The editorial board of the Italian-based Journal of Waste Management, has said to publish a correction in which the Chinese map used for an article in the April 2011 issue, is wrong in the upcoming issue.

On April 19, 2011, this magazine published an article by Chinese scientists (Jun Tai, Weiqian, Zhang, Yue Che and Di Feng) entitled “Municipal solid waste source-separated collection in China: A comparative analysis”.

In this article, Chinese authors used an illustration photo which depicts the U-shaped line that China uses to claim its sovereignty over the East Sea. It is serious that this is the first time the U-shaped line was published in a scientific magazine. The article mentions some Chinese cities in the testing areas but the authors intentionally added the U-shaped line below in the illustration photo.

Chinese scientists’ move was strongly protested by Vietnamese scientists.

Dr. To Van Truong, former head of the Southern Vietnam Institute for Irrigation Planning, told VietNamNet: “According to my foreign colleagues, this journal has published many articles, including Chinese maps, by Chinese scientists; but this is the first time a map includes the U-shaped line”.

“This is China’s intentional move to gradually materialize the U-shaped line,” he said.

“This is a worldwide reputed journal on solid waste, so Vietnam needs to strongly protest China’s move,” he added.

Many Vietnamese and overseas Vietnamese scientists have emailed the editorial board of the Journal of Waste Management asking them make corrections to the map with the illegal U-shaped line.

Prof. Pham Quang Tuan from Australia is among many scientists who have emailed Prof. Raffaello Cossu (Padua University – Italy), the chief editor of the Journal of Waste Management to report the case.

Prof. Tuan’s email clearly wrote: “China’s claim of sovereignty over the waters inside the U-shaped line is unilateral and not based on any international law. This claim is strongly protested by all countries in the region”.

“If your editorial board sees the map of the South China Sea (East Sea), including the mainland, you will understand why the U-shaped line is illegal. This line overlaps the 100 nautical mile waters of other countries while the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 (UNCLOS) confirms clearly that nations have sovereignty over the exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles from their coast.

Even when China is one side that claims sovereignty over the Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) islands, this U-shaped line has no ground. In fact, under the UNCLOS, small uninhabited islands like Paracel or Spratly Islands only have 12 nautical mile waters, not an exclusive economic zone”.

Prof. Tuan pointed out that in recent years; China has used this line to provoke in order to appropriate most of the natural resources in the East Sea. In the latest cases, Chinese ships cut cables of Vietnamese seismic survey ships in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.

The Journal of Waste Management is a reputed scientific magazine of the International Waste Working Group, based in Padova, Italy.

Thao Lam