The website www.vietnamchina.gov.vn is a joint trade promotion portal launched at a 2006 ceremony by Vietnamese Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Over the past month, China's Ministry of Trade had posted articles on the site defending Beijing's claims to sovereignty over two island chains, the Spratlys and Paracels, which are also claimed by Vietnam.

The articles provoked critical reactions in Vietnamese newspapers and on blogs in recent days. The government-controlled newspaper Tuoi Tre called the posting of the Chinese articles "surprising."

Luu Vu Hai, director of Vietnam's Department for Radio, Television, and Internet Commerce, said his department had asked that users be temporarily blocked from logging on to the site, so that no new articles could be posted. Hai said he was waiting for a report from the Ministry of Trade and Industry to determine what had gone wrong.

But authorities said the site would not be shut down permanently, as some Vietnamese bloggers have demanded. "This possibility has not been mentioned yet," Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Do Quy Doan said.

"I don't understand why the Vietnamese side allowed China to manage this domain and publish information to Vietnam's disadvantage," said Nguyen Thu Nga, a manager at an express delivery company in Hanoi.

"This could only have happened due to stupidity, irresponsibility, greed, or something like that," wrote a Vietnamese blogger at a blog called EverywhereLand. "Officials at the Ministry of Trade and Industry must have known about it."

China claims exclusive sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea. China's claims are disputed by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

Tensions over the competing claims prompted Vietnamese students to stage rare spontaneous demonstrations in front of the Chinese embassy in late 2007. Vietnam submitted its maritime claims in the area to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in early May, but China quickly rejected the submissions.

Vietnamese officials said they were still unsure how the controversial documents had been posted and what the resolution of the website dispute would be.

"We have reminded (the Ministry of Trade and Industry) to draw lessons from this case, in cooperating in terms of information with foreign partners," said Nguyen The Ky, director of the Press Department of the Vietnamese Communist Party's Central Propaganda Commission.

Deutsche Presse Agentur - May 19, 2009