Hanoi protested on Friday against what it described as Beijing’s unilateral fishing ban, which it’s imposed in the disputed South China Sea from May 1 to August 16. The statement comes weeks after a Vietnamese boat had reportedly been rammed by a Chinese maritime surveillance vessel, Reuters said.
China and Vietnam have for years been embroiled in a dispute over the potentially energy-rich stretch of water, known by Hanoi as the East Sea.
“Vietnam demands that China not further complicate the situation in the South China Sea,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said in a statement.
China’s Foreign Ministry said on April 21 it had lodged stern representations in response to what it called Vietnam’s illegal claims in the South China sea. Any attempt to deny China’s sovereignty there “will be doomed to fail,” Beijing said.