(BGF) – According to The Diplomat, it is the first time ever that a number of well-known public figures in Vietnam and within the Vietnamese Diaspora signed a letter to the Philippine Ambassador in Vietnthe am to express support for the Philippine’s sovereignty rights in the Scarborough Shoal. The interesting is that the letter chose to use a combination of the Filipino and Vietnamese names, “West Philippine Sea/ East Sea” instead of using the conventional international name of “South China Sea”.

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Vietnamese Back Philippines

May 24, 2012 by Huy Duong

(The Diplomat) – In a new twist this week to the stand-off between China and the Philippines at Scarborough Shoal, 66 Vietnamese, many of them well-known public figures in Vietnam and within the Vietnamese Diaspora, signed a letter to the Philippine Ambassador in Vietnam to express support for the Philippines’ “sovereign rights” in the continuing stand-off.

The main points of the letter are:

1) Support for the “sovereign rights” of the Philippines in the Scarborough Shoal.

2) Opposition to China’s use of the “nine-dashed line”  to make overlapping claims with the Exclusive Economic Zones and continental shelves of the Philippines, Vietnam and other ASEAN countries, as well as opposition to “China’s actions and threats of force,” the latter presumably referring to articles in China’s state controlled press.

3) Support for the Philippines’ proposal to submit the dispute at Scarborough Shoal to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).

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