Vietnam’s premier called on countries not to alter rocks and shoals in the South China Sea and warned that improperly-handled disputes with China risk damaging bilateral relations between the two nations.
Countries should refrain from “actions that would complicate the situation and change the status quo of rocks and shoals,” in the South China Sea, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said yesterday in written responses to questions from Bloomberg News.
Dung’s comments follow months of renewed territorial tensions between Vietnam and China and were sent after he met with U.S. President Barack Obama at a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Myanmar yesterday. The government in Hanoi is pursuing negotiations to defuse the disputes in the South China Sea while publicly protesting Chinese actions and seeking closer economic and military ties to the U.S. and other powers, including India and Japan.