VietNamNet Bridge – Many Vietnamese Internet users have used pictures of naval soldiers as their avatars on Yahoo Messenger and Facebook, accompanied with the text “Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) belong to Vietnam”.

VN condemns Chinese intrusion

Vietnamese Internet users have expressed their attitude against China’s intrusion into Vietnam’s waters and its distortion of the history about Vietnam’s sovereignty over Truong Sa and Hoang Sa archipelagos on forums and social networks.

They have opened many fan pages on Facebook to discuss and call for people to support Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa. These fan pages are named “Hoang Sa – Truong Sa belong to Vietnam”, “I love Vietnam”, “Fans of Vietnamese Flag”, “Vietnam – Ho Chi Minh”, etc.

These fan pages have had hundreds of thousands of members. These pages are updated with information about the East Sea. Fan pages also hold events to confirm Vietnam’s sovereignty in the East Sea, for example the event to collect 87 million signatures protesting China’s intrusion into Vietnam’s waters, the call to change avatars, etc.

Members believe that changing avatars with the picture of Vietnamese naval soldiers who are defending Vietnam’s sovereignty in the sea will make a domino effect in the online community, which will attract the attention of international friends.

“This is a small action but it shows the youth’s patriotism. We are proud to partly contribute our effort to defend our country,” a member wrote on his blog.

Besides topics about Hoang Sa and Truong Sa, topics on patriotism, lessons from history in defending the country are also discussed enthusiastically.

Tension in the East Sea has become the common interest of the nation. The online community, which is said to be only interest in entertaining issues, is now very serious with politics. Many people post their deep analysis about the East Sea issue.

One wrote on his blog: “The East Sea dispute will continue more complicatedly. We have to be watchful and skilful to struggle in all aspects, especially in the diplomatic field to take advantage of the unity of international community. We also have to show our determination and our firm standpoint: Hoang Sa and Truong Sa belong to Vietnam’s sovereignty”.

H. La