At the event (Source: historian Kolotov)

Experts and scholars from Europe, Asia, Australia and the host country Russia, met in St Petersburg to attend an international seminar on security issues in East Asia and the East Sea.

The delegates focused their discussions on factors that affect security system in East Asia and security in the East Sea. Also on the table was the competition amongst certain countries in the region, the East Sea disputes, the arms race and nuclear proliferation in East Asia.

Speakers at the seminar opposed and criticized the unscientific claim of the “U-shaped” or “nine-dotted” line, and called on the East Sea dispute to be solved by peaceful means, on the basis of the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. They also discussed future risks to security in the East Sea and called on all ASEAN countries to work closer together and reach a consensus on the East Sea issue.

The participants welcomed the Viet Nam-China six-point agreement, considering it one of the factors for solving the East Sea issue, and called for more research on historical documents, including those have been posted on Viet Nam’s websites concerning Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes. The seminar also heard a number of speeches that gave evidence confirming that Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagoes are sovereign to Viet Nam.

Professor Vladimir Kolotov, Dean of the Faculty of Far East countries’ history, President of Ho Chi Minh Institute of Saint Petersburg State University, who was also head of the seminar’s organising board, said he and other delegates valued the success of the seminar, attracting the concern of representatives from East Asia research centers with frank and open-minded opinions on hot issues in the region, especially the dispute issue in the East Sea.

Professor Kolotov gave a speech on the arc of instability in East Asia. According to his presentation, the Chinese so-called “theory on the first and the second islands chains” is destroying the status quo existing from the Cold War. He said the more China asks for control of the East Sea, the more it will face increasing opposition from the international community.