Vietnam protests against Chinese election on disputed island chain
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Vietnam yesterday lodged a protest against Chinese Communist Party municipal elections in the city of Sansha on disputed islands in the South China Sea.
The elections, which are mostly symbolic in China’s single-party state, were held last month in Sansha, which was founded in 2012 to nominally administer a number of disputed islands, including the Paracel Islands.
“Vietnam resolutely protests and asks that China respect Vietnam’s sovereignty, immediately putting an end to ... illegal activities,” Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesperson |Le Hai Binh said in a statement posted on the ministry’s website.
Sansha’s population of around 1,500 people is mostly limited to a single island called Woody, approximately two square kilometres in size in the Paracel archipelago.
The Paracels belonged to the former South Vietnam government before China seized it in 1974.China claims ownership of most of the South China Sea, but its claims overlap with those of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei. - DPA
