In its article posted on August 12, the e-newspaper halonoviny.cz emphasized that as a littoral country, Vietnam has been stepping up efforts to help protect and enhance maritime security.
It cited PM Pham Minh Chinh's speech at the UNSC debate, which gave proposals aimed at helping deal with challenges to maritime security, especially the need for the international community to improve the awareness of the importance of seas and the threats to maritime security.
The article also quoted the PM's as saying that maritime security is a global issue that cannot be handled by a single nation, and cooperation among countries is essential to effectively respond to common security challenges, and that Vietnam is ready to work with countries in the region and the world to tackle maritime security issues as a way to maintain peace and promote regional and global sustainable development.
According to the author, the PM’s remarks demonstrate Vietnam’s support of the settlement of maritime security issues by peaceful means on the basis of international law and the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in order to guarantee the freedom of navigation and overflight in international sea areas, for the sake of regional and international peace, stability, and development.
The parlamentnilisty.cz website also welcomed Vietnam’s policy of peacefully resolving the East Sea issue on the basis of international law and the 1982 UNCLOS, objecting to unilateral actions that infringe international law in the waters, and affirming the value of the UNCLOS and the rulings issued in 2016 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Vietnam’s viewpoint highlighted by PM Chinh at the debate received support from the European Union and European countries, it wrote.
It also pointed out that China’s unilateral actions such as building artificial islands and conducting militarisation in the East Sea, or its intimidation and coercion to impede ASEAN countries’ legal economic activities in the sea areas under their sovereignty and jurisdiction in the East Sea have run counter to international law and the UNCLOS, to which China is also a signatory.
China’s recent military drills in the vicinity of Vietnam’s Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelago have violated Vietnam’s sovereignty, run counter to the spirit of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), complicated the situation, and negatively affected regional and global peace and stability, the article said.
The East Sea is an important international shipping route, it said, adding that that the EU and European nations support the settlement of the East Sea issue by peaceful measures on the basis of respect for international law and the UNCLOS.
