In this Nov. 24, 2015, image provided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a tribunal of five arbitrators, seated top right, hears the case regarding the Philippines and China on the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, the Netherlands. A landmark ruling on an arbitration case filed by the Philippines that seeks to strike down China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea will be a test for international law and world powers. China, which demands one-on-one talks to resolve the disputes, has boycotted the case and vowed to ignore the verdict, which will be handed down Tuesday, July 12, 2016, by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague.(Permanent Court of Arbitration via AP) File Photo: In this Nov. 24, 2015, image provided by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a tribunal of five arbitrators, seated top right, hears the case regarding the Philippines and China on the South China Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague, the Netherlands.(Source: Permanent Court of Arbitration via AP/file)
Vietnam aims to settle its territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea through bilateral negotiations even though it doesn’t rule out applying international laws, as the Philippines did in its recent arbitration victory, the deputy foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Our consistent policy is to settle disputes through peaceful means in accordance with national laws and United Nations (conventions and laws), and we attach quite (a lot of) importance to bilateral negotiations,” Le Hoai Trung told The Associated Press.
“For us, all means of peaceful settlement are important. All means. So you can count (international arbitration) but we attach importance to bilateral negotiations,” he said in the interview on the sidelines of a regional security meeting being hosted by Laos.
“The important factor is you need to have the goodwill, and you need to base your claims on international law, the relevant international law,” he said.
China claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea on historical grounds, overlapping with claims by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
Only Philippines has taken its dispute to The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, which ruled in its favor earlier this month on the basis of the 1982 UN Conventions on the Laws of the Sea.

http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/vietnam-says-it-prefers-bilateral-talks-with-china-on-south-china-sea-2937231/