ABSTRACT
In the last nineteen years the South China Sea has witnessed many a conflict. On 15 January 1974 the then Republic of Vietnam (ROV) naval vessels fired on fishing boats of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as well as naval ships in the vicinity of Robert Island (Ganquan Dao in Chinese) in the Paracel Island group (Xisha Qundao in Chinese and Hoang Sa in Vietnamese). Two days later Saigon's troops landed on Robert Island and tension escalated. On 19 January the PRC and the ROV fought against each other over the possession of what each claims to be its sacred territory — the entire Paracels — for two days. Beijing dispatched twelve naval ships, four fighter-planes and 500 marines and succeeded in driving out the South Vietnamese from the island group once and for all (WWP, 4 October 1988: 9; NMS, 1988: 21); but that was not the end of armed conflicts between the two sides over the Paracels. 1
