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The mysterious sea always carries more imagination and strange hope, but the islands far from the land in the sea are far less quiet than the breeze of the coastline.
China's many features in the South China Sea have long been targeted by its neighbors, and Vietnam has coveted 29 of China's islands and even illegally seized them.
Vietnam is also reclaiming the islands, which it has now become their military command center for the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
How did Vietnam invade Spratly Island? Why didn't China take back the islands and reefs that Vietnam had occupied?
Vietnam's arrogant behavior
According to a September 2 report by the official account of Strategic Situational Awareness in the South China Sea, Vietnam's land reclamation operations in the South China Sea have become increasingly rampant.
Most of the islands and reefs occupied by Vietnam in the Spratly have not escaped the fate of expansion, especially some islands and reefs that are in key positions or are relatively large in size.
Vietnam's actions before September can almost be described as crazy, with satellite imagery showing islands and reefs in the South China Sea growing in size.
In particular, the five islands and reefs of Hongxiu Island, Dunqian Sandbar, Lifeng Reef, Wuqiao Reef and Bai Jiao have increased their area by nearly 3 square kilometers in the 30-month period from March 21 to last month, that is, August this year.
And this is not the end, Vietnam's land reclamation operations on the islands and reefs in the South China Sea have not stopped, and they are still under construction.
Nam Si Island, which Vietnam attaches the most importance to and the most arrogant land reclamation, has always been one of the most important islands in the southwest of the Spratly Islands.
According to the relevant provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Sea and traditional international law, there are four main principles for determining the attribution of an island or reef.
First, who found out first. Second, who named it first. Third, who comes first. Fourthly, whether the international community recognizes it.
For hundreds of thousands of years, China's coastal residents have basically made a living from fishing, and they have discovered many islands in the process of fishing.
And these islands gradually have their own names after they are discovered, of course, these names are also taken by the fishermen who discovered the islands or lived here.
Spratly Island is one of the many South China Sea islands discovered and named by fishermen, who not only built houses and vegetables on the island, but also dug wells to live here for a long time.
China's feudal society already had a systematic management system, and the islands were of course under Chinese jurisdiction.
Therefore, in any principle, Spratly Island is an island of China and has nothing to do with Vietnam, and if there is anything involved, it is that Vietnam was still a vassal state of China at that time.
Since Spratly Island has been under the jurisdiction of China since ancient times, when was it occupied by Vietnam?
Vietnamese occupation and expansion
After the Qing government entered a period of corruption, it became more and more unable to govern the sea area, coupled with the Japanese invasion of Southeast Asia during World War II, and the islands and reefs in the South China Sea, which had been targeted by the great powers, fell into the hands of the Japanese.
However, after Japan's defeat and surrender to China, the most important thing to do was to quickly withdraw to Japan, and there was still kung fu to manage the islands and reefs that had been occupied before.
At this time, the Kuomintang seized this opportunity and sent the navy to recover most of the occupied islands and reefs, and the Kuomintang still made some contributions to this.
But after the outbreak of the civil war, the Kuomintang did not understand how they could lose if they had the best equipment, and they were powerless to govern the islands they had previously recovered.
In order to be able to accumulate strength to counterattack, Chiang Kai-shek chose to return to Taiwan, and at this time the Kuomintang troops could only follow Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan for a while.
The islands and reefs that were originally recovered were basically stationed with Kuomintang troops, and after the withdrawal of the large troops, only some important islands and reefs were left and guarded by the Kuomintang.
But time passed day by day, and until Chiang Kai-shek's death, these Nationalist troops stationed on the islands and reefs in the South China Sea did not wait for the day of the counteroffensive.
And they watched the strength of the mainland getting stronger and stronger, and they knew very well that they had no possibility of counterattack, and the national army, which did not want to continue to consume on the desolate and distant islands, chose to leave.
When they withdrew, although the strength of the Chinese People's Liberation Army had improved, its naval strength was still not ideal, and there was no way to send troops to take over the islands in a short period of time.
Several Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam and the Philippines, saw that this was not a godsend, and the people stationed on these islands had been withdrawn, and they did not want to do what they wanted.
At that time, the most presumptuous was South Vietnam, who occupied many islands in the Spratly and directly stationed troops, claiming that these islands were Vietnamese territory.
In the 70s of last century, nine were invaded, namely Hongxiu Island, Anbo Sandbar, Dunqian Sandbank, Jinghong Island, Nanwei Island, Nanzi Island, Lifeng Reef, Dianqing Sandbar, and Middle Reef;
In the 80s of the 20th century, 13 were invaded, namely Poran Reef, Daxian Reef, East Reef, Ghost Shout Reef, Liumen Reef, Nairo Reef, South China Reef, Riji Reef, Wuqi Reef, West Reef, Bai Jiao, Qiong Jiao, and Vanguard Bank;
In the 90s of the 20th century, 7 were occupied, namely Guangya Beach, Pengbo Barrier Reef, Renjun Beach, Li Zhun Beach, Xiwei Beach, Ao Nang Shoal, and Golden Shield Shoal.
