Vietnamese Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Lê Thị Thu Hằng
HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam rejects any maritime claims of China that are based on the so-called “nine-dash line” in the East Sea, the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Lê Thị Thu Hằng has said.
Hằng made the statement on Friday while answering reporters’ queries about Việt Nam’s reaction to the publication of a Chinese map with the “nine-dash line” by some social networking accounts registered by Chinese representative agencies abroad.
She reiterated Việt Nam’s clear and consistent stance on the East Sea issue, and stressed that the country has sufficient legal grounds and historic evidence affirming its sovereignty over Hoàng Sa (Paracel) and Trường Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes, as well as its sovereignty, sovereignty rights and jurisdiction over territorial waters defined in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS). — VNS