(VOVworld) - The Association of Vietnamese Students and Professionals in the US has strongly opposed China’s illegal placing of a drilling rig in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf in the East Sea.

The association also called on overseas Vietnamese students in the US and around the globe to keep international friends updated about Beijing’s aggressive behavior and bogus sovereignty claims.
A press release on the association’s website at www.sinhvienusa.org stressed that peace-loving Vietnamese people respect international practices and always want to maintain friendly relations with China. But because of China’s aggressive acts, the Association, the official organisation of thousands of Vietnamese students and professionals in the US, resolutely protested the Chinese authority’s hegemonic activities to annex legal territory and attack the interests of Vietnam.

The association asked that people all around the world, especially peace-loving Chinese people and Americans, voice their opposition to the Chinese authority’s aggression, demand Beijing deescalate the tensions, cease making bogus maritime territorial claims, and stabilise the region. It also stressed that China’s territorial claim through the “nine-dotted line” has no legal or historical basis.

In Kiev, Ukraine hundreds of Vietnamese people and international friends there gathered in front of the Chinese Embassy to denounce China’s act. The march began from the subway station, raised banners and posters in the Vietnamese, Ukrainian, English, and Chinese languages, and shouted slogans demanding China to halt its violations of international law and agreements signed between Vietnam and China.