not full alliances.  Japan is providing Vietnam with six naval vessels to deal with the threat posed by Beijing.

Vietnam's Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh and Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida announced a grant aid package consisting of six used vessels worth US$5 Million. 

“We hope this will help strengthen the maritime law enforcement capability of Vietnam,” said Kishida. 

The deal comes as relations between Vietnam and China are at the worst point in years, following China’s deployment of a giant oil rig to the Paracel islands, which Vietnam claims and are well outside China’s internationally recognized maritime border.

Japan is also locked in a similar territorial dispute with China, over a group of uninhabited islands known as the Senkaku.  Japan has controlled then Senkaku for more than a century, and is now giving each of the five islands a proper name, in a move to bolster its territorial claims.