The tectonic nature of southern China has changed again and again in the Phanerozoic. In the Caledoniancycle, there existed three tectonic units——the Yangtze paraplatform, Indosinian-South China Sea paraplatformand Caledonian South China fold belt, of which the last unit is not a collisional orogenic belt but ascissor-shaped aulacogen-type geosyncline opening towards Yunnan and Vietnam. In the Indosinian cycle,South China belonged to the Tethyan tectonic domain, and no abyssal oceanic basin existed there. Since theLate Triassic, especially in the Yanshanian orogenic stage, it became a component part of the peri-Pacificcontinental-margin activation belt of eastern Asia. No Alpinc-type orogenic belt occurs in the interior of thecontinent of southern China.