Vietnam has got ready to
take legal action against China over its illegal stationing of a giant oil
drilling rig well within the Vietnamese exclusive economic zone, said a
Ministry of Foreign Affairs official.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha, head
of the ministry’s International Law and Treaties Department, told an
international news conference in Hanoi on Friday that Vietnam as a member of
the United Nations and the 1982 UNCLOS can use all dispute solving mechanisms
provided in the UN Charter and the UNCLOS to address relevant disputes.
“Vietnamese leaders have
made clear that the country does not rule out the use of peaceful measures to
solve disputes,” she said. The peaceful measures, she noted, include the
possibility of using international arbitration as mentioned in the UN Charter
and the UNCLOS.
“We in our capacity as a
legal consulting agency of the Government are responsible for making
preparations to exhaust all possible measures as ordered by the Government.
“We think it’s better to
take legal action than to trigger a military conflict.”
When asked by the media
when to file the case, Ha said, “As a jurist, I am also asking when is
appropriate. The final decision rests with the Government.”
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung,
while visiting the Philippines last week, also told international news agencies
AP and Reuters over China’s illegal deployment of Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig
and a big flotilla of escort ships, including those of the military, into
Vietnamese waters, “Like all nations, Vietnam is considering various defense
options, including legal action in accordance with international law.”
Speaking at the press
conference last week, Tran Duy Hai, deputy director of the National Boundary
Commission, said the two sides agreed not to use military measures to settle
disputes during a recent meeting between their deputy foreign ministers.
Sufficient historical evidence
Vietnam has practiced
utmost restraint and exhausted all peaceful measures, opportunities and
dialogue channels to settle the issue, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman
Le Hai Binh.
However, China has
continued maintaining a huge presence of ships, including naval vessels, and
military aircraft in the area around the oil rig to threaten and intimidate Vietnamese
law enforcement vessels that are carrying out their duty of protecting national
sovereignty, he said.
Worse still, Binh said,
China has continuously slandered and blamed Vietnam on the current situation,
while asserting its claim on the so-called “China’s sovereignty” over Vietnam’s
Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.
Hai of the National
Boundary Commission said Vietnam has a full legal foundation and historical
evidence to strongly prove its sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa
(Spratly) archipelagoes.
At least since the 17th
century, Vietnam has established and practiced its sovereignty over the two
archipelagoes when they were still derelict, he said, adding Vietnamese feudal
states also exercised sovereignty over these archipelagoes in a peaceful and
continuous manner in accordance with international law without facing
objections from any other country.
Hai said that during the
French occupation of Vietnam, the French government, in the name of Vietnam,
continued managing the two archipelagoes and opposed other countries’ claims
over them.
Vietnam’s sovereignty over
Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes was recognized at the San Francisco peace
conference in September 1951, he stressed.
After that, in accordance
with the Geneva Agreement on restoring peace in Indochina which affirmed that
all parties involved must respect independence and territorial integrity of
Vietnam, France withdrew its troops from Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam
undertook the management of the archipelagoes, he said, adding that the
government of the Republic of Vietnam had affirmed sovereignty and taken
actions to exercise sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa.
China as one of the
participants at the 1954 Geneva conference knows this too well, so it should
respect the international documents issued at that event, he said.
Nonetheless, in 1974, China
used force to occupy Hoang Sa. At the time, both the Republic of Vietnam and
the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam
protested the occupation, Hai said, and the United Nations Charter and
international law prohibit the use of force to violate the territory of other
countries.
China’s memorandum issued
on May 12, 1988, an official document by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, also
clearly confirmed a basic principle of international law that “invasion does
not produce sovereignty” over a territory, Hai said.
He said no country in the
world recognizes China’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa.
Hoang Sa and Truong Sa not mentioned in 1958
note
Hai said China had recently
intentionally misinterpreted a diplomatic note sent to China in 1958 by the
then Prime Minister Pham Van Dong.
The diplomatic note made no
mention of territory and sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa since the two
archipelagoes were below the 17th parallel at which Vietnam was divided. Those
islands were then under the management of the Republic of Vietnam in the south,
so in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Accords, to which China was a signatory,
Hoang Sa and Truong Sa were handed over to the Republic of Vietnam in 1956.
“You cannot give something
which does not belong to you. The note is not valid recognition of China’s
sovereignty over Xisha (Hoang Sa) and Nansha (Truong Sa) as China called the
archipelagos,” Hai said.
The fact that China said
Hoang Sa is not the subject of disputes runs counter to a Chinese high-level
leader’s viewpoint, Hai said, adding that at a meeting with First Secretary of
the Vietnam Worker's Party Le Duan on September 24, 1975, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping
recognized that there remained disputes between Vietnam and China over the two
archipelagos and the two sides could discuss these issues with each other.
Vice Premier Deng’s
statement is recorded in a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs memorandum published
in People's Daily newspaper, in which China affirmed a fundamental principle of
international law that sovereignty over a territory could not be born out of
invasion, Hai said.
Source:
SGT
