![]() Until the 1950s, the island was also called Yeying Dao or Fushuizhou in Chinese. On international maritime maps, BLV was also called “Nightingale Island” (Night-in-gale), meaning “night of strong wind,” since the island served as a shelter for fishermen during storms. “Bạch Long Vi” in Vietnamese means “the tail of the white dragon” (Bailongwei in Chinese). This is the origin of the now-famous nine-dash line. In 1953, in a show of friendship to Vietnam, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai deleted the two lines in the Gulf of Tonkin, is the northwest arm of the South China Sea, bounded by China (north and east) and Vietnam (west). ![]() In 1949, the People’s Republic of China was established and inherited the same territory. The 10th and the 11th lines (in black on the map above) are located within the Gulf of Tonkin and include BLV as part of Chinese territory. Because it is shaped like the English letter U, it is also called the U-shaped line. In 1947, soon after the end of World War II, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) published a map of the location of the South China Sea islands claimed by China, using eleven dashed lines to enclose the South China Sea. The nine-dash line and the eleven-dash line are also shown.Įnjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. The South China Sea, including the Gulf of Tonkin and Bach Long Vi Island. I also visited it in May 2019 and became one of the few foreigners who were granted permission to spend a night on the island. To clarify and document its past, I thoroughly studied the literature on this island in three languages (English, Chinese, and Vietnamese). Today, it is a military restricted area and only Vietnamese citizens are allowed to enter.Īs an oceanographer and photographer, I have been intrigued for years by BLV’s history and its secret (and friendly) transfer from China to Vietnam. BLV has been controlled by the Vietnamese government ever since. Then BLV was secretly surrendered to North Vietnam in 1957, so that the island could host a new radar base to provide an early warning of American planes and serve as a transitional post for Chinese aid materials. The island was under Chinese control until the 1950s. The disputes have remained unresolved for decades and have emerged as a flashpoint in Asia.Īgainst this thorny history, the case of BLV stands out. This area is subject to several overlapping territorial disputes involving multiple countries, which sparked armed conflict between China and South Vietnam in 1974. An estimated a third of the global maritime trade passes through the South China Sea. It is also an important fishery with enormous potential in seafood processing, fishing logistic services, and maritime preservation.īLV is the largest habitable island in the entire South China Sea, which is one of the world’s busiest waterways. This island, called Bach Long Vi (BLV), has long been regarded as essential not only for security and defense, but also for oil and gas exploration, marine economic development, and environmental conservation in the area. In 1957, as the Vietnam War escalated, the most strategic island in the Gulf of Tonkin was secretly transferred from China to Vietnam.
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