SINGAPORE – Vietnam hoped China would show restraint in the South China Sea next year after a Chinese oil survey vessel and its escorts spent months within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.
Vietnam, the region’s most forceful challenger of China’s extensive maritime claims to the busy waterway, will take on the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2020.
“I hope that during our chairmanship China will show restraint and refrain from these activities,” Vietnam’s deputy foreign minister, Nguyen Quoc Dung, said at a lecture at The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
China’s claims within its so-called “Nine-Dash Line” in the South China Sea are a source of friction with ASEAN members Malaysia, the Philippines and Brunei as well as with the United States.(Reuters)
