Brussels (VNA) - President of the Belgium-Vietnam Friendship Association PierreGrega has voiced the association's support for Vietnam as China has increasingly undertaken unilateralactions in the East Sea.
He calledon the international community to increase pressure on China to cease such unilateral actions,which are escalating tensions in the East Sea, while quickly identifying solutionsfor maritime disputes in line with international law.
Grega madenote of a series of Chinese actions that have complicated the situation in theEast Sea: a Chinese coast guard ship sinking a Vietnamese fishing boatnear Vietnam's Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago, China sending vessel Haiyang Dizhi 8 into theexclusive economic zones of Vietnam and Malaysia, and China declaring theestablishment of “Xisha district” (Vietnam's Hoang Sa archipelago) and “Nansha district” (Vietnam's Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelago) which it states are part of the so-called “Sansha city”.
Theseunilateral actions, he stressed, run counter to the fundamental principles that guidethe settlement of maritime issues as well as the Declaration of the Conduct ofParties in the East Sea (DOC), signed between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China in 2002.
They areharmful to negotiations over a legally-binding Code of Conduct in the East Sea(COC), Grega noted.
He alsoemphasized that Vietnamese fishermen need to conduct safefishing activities within their country’s territorial waters and that Vietnamwants to resolve tensions via international law, particularly the 1982 UnitedNations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)./.