HISTORY AND OVERVIEW WEST PHILIPPINE SEA DISPUTE

The South China Sea disputes involve both island and maritime claims among
several sovereign states within the region, namely Brunei, the People's Republic
of China (PRC), Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan), Malaysia, Indonesia,
the Philippines, and Vietnam. An estimated US$3,37 trillion worth of global
trade passes through the South China Sea annually, which accounts for a third of
the global maritime trade. 80 percent of China´s energy imports and 39.5 percent
of China´s total trade passes through the South China Sea.
The disputes include the islands, reefs, banks, and other features of the South
China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal,
and various boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. There are further disputes,
including the waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands, which many do not
regard as part of the South China Sea. Claimant states are interested in retaining
or acquiring the rights to fishing stocks, the exploration and potential exploitation
of crude oil and natural gas in the seabed of various parts of the South China
Sea, and the strategic control of important shipping lanes.

Disputes in the South China Sea Region

Summary of disputes

The disputes involve both maritime boundaries and islands.There are several
disputes, each of which involves a different collection of countries:

1. The nine-dash line area claimed by the Republic of China, later the

People's Republic of China (PRC), which covers most of the South China
Sea and overlaps with the exclusive economic zone claims of Brunei,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

2. Maritime boundary along the Vietnamese coast between the PRC, Taiwan,
and Vietnam.

3. Maritime boundary north of Borneo between the PRC, Malaysia, Brunei,

Philippines, and Taiwan.

4. Islands, reefs, banks and shoals in the South China Sea, including
the Paracel Islands, the Pratas Islands, Macclesfield Bank, Scarborough
Shoal and the Spratly Islands between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam,
and parts of the area also contested by Malaysia and the Philippines.
 5. Maritime boundary in the waters north of the Natuna Islands between the
PRC, Indonesia and Taiwan.

6. Maritime boundary off the coast of Palawan and Luzon between the PRC,

the Philippines, and Taiwan.

7. Maritime boundary, land territory, and the islands of Sabah,

including Ambalat, between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

8. Maritime boundary and islands in the Luzon Strait between the PRC, the

Philippines, and Taiwan.

During World War II, the Empire of Japan used the islands in the South China
Sea region for various military purposes and asserted that the islands were not
claimed by anyone when the Imperial Japanese Navy took control of
them. Historical accounts note that at least France had controlled some of the
features in the region during the 1930s.  After the war, Imperial Japan had to
relinquish control of the islands in the South China Sea in the 1951 Treaty of San
Francisco which, however, did not specify the new status of the islands.The
People´s Republic of China made various claims to the islands during the 1951
treaty negotiations and the 1958 First Taiwan Strait Crisis.

Upon Japan’s defeat in 1945, it was stripped of the area it had occupied in the
South China Sea.

On December 1947 when Chiang Kai Shek’s Kuomintang Government adopted

the nine-dashed lines claim, which they embodied in the “Location Map of the
South Sea Islands” two months later. It showed a map with 11 dashes forming a
U-shaped line covering almost the entire South China Sea.China did not explain
the meaning or basis of the 11 dashes. China did not also give the coordinates of
the 11 dashes. China claimed the islands enclosed by the 11 dashes, namely
Dongsha Islands (Pratas), Xisha Islands (Paracels), Zhongsha Island
(Macclesfield Bank), and Nansha Islands (Spratlys).

In 1950, China, under communist rule, announced the removal of two dashes in
the Gulf of Tonkin without any explanation. The Ushaped lines became known as
the 9-dashed lines.
The lines, somehow, reflects what China foresees as their own version of history.
Basically, the claims are really rooted in its understanding that the territorial
features of the South China Sea constitute territory over which China has
historically held sovereign jurisdiction – that is, “ancestral properties” passed
down from previous generations. In their position papers, China expresses that
“Chinese activities in the South China Sea date back over 2000 years ago” with
China being “the first country to discover, name, explore and exploit the
resources of the South China Sea islands and the first to continuously exercise
sovereign powers over them.” 

