Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Nguyen Phuong Nga was replying toreporters’ question on Vietnam’s reaction against the fact that China’sState Bureau of Surveying and Mapping has recently launched an onlinemapping service, Map World, which shows the nine-segment claim lineoverlapping Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly)archipelagos and its territorial waters.
“The act by China ’sState Bureau of Surveying and Mapping seriously violates Vietnam ’ssovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes, itssovereignty rights and national jurisdiction over the continental shelf,200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone,” Nga said.
It alsoviolates the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and runs counterto the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the EastSea (DOC) signed between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN) and China , she added.
Vietnam protests the Chineseside’s move and requires it to promptly remove data on violative map andobserve the common views of the two countries’ leaders on maintainingpeace, stability, not complicating and expanding conflicts in the EastSea , said the spokeswoman./.