Spratly Island was the largest of the islands illegally occupied by South Vietnam at that time, with an initial area of 0.15 square kilometers, which is about 220 acres.
Spratly Island not only has houses left by Chinese fishermen, but also freshwater wells that they have dug, and most importantly, it is not too far from the Vietnamese mainland.
So Vietnam began to expand Spratly Island, and at first Vietnam's plan was to turn Spratly Island into a tourist attraction and become a stop in the tourism plan of islands and reefs in the South China Sea.
For this plan, Vietnam's infrastructure on Spratly Island, including hospitals, school parks, etc., is all designed to attract immigrants.
But is Vietnam really so superficial just to earn some money for tourism? Of course not, immigration and tourism are all pretenses, and Vietnam's real plan is to turn Spratly Island into a maritime military command center.
In 2015, Vietnam built a 600-meter-long runway on Spratly Island to facilitate the expansion of materials in the future.
Since then, Vietnam's land reclamation project has been carried out with great fanfare, and the area of Spratly Island alone has more than tripled, soaring from 0.15 square kilometers to 0.48 square kilometers.
Even the original 600-meter runway has been expanded to twice as long, and now not only material transport planes can land on Spratly Island, but even light fighters can land smoothly.
The time has not come
According to the provisions of the international convention, even if there is a war, the two sides of the conflict cannot attack civilian facilities, which means that this wave of Vietnamese operations directly avoids the danger of being attacked.
Today, Spratly Island has been built into one of the largest islands in the Spratly Islands, and it was originally an island with very rich vegetation, and the scenery has become more open as it expands.
It is worth mentioning that Spratly Island is also close to Vanguard Bank and Zengmu Shoal, which are very rich in oil and gas resources.
As the saying goes, Nanwei Island cannot produce oil on its own, but it is one of the most important transit bases for Vanguard Bank and Zengmu Shoal.
How could we not know that Spratly Island is so important, but until September, that is, these days, Vietnam is still expanding the invaded Spratly Island.
The reason why China did not retake the occupied islands directly from Vietnam is, of course, its own considerations.
The first is the first time when Spratly Island and other islands were invaded, that is, when Vietnam had just taken action, if it made a move at this time, it would definitely be able to seize the opportunity.
But as mentioned earlier, the Chinese Navy at that time did not have the capability of long-range strikes, and the long distance between the Nansha Islands and the mainland made the Navy weak.
Spratly Island is not the farthest Chinese mainland island in the Spratly Islands, but it is still more than 1,000 kilometers away from Hainan Island.
For the current Chinese Navy, 1000 kilometers is nothing at all, and driving an aircraft "with one foot on the throttle" basically arrives.
Or dispatch coast guard ships or military ships, you can easily reach Spratly Island, but the navy at that time simply did not have the main ships that could fight.
When Vietnam invaded and occupied China's islands and reefs in the South China Sea, China's capital ships were basically some "old and broken", let alone a head-on confrontation, it would be good to be able to drive to their destination.
Moreover, even if China was open at that time, what could it do if it drove its ships directly to the gate of Vietnam to return all the islands and reefs?
After we took the island back, we sent people to station on the island, but the air force at that time could not help, and even simple supplies may not be delivered.
If other countries take advantage of China's first station, not only may the islands not be preserved, but even the people stationed there will be in danger.
Therefore, at that time, under comprehensive consideration, the government did not immediately take action to recover the islands occupied by Vietnam.
Now China's comprehensive strength is not the same as it used to be, but now it is even more difficult to strike, and the situation in the South China Sea has become more complicated than before.
We are not only facing our neighbors who have invaded the islands, but more importantly, the United States, which has been looking for an opportunity to defeat China.
On September 6, that is, yesterday, Liu Jianchao, director of the International Liaison Department of the CPC Central Committee, just finished his visit to Vietnam, and the meeting between China and Vietnam is for in-depth exchanges to better cope with challenges.
It is worth mentioning that the United States will visit Vietnam on September 10, so whether it is for the sake of regional peace and stability or to prevent the United States from playing tricks, China cannot easily tear its face with Vietnam.
end
Not using force to retake the occupied islands does not mean that China will give up, and we will not turn a blind eye to Vietnam's actions.
The South China Sea is China's South China Sea, and the Nansha Islands are also China's Nansha Islands, so let this group of jumping beam clowns bounce around for a while, and in the near future, China will definitely recover all the islands that have been occupied.
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