Vietnam and China pledge to settle South China Sea disputes

Apr 20, 2011, 5:13 GMT

Hanoi - Vietnam and China have agreed to sign a document outlining basic principles to solve territorial disputes in the South China Sea, state media reported Wednesday.

The two countries needed to seek long-lasting solutions to the dispute, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in a meeting with visiting deputy foreign minister for China, Zhang Zhijun, the newspaper Nhan Dan reported.

No timeline or details were given on the agreement, which would complement a declaration signed by China and the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2002.

But the agreement, reached in Hanoi Monday, to work toward a China-Vietnam deal broke a deadlock between the two countries after numerous bilateral meetings in recent years, including five in 2010, failed to yield even a common objective.

China has seized hundreds of Vietnamese fishing boats for violating what it considers its territorial waters around the Spratly and Paracel archipelagoes, which lie around 400 kilometres east of the Vietnamese coast, and 600 kilometres south of the Chinese mainland.

China, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei have clashing claims to various parts of the South China Sea. The disputed islands and surrounding waters are believed to be rich in fish and mineral resources.

In Hanoi on Monday, China and Vietnam also said they would continue implementing the 2002 China-ASEAN agreement, under which the parties agreed to pursue a peaceful resolution to the disputes and to exercise self-restraint to avoid escalation.

ASEAN comprises Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

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