Exhibit 1: ‘World Atlas’ from the US ambassador to China (name redacted by author). Photo: Handout
Taiping island, in the South China Sea. The island is controlled by Taiwan. Photo: AP
I am lucky enough to count a number of former American ambassadors to China as friends, some of whom I have known for decades. Several years back, one gave me an exquisite Christmas gift – a pocket-sized World Atlas with a black leather cover, gilded with the emblem of the United States in the centre and the ambassador’s name and title in beautiful italic calligraphy at the bottom (Exhibit 1). Inside the cover is the ambassador’s handwriting:
“To my old and dear friend Weijian and family, with warm best wishes for a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year!”
He signed his nickname, as he is known to friends.
I only realised the significance of this atlas in 2020, when on July 14 of that year, Mike Pompeo, then US Secretary of State, announced that most of China’s sovereign claims in the South China Sea were “unlawful”, thereby reversing a long-standing US position of neutrality on competing claims in the region.
My World Atlas from the US ambassador is physical evidence of how until recently, the US had not disputed or objected to China’s claims. It includes a map of the South China Sea, showing clearly the “nine-dash line” which delineates China’s sovereign claim (Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2: page 25 of ‘World Atlas’: South Sea Islands. Photo: Handout
If Washington had objected to this line, the US embassy in Beijing would not have procured and custom-encased this atlas for the ambassador to give out as a gift.
The US knows better. After World War II, China’s Nationalist government, under Chiang Kai-shek, used US supplied warships to recover several major islands in the South China Sea from Japan. Some of these islands were subsequently named after these warships – for example, Taiping, the largest of the Nansha Islands (known in the West as the Spratly Islands), which since Chiang’s government fled to Taiwan following the Chinese Civil War has been controlled by Taipei.
Indeed, Taiwan, which mainland China considers a breakaway province, has more extensive claims in the South China Sea than Beijing: whereas Beijing’s sovereign claim is defined by the nine-dash line, Taipei’s is defined by an eleven-dash line.
Why the difference? In 1953, Beijing removed two dashes that had run through the Gulf of Tonkin between Vietnam and China’s Hainan Island, because it regarded Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnam as “comrade brethren”. Then, in March 1957, Mao Zedong gifted Ho with “Nightingale Island” after the North Vietnamese leader had asked to borrow it to build a radar station to monitor foreign warplanes. Needless to say, Ho was overjoyed and promptly renamed it Bạch Long Vĩ (“White Dragon Tail”) island.
Aside from these differences, mainland China’s claims to the South China Sea completely overlap with those of Taiwan, as they share their origin. And because Beijing considers Taiwan part of China, it does not challenge Taipei’s territorial claims. Neither does Taipei challenge Beijing’s.
In fact, all the territorial claims of both Taiwan (relating to the Nationalist government founded in 1911) and of mainland China (relating to the People’s Republic of China government founded by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949) predate the founding of either government. In the South China Sea, records show these islands were already claimed as part of China on the official maps of the Qing dynasty in 1724, 1755, 1767, 1810 and 1817.
In 1934 and 1935, the Nationalist government published two documents, “Map of South Sea Islands” (Exhibit 3) and “A Table Comparing Chinese and English Names of China South Sea Islands” which further codified this claim.
Exhibit
3: a map of China’s South Sea Islands, by the Nationalist government’s
Review and Inspection Commission on Waters and Roads, published in April
1935. Photo: Handout
On October 4, 1946, having reclaimed sovereignty over territories Japan had captured during World War II, the Nationalist government in Nanking published “The General Location of South Sea Islands in the Territory of the Republic of China” that for the first time used an eight-dash U-shaped line (Exhibit 4). A year later, on December 1, 1947, it again released a “Map of South Sea Islands” (Exhibit 5) that marked the boundaries of China’s sovereign claims with the eleven-dash line. (While the number of dashes shifted over time, the area encircled on each map is largely the same.)
