China on Monday urged Vietnam to act in ways that are conducive to bilateral ties, peace and stability of the South China Sea.
"China always opposes countries' moves to aggravate and complicate the situation in the South China Sea," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a regular news briefing in response to a question on the current China-Vietnam relations.
His remark came after scores of Vietnamese protested on Sunday against China's South China Sea policies.
Relations between the two nations soured after the Vietnamese National Assembly last month passed a law which describes China's Xisha and Nansha Islands as being within Vietnam's sovereignty and jurisdiction.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Chinese National People's Congress, China's top legislature, has sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Vietnamese National Assembly voicing its opposition to the law.
China always attaches importance to friendship and cooperation with Vietnam and is willing to appropriately address disputes in accordance with the consensus reached by the leaders of the two nations, Liu was quoted by the Xinhua news agency as saying.
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