Young people boycott products containing false information about Vietnam's sovereignty over sea and islands

On March 14, 2025, when the whole country celebrated the 37th anniversary of the battle and sacrifice to protect Gac Ma Island in the Truong Sa Archipelago, the Chinese milk tea brand Chagee began activities as part of a campaign to exploit the Vietnamese market.

However, users quickly discovered that the application to receive free milk tea at the opening and on the homepage of this brand (chagee.com) appeared a map of Vietnam with an image of the illegal "cow tongue line".

The loud appearance but with serious misinformation about Vietnam's sovereignty of this milk tea brand immediately received strong opposition from many people on social networking forums. Many comments clearly expressed their views, such as "Milk tea has many brands, but national sovereignty is only one", "Boycott Chagee because of the cow tongue line"... On the Fanpage of Chagee Vietnam, under each introductory post, there are thousands of angry comments about this brand's behavior of inserting the "cow tongue line".

Currently, Chagee is in the process of completing its chain of stores and has not officially opened yet, but it is very likely that the act of applying the "cow tongue line" into the application will cause this brand to fail in Vietnam.

However, there are also concerns that, with the vague awareness of national sovereignty of a segment of today's youth, combined with grand opening activities and attractive promotions, it is possible that this milk tea brand will still have a place to "survive", even "live well" in Vietnam, even though they are blatantly inserting false information about the sovereignty of the very country in which they do business and profit.

Not long ago, a product for Vietnamese youth was also discovered to have an image similar to the "cow tongue line". That is the Baby Three doll - a product that is mostly distributed in the form that is currently popular with Vietnamese youth through e-commerce platforms Shopee, TikTokShop, and social network Facebook.

The Department of Domestic Market Management and Development (Ministry of Industry and Trade) has directed the inspection and handling of any violations of this type of toy regarding images and content related to Vietnam's territorial sovereignty. At the same time, users have also spoken out to boycott and turn their backs on Baby Three doll products.

Also related to this issue, in 2024, Snapchat - an application for sharing images and news, was present in Vietnam but displayed the "cow tongue line". After being exposed, this application deleted the image of the "cow tongue line", but as of 10:30 a.m. on March 19, the application still did not display Vietnam's Truong Sa and Hoang Sa archipelagos.

Inserting false information about Vietnam's national sovereignty is one of the insidious tricks that some foreign manufacturers use through distribution channels to smuggle into Vietnam. Previously, this illegal act, a blatant violation of sovereignty, was discovered many times by Vietnamese authorities when the "cow tongue line" was printed on passports of tourists entering Vietnam, and maps with the "cow tongue line" were hung at some Chinese businesses operating in Vietnam...

However, these tricks are now being carried out in a more sophisticated and insidious way, rather than directly targeting young people through products intended for this audience.

Some young people are still vague about national territorial sovereignty, even indifferent and apathetic to this important issue. Meanwhile, self-study, self-research, and regular education on national sovereignty for this group have not been focused on. This is very dangerous! In the long run, the "cow tongue line" appears frequently, without being fought to refute, many people will mistakenly think that this has been internationally recognized, affecting awareness, the wrong "turns" into the right according to the intentions of foreign evil forces.

The "cow tongue line" was drawn by China with the intention of monopolizing the East Sea. According to this map, China's sea area will extend to occupy the entire East Sea of ​​Vietnam, including the two archipelagos of Hoang Sa and Truong Sa, close to the Philippines, down to Brunei. However, the "cow tongue line" has been strongly opposed by the international community as well as Vietnam and related countries.

From domestic and foreign historical documents, we need to continue to strongly affirm that Vietnam has sufficient legal and historical evidence to assert its sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos. This fact is proven in many documents, ancient books, legal documents of the State, and maps showing the exercise of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa archipelagos preserved in Vietnam and many countries around the world.

Vietnam's sovereignty over land and sea has long been established and recognized by the world. Hoang Sa and Truong Sa are two outpost archipelagos of the Fatherland, an inseparable part of Vietnam's territory.

Vietnam has established and exercised sovereignty since these two archipelagos were terra nullius and Vietnam is the only country to exercise sovereignty over the two archipelagos peacefully and continuously.

Chagee milk tea or Baby Three dolls with "cow tongue shape" are "test drugs" for young people. Therefore, young people should consider and say no to these products. That is the strongest action, the clearest viewpoint to affirm national territorial sovereignty.