Viets Gamble Vainly on Appeasement in South China Sea

Vietnam's Communist regime has hoped that deferential behavior might temper its giant northern neighbor's South China Sea ambitions. But by sending the deep sea drill ship Haiyang 981 to explore for oil just off Vietnam's central coast, Beijing has dashed that hope and posed a terrible dilemma for Hanoi.

The Vietnamese were the fiercest critics of China'…