AFP
Beijing and Hanoi reached an impasse in talks Wednesday over their latest territorial spat, as China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi warned Vietnam against disrupting the deployment of a controversial oil rig and Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung urged its giant neighbor to withdraw the equipment.
Tensions have spiraled since May 2 when a Chinese state-run oil company deployed the rig near Vietnam’s coast. Many had expected the visit to Hanoi by State Councilor Yang, who ranks higher than China’s Foreign Minister, to ease the strain.
But the language used by the state media of both countries indicated that the crisis would linger on.
Yang first met with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh Wednesday and accused Hanoi of stoking the confrontation in the South China Sea waters that both countries claim to be within their sovereign territory, and where ships from both nations have faced off in recent weeks.
Yang said Vietnam should “stop disruptions against China's normal operations” of the rig deployed near the Paracel islands—which are occupied by China and claimed by Hanoi—and “refrain from creating fresh disputes,” China’s official Xinhua news agency reported.
“Yang stressed the Xisha [Paracel] Islands are inherent territory of China and there are no disputes in this area,” the report said.
The Paracel Islands, known as Hoang Sa in Vietnamese, were seized by China from then-South Vietnam in 1974 in a period of turmoil shortly before the end of the Vietnam war.
Vietnam earlier this month released dramatic video footage showing a large Chinese ship chasing and ramming one of its fishing boats near the rig and causing it to sink.
Yang also received an earful in talks with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who asked Beijing to pull back the oil rig from the disputed waters.
Dung said the rig deployment “seriously violates Vietnam’s sovereignty,” according to Hanoi’s official Thanh Nien newspaper, and that Vietnam would “resolutely struggle to defend its sovereignty” by peaceful means in line with international law.
“China’s act also threatens peace, stability, security and safety of navigation and aviation in the region, while causing indignation and hurting the sentiments of Vietnamese people, putting negative impacts on the cooperation between the two Parties and countries,” the report quoted Dung as saying.
Dung said China’s action was also in violation of the agreements reached between leaders of both countries and infringed on the 1982 United Nations Conventions on the Law of the Sea, which rejects historically based claims.
Thanh Nien said that Dung requested China “withdraw its rig and ships from Vietnam’s waters and join talks for the settlement of disputes and differences between the two countries by peaceful measures in accordance with international law and the common perception of the two countries’ leaders.”
Dung said that the two sides should control the situation to prevent conflicts while maintaining contact and talks to solve the current disputes.
Xinhua said that Yang had also called on the two countries to “manage their maritime situation, maintain bilateral communication and solve their disagreements over maritime issues properly through political and diplomatic efforts.”
The Associated Press cited a Vietnamese official familiar with the talks as saying that no progress was made during the discussion between Yang and Minh as the two sides “insisted on their opposing positions.”
Expert weighs in
Meanwhile, a Chinese expert on Wednesday called on Hanoi to fulfill its legal obligation spelled out in a diplomatic document which he claimed recognized the Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea as belonging to Beijing.
In an article published in the official China Daily, Wu Yuanfu, director of the Research Institute of Vietnamese Law with Guangxi University for Nationalities, said that Vietnam “has no legal basis to back up its disruptive and dangerous activities” over the deployment of the rig.
Wu noted that in 1958, then-Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam Pham Van Dong sent a letter “recognizing and endorsing” China’s claims to the islands and pledging “complete respect” to Beijing’s maritime sovereignty in bilateral state-to-state ties.
He said that Vietnam had changed its stance only after its south-north unification in 1975 “and ever since it has made every effort to misinterpret and deny the official stance embodied in Pham's note.”
“According to relevant international laws, practices and norms, Pham's note to China belongs to a unilateral national statement that can produce a legal obligation and thus the Vietnamese government is obliged to undertake that obligation,” Wu said.
Shaky relations
Tensions over the South China Sea dispute have lowered relations between China and Vietnam to their worst since the two communist nations fought a brief border war in 1979.
The rig’s deployment set off violent anti-Chinese riots in Vietnam last month, leaving at least four people dead and resulting in the destruction of factories believed to be operated by Chinese companies, though many were Taiwanese-owned.
Prime Minister Dung last month threatened to take legal action against China for the rig deployment.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, rejecting rival claims from Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Brunei.
Article 31 1. "Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions, as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies and cultures, including human and genetic resources, seeds, medicines, knowledge of the properties of fauna and flora, oral traditions, literatures, designs, sports and traditional games and visual and performing arts. They also have the right to maintain, control, protect and develop their intellectual property over such cultural heritage, traditional knowledge, and traditional cultural expressions.
Jul 11, 2014 07:59 AM
May 27, 1946, Admiral D’Argenlieu, a representative of the French Federal Government in Indochina, created an autonomous country for the Montagnard population of South Indochina called “Pays Montagnards Du Sud Indochinois (PMSI). This Ordinance gave the Montagnard people a Statute Particular granting self-administration and self-determination to the Montagnard people of the Central Highlands.
July 25, 1950- The French classified the Montagnard territory as a “Domain de la Couronne” (Crown Domain) directly under the control of Emperor Bao Dai. The 13 battalions of Montagnard troops continued to serve the French Federal Government and to protect the Crown Domain for the Vietnamese Emperor.
Jul 08, 2014 09:39 PM
U.S. imperialism is the nation but the United States officially recognized the community's collective Indian natives, whereas Vietnam never recognized indigenous people's care in this country.
Jul 08, 2014 09:30 PM
From the 60th to 1975 Vietnam dragged Laos and Cambodia into war against the America and the free world.Million Laotians and Cambodian died because of Vietnam secrete hands.Vietnam was using former Soviet Union and China against the west.Now,it's Vietnam New Game is to use the US,Philippines,Indonesia,Japan, and ridiculously,this treacherous Vietnam is dragging its victims,Laos and Cambodia to cooperate and join hands against China . What Vietcong Ho Chi Minh had said from 1945 to 1969 has become reality;the result is Laos and Cambodia are now under Vietnam control. Vietnam is not going to stop at this point,it will keep on going westward to Thailand,Myanmar and on.The world must keep big eyes and ears on Vietnam to avoid new WW .
Jul 04, 2014 05:05 AM
Vietnam has no right,absolutely no right to say anything about Tibetans suffering,because Vietnam is one of the most human right abusing states.Invasive Vietnam,Tibet could have been under Vietnam control,if it was next door to Vietnam like Laos and Cambodia.North Viet,South Viet,commi Viet and none commi Viet are bad.They all have the same intention to wipe out their neighboring nations identity,language,culture, then take over the land like they did to the Cham people and Khmer people in south Vietnam hundred years back.They have done that,and they know they can do it again,that's why they do what they are doing to Laos and Cambodia today .
Jul 03, 2014 10:30 PM
