It is a principle of international law that “the only form in which a cession can be effected is an agreement normally in the form of a treaty between the ceding and the acquiring state,” as stated in Oppenheim’s International Law.
Japan, shortly after securing Taiwan by way of the Shimonoseki Treaty in 1895, concluded a declaration with the Kingdom of Spain, in which “the parallel passing through the middle of the navigable Channel of Bachi is taken as the dividing line between Japanese and Spanish possessions in the western Pacific Ocean.”
In the peace talks after the Spain-US war, the US intended to assert that the northernmost point of the Philippines should be at 21.5o north latitude; however, Spain said that it could not cede to the US anything that did not belong to Spain.
Therefore, in the Treaty of Peace between the US and Spain signed in Paris in 1898, the line in the declaration of 1895 was defined as 20o north latitude by the US and Spain.
Two years later, on Nov. 7, 1900, the US concluded a sole article treaty, to make clear the geographical extent of the Philippine archipelagoes.
In the 1898 peace treaty, the two parties explicitly identified Cagayan Sulu Island, which is located at 6o north latitude, and the Sibutu Islands, at 4.83o north latitude, as part of the archipelagoes as a whole. They did not mention the Batan Islands, which are at 20.42o north latitude, and thus not a part of the Philippines as defined by the treaty.
In addition, the US had already sent a gunboat, the USS Princeton, to occupy the Batan Islands on Jan. 10, 1900, which also proves that the Batan Islands had nothing to do with the peace treaty. The US did not receive any mandate in 1895, 1898 or 1900 to rule the Batan Islands.
The US then recognized the independence of the Republic of the Philippines in the Treaty of Manila of 1946 and transferred its power where applicable. Article VII stipulated that “the Republic of the Philippines agrees to assume all continuing obligations assumed by the United States of America under the Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and Spain concluded at Paris on the 10th day of December, 1898, by which the Philippine Islands were ceded to the United States of America, and under the Treaty between the United States of America and Spain concluded at Washington on the 7th day of November, 1900.”
Only the treaties of 1898 and 1900, which do not refer to the Batan Islands at all, were mentioned.
In light of the content of the four treaties, it is clear that the Philippines holds no sovereignty over the Batan Islands and accordingly has no rights to its Exclusive Economic Zone.
In other words, Taipei, which is involved in a criminal argument and fisheries dispute with Manila, need not leave the Batan Islands blank out of courtesy for the so-called “temporary enforcement line” of 20o north latitude. Also, there is no issue about abolishing the enforcement line or not.
The question of who holds sovereignty over the Batan Islands should be decided by Taiwan, Japan and the US. The Batan question has nothing to do with the Philippines or China.
So, just dispatch the nation’s coast guard vessels there.
HoonTing is a commentator in Taipei.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS