Vietnam Ambassador Le Hoai
Trung on July 3 requested UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, circulate two
documents clarifying Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel)
archipelago and exposing the fallacies of China’s claims.
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A Vietnam Coast Guard ship performing its
duty near the site where Chinese oil rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 is positioned.
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In the first document,
Vietnam plead with specificity the legal arguments for its opposition to
China’s illegal placement of Haiyang Shiyou-981, countering all of the
allegations China set forth in its notes dated May 22 and June 9 to the UN
Secretary General.
Vietnam hypothesises that
China is wilfully and purposefully escalating tensions in the East Sea by
positioning its oil rig in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental
shelf where Vietnam enjoys the rights of coastal countries in accordance with
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
To enforce the illegal
trespass, China has dispatched more than 100 escort vessels, including military
ships, into Vietnamese waters ramming and firing water cannons at Vietnam’s law
enforcement boats; wreaking havoc to lives and property, and sinking one Vietnamese
fishing vessel.
Vietnam has spared no
effort to defuse tensions and initiate measures to bring about a peaceful
resolution of the territorial dispute through diplomacy and dialogue, but its
gestures have been rejected by the Chinese side.
The second document affirms
Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracel islands and exposes China’s historical
and legal claims of sovereignty over the group of islands (called Xisha in
China) as meritless.
The Vietnam Ministry of
Foreign Affairs identified with specificity the discrepancies between the
historical evidence which is inconsistent with China’s claims regarding the
Paracel Islands, specifically pinpointing the Chinese assertions that are
unclear, incorrect or arbitrarily interpreted.
Meanwhile, Vietnam has
provided historical documents evidencing that the country established its
sovereignty over the archipelago centuries ago, prior to any other nation’s
claim.
Vietnam also provided
documentary evidence proving that the archipelago was not delivered to China at
international conferences before and/or after the end of World War II,
including the Cairo Conference (11/1943), Potsdam Conference (7/1945), the San
Francisco Peace Conference (8/1951), and Geneva Conference (1954).
Additionally, the document
clarifies that China had used force twice to illegally occupy the Paracel
archipelago. Specifically following the French troops’ withdrawal in 1956,
China occupied a group of islands east of the archipelago, and the action was
strongly protested by the then Republic of Vietnam administration.
In 1974 China again
attacked and illegally seized temporary control of the archipelago from the
Republic of Vietnam administration. This was the first time China used military
force to occupy the entire archipelago.
From the perspective of
international law, the use of force to invade territory of a sovereign nation
is illegal and cannot be considered the basis for a sovereignty claim. So,
Vietnam’s sovereignty over the archipelago has been maintained for centuries
and cannot be reversed by an illegal Chinese occupation, militarily enforced.
A memorandum dated May 12,
1988 by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs clearly delineates a
fundamental principle of international law; which is that sovereignty over a
territory cannot be achieved through invasion. No country in the world, absent
China, recognizes China’s sovereignty claims over the archipelago.
The second document further
clarifies that Vietnam has never acquiesced to China’s sovereignty over Hoang
Sa islands either, and that China is purposefully distorting history and
misinterpreting late Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong’s 1958 diplomatic
note and several other materials published in Vietnam before 1975, to back up
its claims. In the 1958 diplomatic note, Dong did not mention the sovereignty
over the Hoang Sa or Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos.
Vietnam has asked China to
respect the historical truth and seriously negotiate the Paracel archipelago
with Vietnam.
This is the fourth time
Vietnam has sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, asking it be officially
circulated to the members of the 68th Session of
the UN General Assembly.
Source: VOV
