A fully revised regional map and gazetteer of Asia South East, Pacific South West released by Australia in 2009 refer to disputed archipelagos in the East Sea using their Vietnamese names.
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Lam, vice head of Vietnam’s General Department of Survey and Mapping (VNGDSM), told Tuoi Tre in an interview that his and other agencies must collect old documents like these to protect national sovereignty.
Some international organizations use maps to offer online services but they don’t represent Truong Sa and Hoang Sa archipelagos as belonging to Vietnam. How does your department deal with this issue?
We used to print 500,000 copies of Vietnamese maps in which Hoang Sa and Truong Sa are clearly marked and distributed them to Vietnam’s offices in many countries and territories, asking them to familiarize locals with Vietnam’s territory. For the untrue information about Vietnam’s territory on Google Maps and National Geographic, VNGDSM has offered adequate explanations to their users to help them correctly understand Vietnam’s territory over the two islands groups.
In 2011, China’s General Department of Survey and Mapping knowingly published false information about China’s national sovereignty in the East Sea on its website. Therefore, VNGDSM sent a diplomatic note to its Chinese counterpart as well as the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi, asking them to remove “the nine-dotted line or U-shape line” on the website.
Additionally, VNGDSM has participated in the Global Mapping Project launched by the United Nations to develop global geographic information through international cooperation. Vietnamese maps are now available on the website of the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM).
According to ISCGM, Vietnamese maps are the second most downloaded file, just behind those of Japan. It proves that the international community is really interested in the Vietnamese map, so Vietnam’s territory over Truong Sa and Hoang Sa definitely becomes more popular.
ISCGM has required members to send in updated data about their maps to update the global map. VNGDSM is preparing to send in ours.
VNGDSM also joined the Second Administrative Level Boundaries data set project, launched in 2001 by the UN, to provide access to a working platform for the collection, management, visualization, and sharing of sub national data and information in a seamless way, from the national to the global level.
In 2010, VNGDSM sent the updated statistics of Vietnam’s district-level administrative units to the UN, in which Hoang Sa is marked as an administrative district of central Da Nang Province and Truong Sa is an administrative district of central Khanh Hoa Province, effective January 2011.
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Lam
How is Vietnam’s sovereignty recognized internationally?
As a representative of Vietnam at conferences hosted by UNGEGN, VNGDSM has asked UNGEGN to write the geographical names of the Paracels and Spratlys in Vietnamese (Hoang Sa and Truong Sa) on the map of Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific, and they accepted.
VNGDSM is undertaking the task of standardizing geographical names of central areas in Vietnam. At the same time, VNGDSM is also building a database of geographical names of Vietnam that will be sent to the UN, at the request of UNGEGN. Basic information of Vietnam’s geographical names will include: geographical names in Vietnamese and English; images and a coordinate system of geographical names; and a pronunciation guide of geographical names in Vietnamese and six other international languages.
It’s important to provide the UN with standard geographical names of Vietnam since it will be used in documents, maps, and publications of the organization, helping promote and popularize Vietnam’s sovereignty to the international community.
Should we publicly announce the old but newly-collected maps claiming Vietnam’s ownership over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos?
Sure. A plan to propagandize these maps targeting local people and the international community is needed. We have to let Vietnamese people fully understand that Vietnam’s sovereignty over Truong Sa and Hoang is not only mentioned on Vietnamese and international maps, but also on maps published by the Chinese.
