The Vietnamese government spokesman Vu Duc Dam said at a regular press conference yesterday that the Vietnamese government has ordered immigration agencies not to stamp anything on the new Chinese passports that contain the illegal 9-dash line.

Dam, who is also Minister, Chairman of the Government Office, said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has clearly stated Vietnam’s position and sent a diplomatic note protesting the inclusion of the U-shaped line to the Chinese side.

However, in line with the tradition of openness and integration, Vietnam tries to not cause difficulty to Chinese visitors.

“The government has ordered, with regards to Chinese persons holding passports with the cow’s tongue line [9-dash line], no Vietnamese stamp of any kind will be put on them”.

But such visitors will be issued with separate visas [not attached to the said passports] and can therefore enter Vietnam as normal, Dam explained.

This, on the one hand, creates conditions for Chinese citizens to work, travel in Vietnam while, on the other hand, expressing the official position of the Vietnamese government, the spokesman added.

Meanwhile, a representative of a checkpoint at Mong Cai border gate in Quang Ninh province recently told Tuoi Tre: “Mong Cai border guards only issued separate visas to Chinese nationals entering Vietnam with e-passports containing the cow’s tongue line".

"When issuing separate visas, competent authorities will not have to stamp on such passports, through which we assert the non-recognition of Chinese cow’s tongue line under any forms”.

For now, they have not complained but “in the long term, the Chinese will feel inconvenient with the separate visas and will ask their authorities to change”, this representative added.

According to Le Vinh Truong, of the East Sea Research Fund, China is “waging psychological warfare”. They tried to brainwash their citizens with wrong ideas, wrong facts, repeating them again and again in an effort to turn them into the “truth”.