3/13/2013 Naval Interest How Far Will The Dragon Swim?

HOW FAR WILL THE DRAGON SWIM?  WHERE IS IT NESTING?  LEAVE NO TERRITORY UNATTENDED OR YOU WILL FIND A NEST.

The Xisha Islands  as they are called by China are better known as the Paracel Islands . These islands are located north of the disputed Spratly Islands but are mostly disputed between China and Vietnam. Taiwan also claims the islands and China claims Taiwan so the real contest is between China and Vietnam at the moment. If you look very carefully at the illustration above you can just discern a small widely spaced arm of the islands extending towards the shore of Vietnam almost to the beach line. The larger more northern islands appear to be nearer to China. But of course the Dragon claims the entire chain and simply established a beachhead settlement on one of the islands called and has begun simply acting like everything has been settled. They now routinely run  fishermen from Vietnam out of the area as can be seen in the below quote from a Chinese newspaper XINHUA below.   

Check this link for a background on the territorial Dispute:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Paracel_Islands 

(Xinhua)

March 13, 2013 

SANSHA, Hainan, March 13 (Xinhua) -- Two Vietnam-registered fishing ships were driven out of China's territorial waters by a China Marine Surveillance (CMS) fleet on Wednesday.

The Vietnamese vessels, registered as QNg96417TS and QNg96382TS, were spotted around 7 a.m. in the South China Sea around the Xisha Islands. They were suspected of illegal fishing within China's territorial waters, according to the Xinhua reporter on board the CMS ship.

They were driven out of the waters at about 10 a.m. by two CMS ships -- the Haijian 262 and the Haijian 263.

Link to Full Article::http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/8166025.html