DK1 platform including Tu Chinh reef (internationally known as Vanguard Bank) is located in Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone 200 nautical miles from its baseline. (Photo: VOV)

Russia’s Multipolar World magazine on Thursday ran an article by Grigori Lokshin, a leading expert at the Russian Academy of Sciences’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies, analyzing the current situation in the East Sea.

According to the article, the Haiyang Di Zhi 08 (Marine Geology 8) survey vessel and its escorts were operating within Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone and continental shelf as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, just 160 miles from Vung Tau city and far outside the Chinese border shown on a 1947 Chinese map.

China’s "nine-dashed line", which claims 90% of the East Sea hasn’t been recognized internationally. In a Philippines lawsuit against China, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that all of China’s claims of so-called "historic rights" in the East Sea are groundless and contrary to the 1982 UN Convention to which China is a signatory.

According to Mr. Lokshin, Vietnam’s stance is to support the settlement of  sovereignty disputes in the East Sea by peaceful means and not use or threaten to use force, based on international law, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and as well as an early completion of the Code of Conduct in the East Sea, which was fully backed by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers at a Bangkok meeting early this month.

The Russian scholar said he strongly believes that Vietnam's ASEAN Chair next year will help Vietnam consolidate ASEAN’s role in resolving sovereignty disputes in the East Sea.