Foreign ministry’s spokesperson Lê Thị Thu Hằng at Thursday press briefing in Hà Nội. — Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Việt Nam

 HÀ NỘI — Việt Nam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday protested Chinese businesses operating illegally in Việt Nam’s Trường Sa (Spratly) and Hoàng Sa (Paracel) islands.

The ministry’s spokesperson Lê Thị Thu Hằng said Việt Nam has on many occasions strongly asserted the fact that the country has sufficient legal evidence and historical basis to affirm its sovereignty over the two island chains in the South China Sea (known in Việt Nam as the East Sea).

She was responding to questions from reporters asking for comment on Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative’s report’s findings that since 2012, more than 400 Chinese businesses have been operating in so-called “Xansha City.”

Xansha City was first established by China in 2012 as an administrative region to govern Việt Nam’s Hoàng Sa and Trường Sa islands that China claimed as its own.

“The move has no value and is not recognised, and it is not conducive to the two countries’ friendship, while complicating the situation in the South China Sea, the region and the world at large,” Hằng said, referring to China’s Xansha City.

Asked on the comment from US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun suggesting that the Quad countries – comprising US, Japan, India, and Australia with the aim of countering China – can “deepen engagement with ASEAN” to together defend freedom of the seas, spokesperson Hằng said ASEAN always welcomes ideas and initiatives that contribute to peace, stability, and prosperity in the region.

“As the chair of ASEAN in 2020, Việt Nam sets the main task of building a cohesive and responsive ASEAN. On that basis, Việt Nam has been utilising its chairman role to promote community building, consolidate ASEAN centrality in the regional architecture, and expand ASEAN’s foreign relations with partners,” Hằng said.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic having enormous and long-lasting impacts on all socio-economic aspects of the region and the world, Việt Nam expects and is ready to, together with ASEAN and partners of ASEAN, recover economic activities and stabilise people’s livelihoods, for a peaceful and prosperous Asia-Pacific region, Hằng continued.

“In this process, international law, the spirit of dialogue and cooperation must be always upheld,” the spokesperson said. — VNS