Hanoi’s Foreign Ministry described the May-August moratorium as “a violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty and territorial jurisdiction.”
Vietnam’s government has once again rejected China’s imposition of its seasonal fishing ban in the South China Sea. The ban, which is imposed unilaterally each year by Beijing, runs from May to August and applies to all of the waters north of 12 degrees latitude, which includes the bulk of the Gulf of Tonkin and the Paracel Islands, which are occupied by China, but also claimed by Vietnam.
According to an article in VnExpress, Vietnam condemned the fishing ban, calling it “a violation of Vietnam’s sovereignty and territorial jurisdiction” under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
“Vietnam requests China to respect Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracel Islands, sovereign rights and jurisdiction over its maritime zones when taking measures to conserve biological resources in the East Sea (South China Sea), without complicating the situation towards maintaining peace, stability and order in the East Sea,” a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Friday.
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Sebastian Strangio
Sebastian Strangio is Southeast Asia Editor at The Diplomat.
