China’s construction of a new platform in a remote part of Vietnam’s Paracel Islands (Hoang Sa) in the South China Sea, known as the East Sea in Vietnam, is a serious violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty, a vice spokesperson of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said on November 22.
Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' vice spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Tra at a press conference on Nov 22. Photo: MOFA
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“We vehemently object to this action by China and demand that China stop immediately, not repeat similar activities, and respect Vietnam’s sovereignty in accordance with international law,” Nguyen Phuong Tra, vice spokesperson of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a press conference on Thursday.
In recent years, China has been building military and other installations on artificial features and reefs in both Vietnam’s Paracels and Spratlys (Truong Sa). The activities have unnerved the region and prompted Washington to increase its engagement.
Earlier this month, the United States for the first time urged China to remove its missile systems deployed to Spratly Islands in the East Sea.
CSIS said the possibility that the structure’s rapid deployment could be repeated in other parts of the South China Sea. Any extension of those capabilities to the south and east from Bombay Reef would bring China closer to its goal of monitoring and projecting power across the entire waterway, it raised concerns.
In a latest move, China and the Philippines on November 20 signed a memorandum of understanding on oil and gas exploration in the West Philippine Sea. Commenting on the event, the Vietnamese vice spokesperson said that the joint cooperation would only be made in areas under the two countries’ jurisdiction according to the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 1982.
