Ever since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assumed power in China in 1928 — and subsequently fled to Taiwan — the party has cooked up a series of fabrications that fly in the face of historical fact. Although the originator of these lies was the KMT, they were subsequently adopted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Both parties have consistently sought to hoodwink both Taiwanese and Chinese, and even foreign observers.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration’s verdict on the South China Sea has become the focus of world attention. However, there are three rarely discussed historical facts that are central to the case:
First, there are two “Republics of China” — one in Taiwan and the other in China. The two republics split off from each other at 7:50pm on Nov. 20, 1949, when then-Republic of China (ROC) acting president Lee Tsung-jen (李宗仁) fled China in a privately chartered aircraft. This is an incontrovertible historical fact that the KMT has sought to cover up through lies and misinformation.
The ROC was then taken over by the People’s Republic of China; it therefore has no connection to Taiwan. By the same token, the fabricated South China Sea “11-dash line” is also unrelated to Taiwan.
Second, even in ancient times, China never possessed sovereignty over the South China Sea islands. These islands mainly consist of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島) and the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島).
As regards the former, it was not until 1874 that Guo Song-tao (郭嵩燾) — the Qing Dynasty’s first minister to be sent on a diplomatic mission abroad — wrote: “The islands belong to China.”
As regards the Spratly Islands, it was not until 1935 that the ROC claimed sovereignty over the islands. However, by that time Japan had already been in possession of the islands for more than 20 years. Prior to these two dates, any Chinese documentation concerning the islands are simply historical accounts.
International law does not recognize historic claims to sovereignty. China has never possessed sovereignty over the islands. Both the “nine-dash line” and the “11-dash line” are political fabrications: The islands, rocks and reefs that fall within these lines are not China’s ancestral assets. Any Taiwanese or Chinese who believe that these demarcation lines justify an expansion of China’s territorial waters has been brainwashed by KMT and CCP lies.
Third, as for the question of who should enjoy sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea, we know that China was the first country to possess the Paracel Islands, from 1875 to 1908. However, it is a seldom-quoted historical fact that a Qing Dynasty administrative history, written in 1921, identified the southernmost island of the Paracel Islands as China’s southernmost territory.
As for the Spratly Islands, Japan was the first country to claim possession of them, in 1905. Japan gained control over the islands by placing them under the administrative jurisdiction of Takao Prefecture (now Kaohsiung) in Taiwan, which was then a Japanese colony.
International law is based on treaties. The Spratly and Paracel islands first appeared in the 1951 San Francisco Treaty. The treaty shows that the islands previously belonged to Japan, and that thereafter, they belonged to Taiwan.
The tribunal’s verdict repeatedly states that the Philippines possesses a 200 nautical mile (370km) exclusive economic zone, but did not deduct from this the 12 nautical mile territorial sea that surrounds each of the South China Sea islands.
It is this point that the government should be focusing on in its objections to the tribunal’s ruling.
Lai Fu-shun is a history professor at Chinese Culture University and director of the Strait Peaceful Education Foundation.
Translated by Edward Jones
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