On January 12, answering a reporter's question suggested for Vietnam's reaction in response to China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s statement on January 11 on the landing of Chinese aircraft on an airfield China illegally built on the Fiery Cross Reef of Vietnam’s Truong Sa archipelago, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh stated:
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh
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"Vietnam resolutely rejects the viewpoints in the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman’s statement on January 11 regarding Chinese planes’ flights to an illegally built airstrip on Chu Thap (Fiery Cross) Reef in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago.
In terms of China’s recent flights, as the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam has repeatedly said, the Ho Chi Minh Flight Information Region’s management agency did not receive any notifications of flight plans from China as the country stated. When a representative of the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi announced to a representative of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry on December 30, 2015, that Chinese civil planes would conduct flights to Fiery Cross Reef, Vietnam immediately objected to, and demanded China cancel that action.
Vietnam once again asserts its undisputed sovereignty over the Truong Sa and Hoang Sa archipelagoes. China’s claim that its flights to the Fiery Cross Reef are a national aviation activity is an unreasonable claim of sovereignty over the Truong Sa archipelago, which seriously violates Vietnam’s sovereignty over Truong Sa.
China declaring the flights to Fiery Cross Reef its own “national aviation activities” is actually aimed at asserting the country’s unfounded sovereignty claim over Truong Sa archipelago, which seriously infringes Vietnam’s sovereignty over the chain of islands.
China’s flights to Fiery Cross Reef, under any name, affected aviation security, safety and freedom over the East Sea and ran counter to international regulations, including the 1944 Chicago Convention (Convention on International Civil Aviation) and the annexes on rules of flights in international airspace, especially Annex 2 and 11.
Once again, Vietnam demands China stop flights to Fiery Cross Reef, not conduct further actions that violate Vietnam’s sovereignty, and practically contribute to maintaining peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation in the East Sea"
