Last week’s naval confrontation between Vietnam and China involved an old and unresolved territorial dispute in the South China Sea. For decades, the Communist neighbors have sparred over the islets. However, Hanoi’s high-risk response led to the most dangerous clash since the bloody 1979 China-Vietnam border war.

The Vietnam-China Paracel Islands dispute — Chinese calls the chain of 30 islets the Xisha — definitely pre-dates Russia‘s invasion and annexation of territory long coveted by the Kremlin: Crimea.