BEIJING: The Chinese foreign ministry on Wednesday said China’s claims to the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea were backed by “history” after Vietnam over the weekend repeated it had sufficient evidence to claim sovereignty over the islands.
The Paracel and Spratly Islands, known as the Hoang Sa and Trong Sa islands in Vietnam, are in the South China Sea, a busy global maritime waterway almost all of which is claimed by China.Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Brunei are among other claimants.
Vietnam has “full legal basis and ample historical evidence” to assert its sovereignty over the two island chains, its foreign ministry said on Saturday, in response to a query from the media on China’s “invasion” of the Paracel Islands in 1974.
“Viet Nam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands has been established since at least the 17th century in accordance with international law, and exercised in a peaceful, continuous and public manner by successive Vietnamese states,” it said.
But the Chinese foreign ministry said China’s claims are “fully supported by history and jurisprudence.”
“China was the first to discover, name, develop and manage these islands and archipelagos, and continue to exercise sovereign jurisdiction over them,” said Wang Wenbin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, at a regular news conference.
“China always opposes relevant countries’ illegal claims on China’s territory and will continue to firmly safeguard its sovereignty.”
Vietnam’s re-assertion of its claims coincides with months of vigorous claims by the Philippines in other parts of the South China Sea after dramatic maritime encounters between Chinese and Philippine vessels near disputed territory.
In December, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Vietnam and sealed an agreement to move towards the building of a community with a “shared future” between the two countries.

The People’s Liberation Army urged Chinese military personnel to be careful about who they associate with, saying socialising with the wrong people is a key reason “some leaders” have been removed from their positions.
Chinese military cadres should “purify their social circle,” a commentary published by the state-run PLA Daily said on Friday, without elaborating on the leaders who were removed from their posts.”The most effective way to stay away from dangers and temptations is to conduct ‘physical isolation’,” the PLA Daily said, referring to the code of conduct for cadres’ social interactions issued by the Central Military Commission in June. If events or meal appointments aren’t necessary, they should be avoided, the commentary by a department of the commission said.
The PLA commentary follows the removal by President Xi Jinping of Qin Gang as foreign minister in late July after just seven months, the shortest tenure in that post. An investigation found that Qin had an affair while serving as China’s ambassador in Washington, Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources.
Another high-level official, defence minister Li Shangfu, dropped from public view at the end of August, just months after the ouster of generals in the command that manages the country’s nuclear arsenal. At the time, the military launched an inquiry into graft cases linked to procurement going back more than five years, roughly coinciding with Li’s tenure as head of the equipment department. US officials have intelligence suggesting Li has been removed from his post, according to an American official who asked not to be identified.

BEIJING: China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, begins on Monday a four-day trip to Russia during which both nations are expected to pledge deeper mutual political trust, readying for a possible landmark visit by President Vladimir Putin to Beijing in October.
Wang, who heads the foreign ministry as well as the ruling Communist Party’s foreign affairs office, will meet Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev for annual security talks, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.
He is also expected to lay the groundwork for Putin’s visit to the Chinese capital for the third Belt and Road Forum after an invitation by President Xi Jinping during a high-profile visit to Moscow in March.
Putin attended China’s first two Belt and Road Forums in 2017 and 2019.
But he is not known to have travelled abroad since the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him on grounds of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
On Sept. 1, Putin said he expected to meet Xi soon, but did not explicitly confirm that he would travel to China again.
The warrant, issued just days ahead of Xi’s visit to Russia, obligates the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to the Hague for trial if he enters their territory.
However, China is not a party to the Rome Statute that led to the establishment of the ICC in 2002.
Wang last visited Russia in February on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alarming the United States, which accused the two nations at the time of sharing a vision in which “borders could be redrawn by force”.
Ahead of this week’s visit, Wang travelled to Malta for hours of “constructive” talks with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The weekend talks were the latest in a series of high-level meetings between US and Chinese officials that could lay the foundation for a meeting this year between Xi and US President Joe Biden.