Vietnam on May 25 demanded China withdraw the survey ship Xiang Yang Hong 10 and its escorting flotilla of coast guard and fishing vessels from Vietnamese waters.

Vietnam on April 6 called out China's illegal activities in its waters and doubled down on its claims of the islands in the South China Sea.

Vietnam requests that businesses respect the country’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagoes, as well as its sovereignty, sovereign right and jurisdiction over related waters in the East Sea, said Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang at the ministry’s regular press conference in Hanoi on April 8.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development on May 11 said China’s suspension of fishing in waters within Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea carries no weight whatsoever.

If the Planning Law is not passed at the upcoming sitting of the National Assembly (NA), many opportunities would be missed, said NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan at the 14th session of the NA Standing Committee that took place from September 11-20.

Since May 1, 2014, China brazenly moved its deep-water oil rig escorted by over 80 armed and military vessels and many airplanes to the Vietnamese waters and installed the rig at the location which is 80 miles deep into Vietnam’s continental shelf and exclusive economic zone prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982 UNCLOS).

The President Office recently held press conference to promulgate the Ordinance on Procedures for Arrest of Seagoing Ships, which consists of 72 articles arranged in 6 chapters and will take effect on July 1, 2009.