Rejecting this, Clinton proposed that the US help establish an international mechanism to mediate the overlapping claims of sovereignty between China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia that now exist in the South China Sea. For China, Clinton’s intervention came as a shock, and, given the warm response she received from her Vietnamese hosts – despite criticizing Vietnam’s human-rights record – the US Secretary of State may well have raised the issue at least partly at their urging, and perhaps with additional prompting from Malaysia and the Philippines.