So, let's go Home if you have a chance bro, we VN will not sell any lands, islands to any one, we VN will build a NATO in ASEAN,we will keep our strong influence in Laos-Cam, our new Democracy version fit for one party and US accept it also.
If Phạm Văn Đồng's 1958 letter to China constitute concession, then what are we to make of President Ngô Đình Diệm's 1961 incorporation of the islands into Quang Nam province? How did that North Viet Nam's 1958 letter overrode South Viet Nam's resistance to China's claim to the islands? Not only common sense but international law recognizes that only the claimant -- or 'the State' -- that has effective custodial controls of a territory have the right to do with the territory as it see fit. To exploit or to give away if it want to. Did North Viet Nam had such effective custodial controls of the islands to give it away to China? No.
In another way of looking at any moral value and legal force of this 1958 letter, when France withdrew from the region, she conceded whatever territory she controlled at that time to the best available authority figure she believed to be most capable of assuming authority, exercise proper custodial duties, and establish visible sovereign claims on the islands: South Viet Nam. This government then resisted, successfully or else is besides the point, plans and attempts by foreigners to establish their own authority upon the islands. Should we not consider that resistance to be as equally valid an attempt to deny Chinese possession of the islands as North Viet Nam's alleged concession of the same? And if that resistance is equally valid, then should they morally cancel each other out? And if we agree that they canceled each other out, then should we place any value, moral and/or legal, of the current Chinese presentation of that 1958 letter from Pham Van Dong? No, it has no moral value and no legal force. Then and today.
So while Viet Nam was suffering through a civil war, any external claim to the islands should be suspect and view as the foreigner was trying to exploit the situation for his own advantage, in effect, any Chinese claim to the islands should qualify as outright theft with the victim -- Viet Nam -- temporarily incapacitated. No different than a looter who steal whatever he can
BECAUSE the neighborhood is storm damaged and temporarily emptied of people. No different than a man who come upon an unconscious woman and sexually take advantage of her
BECAUSE she is unable to resist his immorality and criminal molestation.
Phạm Văn Đồng's 1958 letter to China is a wash. A non-issue. It is like an inflated balloon animal at children's parties, eminently attractive but ultimately devoid of any substance. And the Chinese members here are like gullible children at those parties and eagerly lapped it up. Still...The Viets should be guarded with this letter. The Chinese will turn it around and say among themselves that even though they know that 1958 Phạm Văn Đồng letter is ultimately devoid of any moral substance and legal force, they will strive to make that balloon animal as attractive as possible to distract as many as possible away from legitimate challenges. The more gullible people to the Chinese side, the easier it will be for China to effect the typical 'mob mentality' to violently steal from the Viets.
The Viets will regret the day they give up these islands to the Chinese. Least painful is when we know that a loss came to be because we abandon something. Was it because we no longer care or were we too incompetent to exploit it for our benefits? More painful is when a possession was taken despite best efforts to resist, but at least we can say we expended blood and treasure to resist. The worst pain and shame is when something was given for nothing in return. Unless we consider contempt from the other side as something worthwhile receiving.
If the islands are to be in Chinese hands, the exchange of possession must not be from concession but from outright violent theft. Expose China for the rapist and thief that it is of the 'inferior' Asians the Chinese always believe the rest to be. The Yamatos taught Asia, from the Korean peninsula all the way to India, a hard and bloody lesson when they had the chance. Do not let their arrogant equal -- the Chinese -- repeat the same now that China have the opportunity.