VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam has got ready to take legal action against China over its illegal stationing of a giant oil drilling rig well within the Vietnamese exclusive economic zone, said a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha, head of the ministry’s International Law and Treaties Department, told an international news conference in Hanoi on Friday that Vietnam as a member of the United Nations and the 1982 UNCLOS can use all dispute solving mechanisms provided in the UN Charter and the UNCLOS to address relevant disputes.

“Vietnamese leaders have made clear that the country does not rule out the use of peaceful measures to solve disputes,” she said. The peaceful measures, she noted, include the possibility of using international arbitration as mentioned in the UN Charter and the UNCLOS.

“We in our capacity as a legal consulting agency of the Government are responsible for making preparations to exhaust all possible measures as ordered by the Government.

“We think it’s better to take legal action than to trigger a military conflict.”

When asked by the media when to file the case, Ha said, “As a jurist, I am also asking when is appropriate. The final decision rests with the Government.”

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, while visiting the Philippines last week, also told international news agencies AP and Reuters over China’s illegal deployment of Haiyang Shiyou-981 oil rig and a big flotilla of escort ships, including those of the military, into Vietnamese waters, “Like all nations, Vietnam is considering various defense options, including legal action in accordance with international law.”

Speaking at the press conference last week, Tran Duy Hai, deputy director of the National Boundary Commission, said the two sides agreed not to use military measures to settle disputes during a recent meeting between their deputy foreign ministers.

Sufficient historical evidence

Vietnam has practiced utmost restraint and exhausted all peaceful measures, opportunities and dialogue channels to settle the issue, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh.

However, China has continued maintaining a huge presence of ships, including naval vessels, and military aircraft in the area around the oil rig to threaten and intimidate Vietnamese law enforcement vessels that are carrying out their duty of protecting national sovereignty, he said.

Worse still, Binh said, China has continuously slandered and blamed Vietnam on the current situation, while asserting its claim on the so-called “China’s sovereignty” over Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago.

Hai of the National Boundary Commission said Vietnam has a full legal foundation and historical evidence to strongly prove its sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes.

At least since the 17th century, Vietnam has established and practiced its sovereignty over the two archipelagoes when they were still derelict, he said, adding Vietnamese feudal states also exercised sovereignty over these archipelagoes in a peaceful and continuous manner in accordance with international law without facing objections from any other country.

Hai said that during the French occupation of Vietnam, the French government, in the name of Vietnam, continued managing the two archipelagoes and opposed other countries’ claims over them.

Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes was recognized at the San Francisco peace conference in September 1951, he stressed.

After that, in accordance with the Geneva Agreement on restoring peace in Indochina which affirmed that all parties involved must respect independence and territorial integrity of Vietnam, France withdrew its troops from Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam undertook the management of the archipelagoes, he said, adding that the government of the Republic of Vietnam had affirmed sovereignty and taken actions to exercise sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa.

China as one of the participants at the 1954 Geneva conference knows this too well, so it should respect the international documents issued at that event, he said.

Nonetheless, in 1974, China used force to occupy Hoang Sa. At the time, both the Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam protested the occupation, Hai said, and the United Nations Charter and international law prohibit the use of force to violate the territory of other countries.

China’s memorandum issued on May 12, 1988, an official document by the Chinese Foreign Ministry, also clearly confirmed a basic principle of international law that “invasion does not produce sovereignty” over a territory, Hai said.

He said no country in the world recognizes China’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa.

Hoang Sa and Truong Sa not mentioned in 1958 note

Hai said China had recently intentionally misinterpreted a diplomatic note sent to China in 1958 by the then Prime Minister Pham Van Dong.

The diplomatic note made no mention of territory and sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa since the two archipelagoes were below the 17th parallel at which Vietnam was divided. Those islands were then under the management of the Republic of Vietnam in the south, so in accordance with the 1954 Geneva Accords, to which China was a signatory, Hoang Sa and Truong Sa were handed over to the Republic of Vietnam in 1956.

“You cannot give something which does not belong to you. The note is not valid recognition of China’s sovereignty over Xisha (Hoang Sa) and Nansha (Truong Sa) as China called the archipelagos,” Hai said.

The fact that China said Hoang Sa is not the subject of disputes runs counter to a Chinese high-level leader’s viewpoint, Hai said, adding that at a meeting with First Secretary of the Vietnam Worker's Party Le Duan on September 24, 1975, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping recognized that there remained disputes between Vietnam and China over the two archipelagos and the two sides could discuss these issues with each other.

Vice Premier Deng’s statement is recorded in a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs memorandum published in People's Daily newspaper, in which China affirmed a fundamental principle of international law that sovereignty over a territory could not be born out of invasion, Hai said.

Source: SGT