Beijing’s top foreign policy official yesterday slapped down Vietnamese claims to disputed waters, in talks aimed at pulling relations back from their lowest point in decades.
Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) met Vietnamese Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in Hanoi for the first high-level talks between the neighbors since early last month, when vessels from both sides collided near a Chinese oil rig anchored in contested seas.
The incident prompted deadly anti-China riots in Vietnam and an evacuation of nationals by Beijing.
Photo: Reuters
Yang told Vietnam that it had to “stop its disturbances against China’s operations, stop hyping up the relevant issue,” and deal with the fallout from riots targeting foreign businesses, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) told reporters in Beijing.
During the talks Yang “stressed that the Xisha [西沙群島, Paracel] Islands are China’s inherent territory” and said the difficulties in the relationship were due to Vietnamese “illegal disturbances.”
Vietnam claims the Paracel Islands, known as Hoang Sa in Vietnamese, which China seized from then-South Vietnam in 1974 in a period of turmoil shortly before the end of the Vietnam war.
There was no immediate reaction from Vietnam, but analysts said the hard line taken by Yang means the talks are highly unlikely to yield a breakthrough.
The two sides have spent the past month trading accusations in the increasingly heated territorial dispute, with each side claiming the other has engaged in aggressive behavior against its ships.
Yang is a former Chinese foreign minister, but he moved up to the Chinese State Council last year.
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