Exhibit 4: a map of China’s South Sea islands dated October 12, 1946. Note the eight-dash U-shaped line. Photo: Handout
Exhibit 5: map of China’s South Sea islands dated February 25, 1947. Note the 11-dash U-shaped line. Photo: Handout
A more recent government position paper states that the South China Sea islands “were first discovered, named, and used by the ancient Chinese, and incorporated into national territory and administered by imperial Chinese governments. Whether from the perspective of history, geography, or international law, the South China Sea islands and their surrounding waters are an inherent part of [our] territory and waters.”
It further notes: “After the end of World War II, [our] government, with support from other Allied nations, stationed forces on the South China Sea islands in 1946. Its exercise of jurisdiction through continued administration, management, and development of the islands strengthened its sovereign claim under international law.”
You might think this position paper was issued by Beijing. It was not. It was actually issued by Taiwan as recently as March 21, 2016. But, of course, it could have been issued by Beijing whose position is identical with Taipei’s. The US, incidentally, has never challenged Taiwan’s sovereign claims in the South China Sea.
There is no evidence that Beijing seeks to expand its territorial claims beyond historical ones. Mainland China has given up some territorial claims to resolve border disputes, having settled boundaries with 13 of its 14 land neighbours. But Taiwan has not. Until 2002, Taiwan refused to recognise the independence of Mongolia, which broke off from China in 1946.
Taiwan’s position paper further notes: “An absence of protest [in 1946] from countries in the region … and their tacit recognition of ROC [Republic of China] sovereignty over the islands further bolstered the ROC’s claim.”
Why did other claimants not object to the claim of sovereignty at that time? Because all of them were still the colonies of foreign powers, none of which – including the US, Britain and France – raised any objection. (Although France would occasionally tussle over some islands when China was at war).
These other countries’ claims to the islands of the South China Sea rest on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), which came into effect on November 16, 1994. Unclos generally considers a country’s coastal waters to include the “continental shelf”, where the ocean is no deeper than 200 metres, and “exclusive economic zones” of up to 200 nautical miles from the shore.
China joined Unclos with the explicit condition that its sovereignty not be infringed or violated, as did many other countries. The US often refers to Unclos when criticising China’s claims, but the US itself has never ratified the convention, arguing that it is unfavourable to American economic and security interests – which puts its position on rather shaky grounds.
The problem with the Unclos definition of coastal waters is that all the neighbouring countries have overlapping claims with each other. Vietnam’s claims overlap those of the Philippines, Brunei, and Malaysia, as well as those of China, because the “exclusive economic zones” and “continental shelves” of all these countries intersect (Exhibit 6).
Exhibit
6: overlapping claims. “Chinese claim” refers to the claims by both
Beijing and Taipei which are largely identical except the two lines
through the Gulf of Tonkin. Photo: Handout
The reality on the ground is that each of the claimants controls at least a few of the disputed islands and reefs. By various accounts, of the islands and reefs that make up the Nansha (Spratly) Islands alone, Vietnam controls approximately 30; mainland China 16; Taiwan three; the Philippines 13; Malaysia 17; and Brunei one.
It is important to note that mainland China does not consider all the waters within the nine-dash line to be its sovereign waters. All the maps it has ever published are labelled as maps of South Sea islands. Hence, it does not object to freedom of navigation and overflights in well-established international passageways through the South China Sea.
The South China Sea is a vitally important sea route. Sixty four per cent of China’s maritime trade, which represents 40 per cent of China’s total trade (about US$2 trillion worth per year and rising), passes through the area, as well as all its energy imports from the Middle East. If the seas are blocked for whatever reason, the Chinese economy would be paralysed.
Indeed, all of the countries that border this disputed area rely on it for a great share of their prosperity. All of them, China included, need freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. Peace and stability is in the best interest of all. While territorial disputes are likely to be permanent, maintaining the status quo, formulating a code of conduct, shelving disputes and jointly developing the resources are the best and only option to all.
Weijian Shan is the author of Out of the Gobi (2019) and Money Games (2020)