Developments in the South China Sea during the first quarter of 2009 reinforced several trends that have been apparent over the past two years. First, the Spratly Islands dispute has once again come to dominate Sino-Philippine relations, despite attempts by Beijing and Manila to move beyond it. Second, China has adopted a more assertive posture toward its territorial and maritime boundary claims in the South China Sea than at any time since the late 1990s. Third, the 2002 breakthrough agreement between the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China to manage tensions in the South China Sea is in danger of becoming irrelevant. Fourth, the USNS Impeccable incident on March 8 highlighted the growing strategic importance of the South China Sea for the United States and China, and reawakened concerns in ASEAN capitals that the region may one day become the principal theater wherein Sino-U.S. maritime rivalry is played out.

Trung Hieu talks with Historian Nguyen Nha, who has dedicated his life to historical research proving Viet Nam’s sovereignty over the Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) archipelagos in the East Sea.

Dr Nguyen Nha was born on January 3, 1940 in the northern province of Ninh Binh’s Yen Mo District. He graduated from the Sai Gon Teacher Training University in 1965 with a degree in History and Geography, and from the Literature University in 1966. He successfully defended his doctoral thesis to earn a PhD in History from the HCM City National University in 2003. He now lives in HCM City’s Phu Nhuan District and has been a lecturer in the city since 1966.

Hanoi and the Chinese Invasion of the Paracel Islands, 1974

In January 1974, when the naval forces of the People’s Republic of China forcibly occupied the Paracel Islands and compelled the South Vietnamese government to withdraw its troops from there, the North Vietnamese leadership failed to make any public comment, either approving or disapproving, on the incident. In fact, the North Vietnamese press did not even mention the clash between Saigon and Beijing. From the Vietnamese Communist side, the sole official reaction to the Chinese invasion was a brief, cautiously worded and somewhat opaque communique issued by the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam, which called for the peaceful and negotiated resolution of any local territorial debate.

A new chapter in China's decades-long political, military and legal battle to claim sovereignty and jurisdiction over the South China Sea has opened. On March 10, five Chinese ships conducted close-in harassing maneuvers against the USNS Impeccable about 75 to 80 nautical miles (100 to 120 kilometers) off Hainan Island in the South China Sea.

Until now China kept direct clashes with the United States to a minimum. The most notable previous case was the April 2001 EP-3 incident, which was largely accidental but which, like the Impeccable case, also resulted from increasingly aggressive military maneuvering in the wake of a new U.S. president taking office.

For the most part, Beijing focuses on its maritime territorial disputes with weaker neighbors over islands and shoals that might sit atop vast petroleum or gas reserves. In these disputes Washington has remained neutral, admonishing parties to solve their conflicts peacefully.