{"id":45405,"date":"2024-01-22T09:21:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T17:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sweet-pascal.52-27-215-206.plesk.page\/vietnam-denounces-chinas-occupation-of-islands-in-1974\/"},"modified":"2024-01-22T09:21:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T17:21:42","slug":"vietnam-denounces-chinas-occupation-of-islands-in-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/vietnam-denounces-chinas-occupation-of-islands-in-1974\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam denounces China\u2019s occupation of islands in 1974"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the 50<\/span>th<\/span> anniversary of the naval battle that resulted in China taking over the entire Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea, Hanoi said such use of force was \u201cin serious violation of international law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The so-called Battle of the Paracels took place on Jan. 19, 1974, between the Chinese and South Vietnamese naval forces, as the latter tried to regain control of the islands, a cluster of islets east of Vietnam and south of China.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam at the time \u2013 separately from the communist North \u2013 claimed sovereignty over the Paracel islands as part of French Indochina but only had a small presence there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Towards the end of the Vietnam War, China had already occupied part of the Paracels including the biggest feature \u2013 Woody Island \u2013 when the Saigon government sent soldiers on four warships in order to repel Chinese forces.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The clash ended with the South Vietnamese navy\u2019s defeat; 75 Vietnamese soldiers lost their lives and China has fully occupied the archipelago ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>a rare strongly-worded statement<\/span><\/a> over the weekend, a Vietnamese spokeswoman said, \u201cEvery act of threatening or using force in international relations, especially the use of force to resolve territorial disputes between states, is in complete contravention of the fundamental principles of the United Nations Charter, and in serious violation of international law.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Pham Thu Hang was responding to a reporter\u2019s query on Vietnam’s position concerning what Vietnam\u2019s <\/span>state news agency<\/span><\/a> calls \u201cChina’s invasion of the Hoang Sa Islands in 1974,\u201d using the Vietnamese name for the islands.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSuch an act neither establishes any territorial title of sovereignty, nor changes the truth that sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands belongs to Vietnam,\u201d Hang said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs it has been clearly affirmed many times, Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa Islands has been established since at least the 17th century in accordance with international law, and exercised in a peaceful, continuous, and public manner by successive Vietnamese states,\u201d the spokeswoman said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The archipelago is now occupied and controlled by China, with <\/span>Woody Island extensively developed<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

China has carried out land reclamations and substantial upgrades of its military infrastructure there, according to the <\/span>Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative<\/span><\/a> at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Not much change\u2019<\/p>\n

Right after the Battle of the Paracels, North Vietnam did not react, according to the U.S. government archive.<\/span><\/p>\n

Soldiers of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy patrol at Woody Island, in the Paracel Archipelago, which is known in China as the Xisha Islands, Jan. 29, 2016. (REUTERS\/Stringer)<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

At a <\/span>Special Actions Group Meeting<\/span><\/a> on Indochina in Washington, chaired by the then-Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger on Jan. 25, 1974, the then-Director of the CIA William Colby told the participants that Hanoi ignored it,<\/span> \u201csaid it\u2019s below the 17th Parallel and thus doesn\u2019t affect them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, they didn\u2019t take a position, didn\u2019t come out on either side,\u201d Colby said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a long time, the government in North Vietnam stayed silent as the confrontation was considered to be between China and the \u201cpuppet Saigon regime,\u201d but after the end of the Vietnam War, Hanoi slowly moved towards recognizing the deaths of South Vietnamese soldiers and denouncing China\u2019s occupation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet the current Vietnamese government has always been careful not to be seen as overly critical of Beijing, its traditional ally and one of the main comprehensive strategic partners. Neither does it want to discuss the legacy of the Republic of Vietnam.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Hanoi knows it needs to deal with the public\u2019s anti-China sentiment, seen rising at every commemoration of past confrontations with China, according to Song Phan, a Vietnamese researcher on South China Sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to make strong statements to reduce the public pressure and it may offend the \u2018big neighbor\u2019 a little,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t think they can do anything in practice. They still listen fully to Beijing therefore there\u2019s not much change in the [bilateral] relationship,\u201d the researcher added.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was agreed at the Washington meeting on Jan. 25, 1974, that \u201cthe CIA would prepare a paper on the current status of the Paracel and Spratly Islands and an assessment of Chinese intention in the area,\u201d according to the meeting\u2019s minutes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. involvement seemed to stop there but the successive Vietnamese government have continued to dispute China\u2019s claims over the Paracels.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edited by Mike Firn and Malcolm Foster.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tin t\u1eeb RFA Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the 50th anniversary of the naval battle that resulted in China taking over the entire Paracel archipelago in the South China Sea, Hanoi said such use of force was \u201cin serious violation of international law.\u201d The so-called Battle of the Paracels took place on Jan. 19, 1974, between the Chinese and South Vietnamese naval …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":45406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[82,239],"tags":[246,251],"class_list":["post-45405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","category-vietnam","tag-english","tag-rfa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vietvalley.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}