Ben Cardin at the press briefing in Hanoi on May 28

Speaking at a press briefing in Hanoi, Cardin, who is chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee under the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. is opposed to the unilateral provocative action by China in the East Sea.

On Monday this week a Chinese ship rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat that was operating within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf. “That’s obviously unacceptable and at high risk of not only loss of property but loss of life,” Cardin said when asked to comment on the incident.

He said, “This unilateral provocative action by China has created a very high tense circumstance about which we are very concerned.”

It affects the security of Vietnam and the regional maritime issues which are of interest to the United States and the global community, he added.

“We expect the countries to refrain from provocative action. We hope that they would deescalate and use international forums, such as that provided under the (UN) Convention on the Law of the Sea, to support ASEAN’s efforts to have a Code of Conduct, and do direct diplomacy rather than take provocative actions.”

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has considered a resolution on China’s acts in the East Sea. The resolution has been approved by the Committee and is expected to be on the floor of the Senate shortly for consideration, Cardin added.

“From here I will leave Vietnam. I will be traveling to Singapore for the Shangri-La Security Dialogue. I can assure you the maritime security issues will be one of the principal areas of my discussion,” he noted.

Last year, the keynote of Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the forum was highly applauded. Dung in his speech stressed the need to build strategic trust for peace, cooperation and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.

“While languages and expressions might differ, I am sure we all agree that without trust, there would be no success and harder work asks for bigger trust. In Vietnam, there is a saying that ‘if trust is lost, all is lost’,” Dung said.

Somewhere in the region, there have emerged signs of resorting to unilateral might, making groundless claims and taking actions that run counter to international law and that are characterized by coercion and violent politics, his speech warned.

The Vietnamese leader in his response to questions to an international media during the World Economic Forum on East Asia 2014 last week also pointed out that there is a vast gap between the words and deeds of China.

SGT/VNN