Thayer Consultancy Background Brief:

ABN # 65 648 097 123

China’s New South China Sea
10-Dash Line
September 3, 2023

We are writing an urgent report explaining the significance of China's newly released
standard map, which appears to show a 10-dash line to demarcate its South China Sea
claims. Previously the map had nine dashes. Several countries have opposed it.
Q1. What do you make of the change or changes in China's new map?
ANSWER: The so-called standard map issued by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources
on 28 August did not make any new claims to the South China Sea so much as
reiterating China’s long-standing claim to sovereignty based on historic rights over a
large portion of the South China Sea.
China’s first officially tabled its nine-dash line map at the United Nations Commission
on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in May 2009. In 2016, the Arbitral Tribunal that
heard the Philippines claims against China issued as Award:
DECLARES that, as between the Philippines and China, China's claims to historic rights,
or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction, with respect to the maritime areas of the
South China Sea encompassed by the relevant part of the 'nine-dash line' are contrary
to the Convention [UNCLOS] and without lawful effect to the extent that they exceed
the geographic and substantive limits of China's maritime entitlements under the
Convention; and further DECLARES that the Convention superseded any historic rights,
or other sovereign rights or jurisdiction, in excess of the limits imposed therein
[emphasis added].
In 2013, China issued a map of the South China Sea that added a tenth dash including
Taiwan.
Since the 2016 Arbitral Tribunal ruling, China has downplayed the nine-dash line and
emphasized instead its sovereignty claims to the four shas (groups of maritime
features in the South China Sea) – Pratas, Macclesfield Bank, Paracel Islands and
Spratly Islands. In other words, China has drawn illegal straight baselines around these
dispersed features to create four arbitrary units. On this basis, China claims
sovereignty over all the land features (rocks and low tide elevations) and internal
waters enclosed by the baselines.
The map issued by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources depicts a much broader
geographic scope of territorial claims than the 2009 and 2013 maps. For example,
Arunachal Pradesh and Doklam Plateau along the southern border with India and
 2

Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin in the west claimed by India are depicted as part of
territorial China.
China’s map also includes Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island at the confluence of the Amur and
Ussuri rivers as part of Chinese territory. Two decades ago China and Russia agreed to
split control over the island; this depiction represents an extension of China’s
territorial claims.
The significance of the Ministry of Natural Resources’ map, according to former
Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio of the Philippines, is that the dashes on the map
represent an international border in the South China Sea.
The timing of the map’s publication has led some regional analysts to conclude that it
was part of an orchestrated snub by President Xi Jinping of India’s Prime Minister
Narendra Modi who is hosting the Group of 20 Summit in New Delhi. This is unlikely,
as Xi and Modi met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in South Africa in late August
and agreed to intensify efforts to diffuse tensions.
In 2003, the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee and Central Military
Commission formally adopted the doctrine of “three warfares” (san zhong zhanfa
comprising these components: psychological warfare, media warfare, and legal
warfare. Legal warfare is a strategy to use China’s domestic and international law to
claim the legal high ground to assert Chinese interests. This doctrine is an essential
element of information warfare.
Viewed in this context, the release of the map by China’s Ministry of Natural Resources
is the product of an annual bureaucratic process that feeds into China’s information
warfare strategy. It other words, it does not herald a new political-diplomatic
offensive in the South China Sea.
Q2. How do you think will this affect China’s operations in the South China Sea and/or
Taiwan?
ANSWER: The map’s publication has stirred up a chorus of diplomatic protests by
Southeast Asian claimant states – the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam –
rejecting the legal basis of the map. Their diplomatic protests were necessary lest they
be accused of acquiescing to China’s claims by remaining silent.
It is very likely the claimant states will raise this issue at the forthcoming Annual
Meeting of Foreign Ministers and the 43rd ASEAN Summit to be hosted in Jakarta by
Indonesia as ASEAN Chair. It remains to be seen if this will lead to any stronger wording
in the statements issued after these meetings.
If the above assessment is accurate that the map’s publication does not herald a new
phase of Chinese intimidation and coercion, it will be business as usual between China
and ASEAN claimant states in the South China Sea.
China’s Coast Guard, maritime militia and fishing fleets will continue to execute grey
zone operations to assert China’s sovereignty claims. China will respond to prevent
hydrocarbon exploration and production by foreign companies.
 3

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, “China’s New South China Sea 10-Dash Line,”
Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, September 3, 2023. All background briefs are
posted on Scribd.com (search for Thayer). To remove yourself from the mailing list
type, UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject heading and hit the Reply key.
Thayer Consultancy provides political analysis of current regional security issues and
other research support to selected clients. Thayer Consultancy was officially
registered as a small business in Australia in 2002.