Nevertheless, China has not precisely articulated – in terms familiar to sea

lawyers or diplomats – what its nine-dash line means. That ambiguity leaves
plenty of room for possible over-interpretation, particularly when coupled with
some of the actions that China has taken in response to perceived incursions
within the area bounded by that line.

Area of dispute Brunei China Indonesia Malaysia Philippines Taiwan Vietnam

The nine-dash line ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Vietnamese coast ✔ ✔ ✔

Sea area north of

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔
Borneo

South China Sea islands ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

Sea area north of the

✔ ✔ ✔
Natuna Islands

Sea area west of

✔ ✔ ✔
Palawan and Luzon

Sabah area ✔ ✔ ✔

Luzon Strait ✔ ✔ ✔

The Geneva Accords of 1954, which ended the First Indochina War, gave South

Vietnam control of the Vietnamese territories south of the 17th Parallel, which
included the islands in the Paracels and Spratlys. Two years later the North
Vietnamese government claimed that the People´s Republic of China is the
lawful claimant of the islands, while South Vietnam took control of the Paracel
Islands.
The Paracel Islands, also known as Xisha in Chinese and Hoàng Sa in Vietnamese,
are a group of islands, reefs, banks and other maritime features in the South China Sea. They
are controlled and occupied by the People's Republic of China, and also claimed
by Taiwan (Republic of China) and Vietnam.

The archipelago includes about 130 small coral islands and reefs, most grouped
into the northeast Amphitrite Group or the western Crescent Group. The
archipelago includes Dragon Hole, the deepest underwater sinkhole in the world.
In 1974, when a North Vietnamese victory in the Vietnam War began to seem
probable, the PRC used military force in the Paracel Islands and took Yagong
Island and the Crescent group of reefs from South Vietnam. The government of
the PRC wanted to prevent the Paracel islands from falling under the control of
North Vietnam, which at the time was an ally of the Soviet Union. The PRC had
fought a brief border war with the Soviet Union in 1969 and did not want to have
a Soviet presence near its coast, which is why China resorted to "counterattack
in self-defense". The United States, in the middle of detente with the PRC, gave
a non-involvement promise to the PRC, which enabled the People´s Liberation
Army Navy to take control of the South Vietnamese islands.
Yagong Island (Chinese: 鸭 公 岛 ; pinyin: Yāgōng-dǎo) (Vietnamese: Đảo Ba Ba) is
an island in the Crescent Group (Yongle Qundao 永 乐 环 礁 ) of the Paracel Islands, in
the South China Sea. It is also known as "He Duck", (male duck), due to its shape. It is located
a few hundred metres SW of Observation Bank (Silver Islet, Yin Yu (银屿), Bãi Xà Cừ) in the NE
of the Crescent Group.

It is occupied by the PRC, and like all of the other Paracel islands, it is controlled
by China (PRC) and claimed by Taiwan (ROC) and Vietnam.

The Philippines entered the picture at roughly the same time as this. Tomas
Cloma, a Filipino lawyer, “discovered” the said island group. During the periods
of 1947 and 1950, fishing boats belonging to Tomas Cloma & Associates visited
the said group of islands with the original intention of putting up an ice plant and
cannery and to explore the guano deposits in the islands inhabited by birds.

In 1956, after another expedition on board PMI-IV, Atty. Cloma addressed a letter
to then Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Carlos P. Garcia, informing him that
about 20 Filipino citizens were undertaking survey and occupation work in the
South China Sea outside of Philippine waters and not within the jurisdiction of
any country, and that the territory being occupied was being claimed by him and
his associates as citizens of the Philippines, based on the rights of discovery
and/or occupation, “open, public and adverse as against the whole world.” He
named the claimed area “Free Territory of Freedomland.”

The Spratly Islands is a constellation of small islands and coral reefs, existing
just above or below water, that comprise the peaks of undersea mountains rising
from the deep ocean floor. Long known principally as a hazard to navigation and
identified on nautical charts as the “dangerous ground”, the Spratly Islands are
the site of longstanding territorial disputes among some of the littoral States of
the South China Sea.

