National sovereignty must be strictly protected without any concession, Vietnam’s State President Truong Tan Sang has told people in Ho Chi Minh City.

>> China must stop violating Vietnam’s sovereignty in East Sea: foreign ministry The leader made the statement at a meeting with people in District 4 on Sunday after hearing them express their great concerns about the East Vietnam Sea’s tense situation, caused by China’s ongoing illegal actions. People voiced their worries after hearing from mass media that China has been carrying out land reclamation work and building artificial islands in Vietnam’s Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagoes in the East Vietnam Sea, despite strong protests from Hanoi as well as the international community. “Such concerns are legitimate for every patriot, but we should be calm to fully understand the situation and cope with it,” President Sang said. The leader added Vietnam has repeatedly affirmed that it has full historical and legal evidence to prove its irrefutable sovereignty over the two archipelagoes. “The East Vietnam Sea is a long-standing international navigation route, but China illegally claims the sea as its own waters and has built artificial islands atop submerged reefs in the area,” he said. More perversely, China has also banned all ships from entering the waters in a radius of 12 nautical miles around their artificial islands, President Sang said, considering the ban as going against the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and defying international law. China is illegally occupying seven islands of Vietnam and consolidating them rapidly, Phap Luat TP.HCM (Ho Chi Minh City Law) newspaper quoted the president as saying. “Seven islands occupied by China are submerged islands. China is trying to build them into structures that are actually artificial islands. Disregarding international law, Chinese forces scare our fishing boats away from those artificial islands within a radius of 12 and then 20 nautical miles,” he was cited by Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper as saying.  “By committing such acts, China aims to test international reactions,” the leader added. It is unacceptable that a small country complies with international law while a bigger nation allows itself to do anything at will, the president stressed. It is Vietnam’s consistent diplomatic policy that the country wishes to befriend all nations on the basis of mutual respect for sovereignty, national interests, and territorial integrity, in line with international law, President Sang said. “The fatherland’s sovereignty must absolutely be protected without any concession,” he affirmed. In a related development, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, Le Hai Binh, last Saturday voiced strong protest against China’s announcement of a fishing ban in the East Vietnam Sea. Binh said this Chinese act violates Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago and sovereign right and jurisdiction over the waters under the 1982 UNCLOS. The spokesperson made the statement in response to reporters’ questions regarding the recent announcement by authorities of Haikou, in China’s Hainan Province, of a ban on all fishing activities in the sea area from 12 degrees north parallel to the border of the waters of China’s Guangdong Province with Fujian Province (including the Tonkin Gulf). The ban is applied from 12:00 pm on May 16 to 12:00 pm on August 1, 2015, according to Chinese authorities.

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