The State President Truong Tan Sang underlined the continuing need to protect the country’s sovereignty during his visit to Lang Son City Cemetery, a message underlined by pupils on Phu Quoc Island.

President Truong Tan Sang offers incenses at Lang Son City Cemetery

On February 16, President Truong Tan Sang paid visits to ethnic people and border defence forces in Lang Son Province. He also offered incense at the Lang Son City Cemetery, where 400 soldiers and officers are buried, including 300 that died in the Vietnam-China northern border war on February 17, 1979.

Then on February 17, Nguyen Duy Khanh, a teacher at An Thoi High School in Phu Quoc Island, and his pupils held a moment of silence to show respect for everyone who died protecting the country's northern border.

The silent moment in a small class and the visit of Sang at this time to people living in the northern borders and to Lang Son City Cemetery sends a message of patriotism, of independent spirit, of sovereignty protection, and to show how King Quang Trung declared before going to war with China's Qing Dynasty: fight so that history knows this country has its owners.

There are times conflicts are put aside for various reasons but history will always remain and never be forgotten. The day of February 17 will go down in Vietnamese history as a heroic date.

China’s actions in the East Sea, such as the deployment of air defences on the Spratly Islands pose a threat to Vietnamese sovereignty despite claiming that everyone are good friends with good neighbourly relations.

But no weapons can crush fighting spirit to protect the country sovereignty.

King Tran Nhan Tong wrote in his will that, "Big countries are ones that often commit terrible deeds because they give themselves the right to make false promises."

The lesson in February 1979 is a lesson about the strong fighting spirit which President Truong Tan Sang and pupils in Phu Quoc Island have expressed.