Hanoi Proposes Truce, Talks With China Over Disputed Islands

Vietnam called Thursday for a cease-fire and negotiations with China to end a territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands that flared into fighting early this week.

Le Mai, Vietnam’s ambassador to Thailand, told reporters here that the proposal was handed to the Chinese ambassador in Hanoi. He said there has been no immediate Chinese response.

On Monday, according to Mai and Vietnamese radio reports, Chinese warships opened fire on two freighters carrying supplies to Vietnamese troops on the islands. Mai said Chinese warships subsequently turned back a third freighter, carrying a Red Cross flag, that attempted to reach the burning ships.

Chinese Survey Party

The Chinese have accused Vietnamese ships of starting the shooting in the disputed archipelago of about 100 islands in the South China Sea, firing on a Chinese survey party in nearby vessels.

The Vietnamese ambassador said he could not confirm reports that one of the two freighters had sunk, nor could he provide any information on the number of casualties on the Vietnamese ships. He did say that some sailors were wounded.

“What I am bringing you today is not a message of war, but a message of peace,” Mai told a press conference called by his embassy.

He said Vice Foreign Minister Dinh Nho Liem had called in the Chinese ambassador in Hanoi and handed him a note calling for negotiations to resolve the longstanding dispute and reasserting Vietnamese sovereignty over the Spratly Islands and the smaller Paracel archipelago, both claimed by China.

May Be Near Oil Deposits

Neither island group has more than about four square miles of land, but they are situated near important sea lanes, and the sea around them, according to past studies, may cover valuable petroleum deposits. No exploratory drilling has been done in either area, Mai said.

Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan also claim all or part of the island groups, uninhabited except for small military outposts of the contending nations. Mai said that Vietnam has outposts on “about a dozen” of the islands.

China landed troops in the Paracels in 1974, driving out a garrison of the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese regime, but until this week, it had not been militarily active in the Spratlys, according to Mai. He said that Chinese troops had gone ashore on two of the islands.

Mai said that in 1975, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, then deputy premier, had met with the late Vietnamese leader Le Duan and conceded that the sovereignty of the two archipelagoes was in dispute. Earlier Chinese-Vietnamese negotiations to resolve disputes on their land border and offshore territory in the Gulf of Tonkin were not successful.