Did 1988 battle anniversary hint rise in Vietnam-China tensions?

http://atimes.com/2016/03/did-1988-battle-anniversary-hint-rise-in-vietnam-china-tensions/



Images from 1988 sea battle between Vietnam and China

Did 1988 battle anniversary hint rise in Vietnam-China tensions?
By Xuan Loc Doan on March 23, 2016

Has Vietnam signaled a shift in its China policy by allowing public observances of a deadly confrontation with Chinese forces in the Spratly Islands nearly three decades ago?

The naval clash between Vietnam and China over Johnson South Reef, aka Gac Ma Island, was the last battle between the two communist neighbors. It occurred on March 14, 1988 when Chinese forces launched an attack on the island that was formerly under Vietnamese control. This resulted in the deaths of 64 Vietnamese soldiers, the sinking of two Vietnamese ships and China’s occupation of the reef as well as other islets and rocks in the Spratly Islands ever since.

Despite Vietnam’s heavy loss of human life and territory, the military incident was soon deliberately ignored by the Vietnamese government following a 1990 summit between Hanoi and Beijing in Chengdu that led to a normalization of ties in 1991.

In fact, for nearly three decades after that secret meeting, the clash was seen as a very sensitive, if not taboo, topic in Vietnam. Neither was the incident taught at schools or aired in political discourse. Recollection of the clash was often avoided by the one-party state’s highly censored media.