Peace for troubled waters
On May 17 Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) told US Secretary of State John Kerry that “the Pacific is vast enough for both powers USA and China,” but will the South China Sea have room for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its neighbors along the U-shaped line (the “nine-dash line”)?
An early map showing a U-shaped, 11 dotted line, was published in the then-Chinese Nationalist Party/Republic of China (KMT/ROC) on Dec. 1, 1947.
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeated the KMT and established the PRC in 1949, then-Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (周恩來) removed two of the dots in the Gulf of Tonkin, reducing the total to nine.
Despite having made the vague claim public in 1947, as of today China is actively building the “great wall of sand” on Fiery Cross Reef (Yongshu Reef, 永暑礁) in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) in the South China Sea to file a formal and specifically defined claim to the area within the dashes. The US does not recognize China’s territorial claims, while other claimants, including several US allies, are alarmed by China’s move to reclaim and militarize islands in the region.
On May 21, a Chinese military dispatcher demanded repeatedly in a radio transmission to US Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft: “Foreign military aircraft, this is Chinese navy. You are approaching our military alert zone. Leave immediately,” as it flew near Fiery Cross Reef, where China has dredged hundreds of meters of coral and sand and built an airstrip on what it claims is sovereign territory.
US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel testified to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 13 that “under international law it is clear that no amount of dredging or construction will alter or enhance the legal strength of a nation’s territorial claims. No matter how much sand you pile on a reef in the South China Sea, you can’t manufacture sovereignty. So my question is this: What does China intend to do with these outposts?”
Obviously China attempted to extend the territorial water thousands of kilometers away from its mainland to the artificial islands in the South China Sea, claiming an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) that overlaps with Taiwan, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
According to the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, territorial sea is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from the baseline of a coastal state; the contiguous zone up to 24 nautical miles and the EEZ to a maximum of 200 nautical miles.
The South China Sea contains 250 small islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs and sandbars, most of which have no indigenous people, many of which are naturally under water at high tide and most of which are permanently submerged. They are divided into the Spratly Islands, the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), Macclesfield Bank (Zhongsha Islands, 中沙群島) and Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 斯卡渤勒群島), all of which Taiwan claims.
The largest of the naturally occurring Spratleys, Taiping Island (Itu Aba Island, 太平島), is administered by Taiwan.
On May 26 President Ma Ying jeou (馬英九) proposed a South China Sea peace initiative calling on concerned parties to avoid any unilateral action that could increase tension. He wished to play a role as a responsible stakeholder and regional peacemaker, but no one really cared what he said. If there is a peace conference he will not be invited. Once Ma speaks about the Republic of China (ROC), people would rather listen to the PRC.
If Ma would speak for Taiwan then the world would open its ears and listen, because ROC is simply not a sovereign state.
On Sep. 8, 1951, Japan renounced all rights, titles and claims to the Spratleys and to the Paracels under Article 2f of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and in article 2b renounced all rights, titles and claims to Formosa and the Pescadores. There is no recipient mentioned, but the US is named as the principal occupying power. The US is authorized by the international treaty to police power in this troubled area.
China can not manufacture sovereignty in the South China Sea. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang yi (王毅) said China is merely building facilities in its own backyard. Beiging must stop. This is the key to settling troubled waters.
John Hsieh
Hayward, California
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