Vietnam strongly opposes China dredging channels around Duy Mong (Drummond) Island, a part of the Southeast Asian country’s Hoang Sa (Paracel Islands) archipelago in the East Vietnam Sea, Le Hai Binh, spokesperson for the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has said.

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Binh expressed the opposition at a regular press conference of the ministry on Thursday when asked by reporters about Vietnam’s response to China’s dredging work off the island. The spokesman stressed that all of China’s activities within the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos are illegal and invalid, as they have violated Vietnam’s irrefutable sovereignty over the two groups of islands. China’s Xinhua News Agency earlier said that the work is being done to ease the access for Chinese fishermen and supply boats in the waters off Hoang Sa. Xinhua also said that piers for cruising ships and areas for garbage and supply ships to anchor will also be set up in the area in the future. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly affirmed that Vietnam has full legal and historical evidence to prove its sovereignty over the two archipelagos. This is China’s latest violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty since July 16, when China moved its oil rig Haiyang Shiyou 981 out of Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf after illegitimately placing the drilling platform there since May 1, Binh said. More than 100 Chinese vessels that guarded the rig every day during that period often rammed or fired their water cannons at Vietnamese ships tasked with asking them to leave the sea area, according to the Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance Department. Such attacks injured 15 Vietnamese fisheries surveillance officers together with two fishermen, as well as damaged 27 boats belonging to Vietnam’s marine law enforcement and Coast Guard forces and seven local fishing boats, the department said.

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