China's SCS Strategy Thread

[plawolf]

The nine dashed line is a deliberate misinterpretation of facts and history by the west and is a lot like phrases like 'running dog', where a deliberately meaningless literal translation is used to mock and take things out of context.

People are right, the nine dashed line is audacious, even imperial and that is because it IS an imperial creation, dating back at least to the Qing dynasty if not earlier.

Trying to apply modern international law or conventions to its creation or asking Beijing to 'explain' it is plainly disingenuous and unconstructive.

It would be like asking the British to explain why half the boarders in the Middle East and Africa are straight lines or asking the Israelis to present a legal case for their right to own what is now Israel and their claims to the rest of the Holy Land.

The PRC did not draw the nine dashed lines, it inherited them from the ROC before them, who in turn inherited it from the Qing dynasty before them and so on. It is an important part of the historical claim that forms the basis of China's claim to islands in the SCS.

All of this information is freely available, anyone with half a brain and basic researching skills could easily find all of this out and more in an afternoon. The issue is the vast majority if people do not have entire afternoons free to research things they usually don't care all that much about, which is why they expect, and rely on media organisations to do basic research and fact finding when they run stories.

The fact that such basic things are not being done on a long running issue that seems to have perplexed western media for quite a number of years now speaks volumes about just how much such organisations care about finding out the truth over propagating the party line.

 

[JayBird]

Then both sides get what they want; China secures her historical SCS claims, and the US enforce freedom of navigation. Everyone's happy but Philippines, Vietnam, and Greenpeace.

It was never about freedom of navigation, that's just a phrase other countries throw them around like the word democracy
whenever they need the moral high ground on issues.

 

[solarz]

The nine dashed line is a deliberate misinterpretation of facts and history by the west and is a lot like phrases like 'running dog', where a deliberately meaningless literal translation is used to mock and take things out of context.

Deliberate is the right word, but I would use "distortion" instead of misinterpretation. Every single piece of official Chinese publication on the issue of SCS always, always, makes mention of the South China Sea islands (南海群岛). So when there are still journalists who write that China lays claim to the South China Sea, I can only conclude that this is a deliberate misrepresentation of facts for propaganda purposes.

Now, Jeff is right. The purpose of China's claims, the same as all other nations' claims, is to exploit the resources in the SCS. The reason the islands are important is because of UNCLOS and the definition of EEZs. If, hypothetically, countries could claim stretches of oceans without bothering with islands, then many of those islands would lose their importance.

That said, China is not averse to negotiating with the other claimants. After all, China has resolved almost all of its land border disputes (and China has a lot of land neighbors!). However, any negotiation must be conducted in good faith, otherwise it would just be a waste of time.

Unfortunately, the truth is, countries like Philippines and Vietnam are not so much interested in settling the SCS dispute as in using this dispute to shore up domestic support.

 

[weig2000]

US should periodically send a good portion of the 7th Fleet into the 9-dash bull crap, roam all over the place, and conduct exercises with allies. China having any ideas of 9-dash line being 'blue national soil' must be strangled in the crib.

The USN has been roaming and conducting exercises in SCS - indeed inside the nine dash line - all the times. Have you ever heard any protests from China? The Chinese government has always said there is no issue/threat to the so-called "freedom of navigation" in SCS, which is an excuse/distortion to bash China to begin with.

 

[Blackstone]

Right now I dare say freedom of navigation is not under threat in the SCS. Why would the US waste her resources sending in ships?

If it's really under serious threat I can understand that.

China's neighbors are nervous of her intentions and how she'll use her power, so they look to the US for security.

Furthermore, why would China harm freedom of navigation in the SCS? It's as important a sea route to us as it is to any other nations.

That makes sense from China's perspective, but it clearly hasn't mollified her neighbors, so having strong US presence in Asia actually benefits everyone involved, including the Middle Kingdom.

It's just a few uninhabited islands, some oil rigs here and there, some ramming up and clashing between a few small boats. Can't really see what motive there is for the US to get so actively involved..

Ah yes, Pax Sinica- the Chinese Peace; a piece of this and a piece of that. That's what everyone is concerned about!

 

[Blackstone]

This is a common misconception. As far as I know, the dotted line represents the Chinese claim to all the islands inside the line, not the waters themselves. This is because there are so many tiny islands in the SCS that it's more convenient for mapmakers to draw the dotted line. Here's another map with dotted lines used to claim the hundreds of little Pacific islands within (you can even see China's dotted line on the far left).

By including the hated 9-dash line in its new national maps, China intentionally sew ambiguity to her territorial claims in the South China Sea. Look at other island nations and how they draw their maps, and then look at the "Cow Tongue," and ask what is China's end game. Her neighbors' gut feeling is Sinic grab for "blue national soil."

China is a signatory to the 1982 Law of the Sea which said territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from land. Territorial waters would be little 12 nm radii circles around all the islands.

If anyone can find a quotation or Chinese government or academic source that says otherwise I would love to read it. I'm always in the market for new information.

China could put all of it to rest by drawing her national maps like every other country in the world.