By 1957, the Philippine government, through a letter from Vice President and
Secretary of Foreign Affairs Carlos P. Garcia addressed to Atty. Tomas Cloma
expressed a “willingness of the Philippine Government to extend diplomatic
protection to the fullest extent to Tomas Cloma” on the matter of Freedomland.”

But it took almost two decades before Cloma ceded, in favor of the Republic of
the Philippines, whatever rights his government had over Freedomland. Then,
through P.D. 1596 (11 June 1978), President Marcos created the Kalayaan
Island Group as a municipality of the Province of Palawan. But, Beijing already
assumed that the status of the islands was seemingly acknowledged as Chinese
territory through U.S. requests to the Taiwanese authorities for permission to
perform aerial surveys in the region between 1957 and 1961.

In 1988, PRC and Vietnam fought each other near the Johnson Reef. The PRC
had obtained a permit from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to
build five observation posts for the conduction of ocean surveys, and one of the
permitted observation posts was allowed to be located in the Spratly islands
region. The PRC chose to built its observation post on the Fiery Cross Reef,
which was isolated from the other islands in the region and was not occupied by
any state at the time. When it started to build the observation post in the terra
nullius Fiery Cross Reef, Vietnam sent its navy to the area to monitor the
situation.The two states clashed near the Johnson Reef, and after the clash,
China occupied the Johnson Reef.

Fiery Cross Reef, also known as "Northwest Investigator Reef", "Yongshu Reef" ( 永暑
礁) by the Chinese, "Kagitingan Reef" by the Filipinos, and "Đá Chữ Thập" by the Vietnamese.

The reef was named after the British tea clipper Fiery Cross, which was wrecked on the reef on
4 March 1860. (A later sister ship was also named Fiery Cross). The reef was surveyed by
Lieutenant J. W. Reed of HMS Rifleman, who in 1867 reported it to be one extensive reef, and
found the apparent wrecks of the Fiery Cross and the Meerschaum.

Johnson South Reef (Chinese: 赤瓜礁; pinyin: Chìguā Jiāo; Vietnamese: Đá Gạc Ma),

also known as Chigua Reef in China, Gạc Ma Reef in Vietnam and Mabini Reef in the
Philippines is a reef in the southwest portion of the Union Banks in the Spratly Islands of
the South China Sea.

In 1994, the PRC occupied Mischief Reef, located some 250 miles from the
Philippine coast. Occupation was made in the middle of an energy resources
race in the Spratlys, where China lacked a presence while the other countries
were starting their oil exploration businesses. Mischief Reef marked the first time
when the PRC had a military confrontation with the Philippines, which at that time
was an ally of the United States.

Mischief Reef (Chinese: 美 济 礁 ; pinyin: Měijì jiāo; literally: 'Meiji

[1]
Reef'; Tagalog: Panganiban reef;  Vietnamese: Đá Vành Khăn) is a reef/atollsurrounding a
large lagoon in the SE of Dangerous Ground in the east of the Spratly Islands in the South
China Sea. It is located 250 kilometres (130 nmi) west of Palawan Island of
the Philippines. Activities by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the mid-2010s have
created a large artificial island on the atoll which has included an approximately 2,700 metres
(8,900 ft) runway and associated airfield. The area is said to be rich in as yet unexplored oil and
gas fields.

In 2012, the PRC took the Scarborough Shoal as a response to the Philippine

navy´s actions of stopping Chinese fishing boats in the area.

Scarborough Shoal, also known as Huangyan Dao (Filipino: Kulumpol ng

Panatag), Bajo de Masinloc (Spanish), and Democracy Reef are two rocks in a shoal located
between the Macclesfield Bank and Luzon island in the West Philippine Sea.

It is a disputed territory claimed by the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China

(Taiwan) and the Philippines. The shoal's status is often discussed in conjunction with
other territorial disputes in the South China Sea such as those involving the Spratly Islands,
and the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff. It formerly was administered by the Philippines,
however, due to the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff, where China sent warships to invade
the shoal, the administration of the shoal was taken by the People's Republic of China