Vietnam asserts peaceful measures for East Sea disputes

Vietnam’s consistent position on East Sea-related issues, is that they should be resolved by peaceful means in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Vietnam’s consistent position on East Sea-related issues, is that they should be resolved by peaceful means in accordance with international law, especially the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Navy Force of the Philippines stops foreign fishermen at Scarborough Shoar.

Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry’ National Border Committee Nguyen Duy Chien made the statement in Hanoi on January 24. He was answering a reporters’ question on Vietnam’s response to the Philippines’ decision to take China to an arbitral tribunal in accordance with Article 287 and Annex VII of UNCLOS.

Vietnam believes that countries have the right to choose peaceful measures to resolve disputes in line with the UN Charter and international law, including UNCLOS, Chien said.

He also responded to a question relating to the China National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geo-information’s plan to publish in late January 2013 the “National Map of China” and the “topographic map of China” in a new vertical format that will include the “nine-dashed line”, also called the “cow tongue” line, islands, rocks and shoals in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagoes.

Chien affirmed Vietnam’s indisputable sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes as well as its sovereign right and jurisdiction over its exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the East Sea under UNCLOS.

All maps featuring false information on Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes, as well as its sovereign right and jurisdiction in the East Sea is illegal and void, he stressed.