 

[Geographer]

plawolf, I understand that the nine-dashed-line claim predates the PRC. Its original definition may be in some document locked away in the state archives of Taipei or Beijing, or it may be lost to history. But are you content to leave it as a mysterious artifact on the national map? Your comparison with straight national borders in the Middle East isn't valid because whatever the unknown origins of those lines, their modern interpretation is explicit and unambiguous. They are the dividing line between states. Everyone accepts that so there is no dispute over what the lines mean. But you're saying not only are the origins of the nine-dashed-line unknown but the modern interpretation is also unknown! So are you saying China is drawing lines on its own map that it doesn't know what they mean?

I think the nine-dashed-line means China claims all the islands inside the line, not the water. The only water it claims is 12 nm from those islands per the 1982 Law of the Sea. This is the most logical claim based on Chinese actions and statements. While China has long been concerned with fishing and petroleum prospecting the SCS, that could be explained by trying to enforce one of the claim islands' EEZ. Otherwise China does not protest when foreign navies sail around the SCS as one would expect China to do if they considered it "blue national soil" as Blackstone calls it. One piece of evidence against my theory is how China has claimed underwater features by dropping plagues on the James Shoal 100 kilometers from Malaysia and 22 meters underwater. There is some interesting history here are described by Bill Hayton in the

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in 2013:

How did the Chinese state come to regard this obscure feature, so far from home, as its southernmost point? I've been researching the question for some time while writing a book on the South China Sea. The most likely answer seems to be that it was probably the result of a translation error.

In the 1930s, China was engulfed in waves of nationalist anxiety. The predation of the Western powers and imperial Japan, and the inability of the Republic of China to do anything meaningful to stop them, caused anger both in the streets and the corridors of power. In 1933, the republic created the "Inspection Committee for Land and Water Maps" to formally list, describe and map every part of Chinese territory. It was an attempt to assert sovereignty over the republic's vast territory.

The major problem facing the committee, at least in the South China Sea, was that it had no means of actually surveying any of the features it wanted to claim. Instead, the committee simply copied the existing British charts and changed the names of the islands to make them sound Chinese....

But how to translate "shoal"? It's a nautical word meaning an area of shallow sea where waves "shoal" up. Sailors would see a strange area of choppy water in the middle of the ocean and know the area was shallow and therefore dangerous. James Shoal is one of many similar features in the Spratlys.

But the committee didn't seem to understand this obscure English term because they translated "shoal" as " tan" - the Chinese word for beach or sandbank - a feature which is usually above water. The committee, never having visited the area, seems to have declared James Shoal/Zengmu Tan to be a piece of land and therefore a piece of China.

I agree with other posters that even if the PRC's interpretation of the nine-dotted-line is to only claim the islands and not the waters as national territory, it is ambiguous and poorly explained. China could settle the ambiguity with a single press release saying the same thing I wrote.

Does anyone know Taiwan/ROC's modern explanation of the nine-dotted-line?

 

[solarz]

I agree with other posters that even if the PRC's interpretation of the nine-dotted-line is to only claim the islands and not the waters as national territory, it is ambiguous and poorly explained. China could settle the ambiguity with a single press release saying the same thing I wrote.

They have:

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[Blackstone]

They have:

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Is there a statement from an official organ of the government, such as the Foreign Ministry?

 

[Geographer]

Can you provide the section that mentions it and an English translation? Google's translation showed the following seems to be most relevant to this issue but the translation is so rough that I can't be sure. According to Google Translate:

But we are not exclusive to the South China Sea, South China Sea from 1947 to the present plan, has been open waters, vessels of each country can go in our country and do not be blocking it, or it is taxed or how kind.

And...

There is a perception that it considers to be said that maritime boundaries lines, that we put this one as part of the territory under the jurisdiction of our sea. That should say it crossed the beginning, there is a taste of the sea frontier line, because we have just talked about, the government of the Republic at the time of our territory as far south as 4 degrees north latitude, the James Shoal planning to go, but in fact it lines in operation for over half a century, there is no line to look at as a territory.

Because the so-called territory, is synonymous with the territory, it is impossible to be just out of the territory of a foreign ship, so that it is not a frontier line. Another point, from some marine regulations and laws of our country is always issued when there is no line to see it as a territory, territorial waters, like in 1958 we published a statement when we say, and our country in the South China Sea islands and Taiwan these Penghu Island, between the mainland across the high seas with, across the high seas, the words obviously, you do not take it as a territory, territory, territory if it is so, how can you be across the high seas in the middle of it, who is on the high seas can be advanced.

And...

alk about the waters surrounding the South China Sea islands is saying, we do not talk about the whole sea Kudan line, saying that the waters around the islands in the South China Sea near what does that mean? That after delimitation with neighboring countries, when, under the "United Nations Convention", if it is the island, it plans 200 sea miles exclusive economic zone, and if the reef, the 12-mile territorial sea plan with 12 nautical miles contiguous zone, the after the delimitation to be considered later, our country also insisted this view.

These sections seem to talk about the issue of what the lines mean but the translation is not clear.