Vietnam’s foreign ministry emphasized the importance of respecting international law and the rights and interests of other countries in response to China’s demarcation of a baseline in the Gulf of Tonkin recently.
Location of Gulf of Tonkin:
- The Gulf of Tonkin is a crescent-shaped body of water in the northwestern part of the South China Sea, located off the coasts of Tonkin (northern Vietnam) and South China.
- It is defined in the west and northwest by the northern coastline of Vietnam down to the Hòn La Island, in the north by China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and to the east by the Leizhou Peninsula and Hainan Island.
Other key facts:
- The Gulf of Tonkin is referred to as the Beibu Gulf in Chinese and the Bac Bo Gulf in Vietnamese.
- The Gulf of Tonkin is where the Red River, which flows through both China and Vietnam, empties into.
- Baseline: A baseline, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a line along the coast used to measure the seaward limits of a state’s territorial sea and other maritime zones, including its exclusive economic zone.
Ref:Source
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