Chapter One: Mapping the history

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Notes

Amboyna Cay is the English name for a Vietnamese-occupied Spratly Island, known in Tagalog as Lagos, in Chinese as Anbo Shazhou, in Vietnamese as Ðào An Bang and in Malay as Pulau Amboyna Kecil.

For a description of which maritime features qualify for EEZs, see: UNCLOS, Article 121.

Hugo Grotius's Mare Liberum, published in 1609, clearly outlined the principle that the oceans were international territory and free to be used by all nations for seaborne trade. This could be seen as a reaction to the Iberian principles of monopolistic trade with the then burgeoning Portuguese and Spanish empires, which greatly hindered Dutch merchants. Van Bijnkershoek added practicality to Grotius's principles, by declaring that ‘terrae potestas finitur ubi finitur armorum vis’ [territory ends where the force of arms ends]. This, generally, although not universally, came to be accepted as three miles, the maximum range of the most advanced early eighteenthcentury cannon.

According to UNCLOS, the waters of the EEZ are subject to the same articles and principles of freedom of navigation as the high seas. This means there are no restrictions on overflight and navigation, but they are reserved for peaceful purposes. This latter point (enshrined in Article 88) has, in addition to Article 58 that mentions the ‘due regard’ to be accorded to the regulations of the coastal state, led to a disagreement in the interpretation of the text, with China in particular suggesting that military surveillance is not peaceful and therefore violates this article.

Ji Guoxing, Maritime Jurisdiction in the Three China Seas: Options for Equitable Settlement (San Diego, CA: University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, 1995), p. 14. Sources vary on the number of features in the Spratlys. The highest approximation suggests 148 named features in the Spratlys, and around 400 features in total (many of which are entirely submerged). Hancox and Prescott have 125 separate named features. David Hancox and Victor Prescott, ‘A Geographic Description of the Spratly Islands and an Account of Hyrdrographic Surveys Amongst those Islands’, IBRU Maritime Briefings, vol. 1, no. 6, 1995.

The eight Malaysian-occupied features are Amboyna Cay, Ardasier Reef, Barque Canada Reef, Commodore Reef, Dallas Reef, Erica Reef, Investigator Reef, Louisa Reef, Mariveles Reef, Royal Charlotte Reef and Swallow Reef.

For a fuller explanation of current claims and the 2009 CLCS submissions, see: Robert Beckman and Tara Davenport, ‘CLCS Submissions and Claims in the South China Sea’, Second International Workshop on The South China Sea: Cooperation for Regional Security and Development, Ho Chi Minh City, 10–12 November 2010.

Although various sources claim Vietnam also occupied a further feature, Grierson Reef, satellite imagery does not suggest any permanent occupation.

‘Philippines Grapples with Territorial Defense in Disputed Spratlys’, Kyodo News, 17 June 2012.

‘Water Quality of Spratly Islands' Ban Than Reef Measured for the First Time’, Environmental Policy Monthly, vol. 13, no. 11, http://www.epa.gov.tw/FileLink/FileHandler.ashx?file=14523.

Note of China No. CLM/172009.

Republic Act No. 387, ‘An Act to Amend Certain Provisions of Republic Act No. 3046’. As Amended by Republic Act 5446, to ‘Define the Archipelagic Baselines of the Philippines, and for Other Purposes’, 10 March 2009.

The closest rival occupations are currently held by the Philippines (on Northeast Cay) and Vietnam (on Southwest Cay) in the North Danger Reef area of the Spratly Islands.

See, for example: ‘The Hoang Sa and Truong Sa Archipelagoes Vietnamese Territories’, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 1981; and ‘China's Indisputable Sovereignty over the Xisha and Nansha Islands’, Documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, 30 January 1980.

The authors have omitted a possible discussion around the claim made by the Meads family, based on the purported ‘discovery’ of the Spratly Islands by Captain James George Meads, a British citizen and master of the Modeste. Related claims to the related Republic of Morac-Songhrati-Meads and the Kingdom of Humanity appear now to be moribund given the death of all remaining claimant individuals in a shipwreck in 1972 (ironically, in the South China Sea).

A six-year bureaucratic battle ensued, as Ho attempted to gain permission for this.

Marwyn S. Samuels, Contest for the South China Sea (New York/London: Methuen & Co, 1982), pp. 55–60 (quotation on p. 57).

Jinming Li and Dexia Li, ‘The Dotted Line on the Chinese Map of the South China Sea: A Note’, Ocean Development and International Law, vol. 34, no. 3, 2003, pp. 281–95.

Stein Tonneson, ‘The South China Sea in the Age of European Decline’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 40, no. 1, February 2006, p. 5.

Overviews of European and Chinese sovereignty claims in the South China Sea came from: Tonneson, ‘The South China Sea in the Age of European Decline’, pp. 1-57; and Samuels, Contest for the South China Sea, chapter 4.

Dieter Heinzig, Disputed Islands in the South China Sea (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976), p. 29.

Tonneson, ‘The South China Sea in the Age of European Decline’, pp. 22–4.

Although France continued to hold some interests in the islands, with the First Indochina War beginning in earnest in late 1946, its concerns were soon directed elsewhere. That said, they did manage to occupy Pattle Island, laying the foundation for the peculiar situation that remained for much of the next 30 years whereby Chinese forces occupied the northeast Amphitrite group of the Paracels, while French/Vietnamese forces occupied the southwestern Crescent group of the Paracels.

M. Taylor Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 278.

This translates as: ‘New Map Showing the Territorial Water and Continental Shelf Boundaries of Malaysia’. For a detailed exposition of Malaysia's claim and occupations, see: Asri Salleh, Che Hamdan Che Mohd Razali and Kamaruzaman Jusoff, ‘Malaysia's Policy Towards its 1963–2008 Territorial Disputes’, Journal of Law and Conflict Resolution, vol. 1, no. 5, October 2009, pp. 107–16.

Southeast Asia's first offshore well was drilled in 1957. In 1969, a report by the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East suggested there was petroleum in the seas bordering China. See: Daniel J. Dzurek, ‘The Spratly Islands Dispute: Who's On First?’, IBRU Maritime Briefing, vol. 2, no. 1, 1996, p. 113.

Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation, pp. 280–83.

Reliable statistics on the number of casualties are difficult to verify. China lost 18 sailors, and a Vietnamese White Paper from 1975 claimed 18 South Vietnamese personnel died and 43 were wounded (Vietnamese White Paper on the Hoang Sa and Truong Sa Islands, Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1975). However, it is likely that more Vietnamese sailors died: Fravel mentions that 165 Vietnamese sailors were missing (Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation, p. 272), and subsequent unofficial online Vietnamese-language sources have claimed 74 died, even providing names of the dead listed along with their vessel or unit (see, for instance, a report by the advocacy group Nguyen Thai Hoc Foundation: http://nguyenthaihocfoundation.org/lichsuVN/danhsach_74_tusi_hoangsa.htm). Beijing also captured 48 people (all of whom were released within three weeks).

The features occupied were Spratly Island, Sin Cowe Island, Sand Cay, Namyit Island and Southwest Cay. Vietnam managed to take the Philippine-occupied Southwest Cay without bloodshed by sending its operation in while the Philippine personnel were on the nearby Northeast Cay for the commander's birthday party. There is some confusion over when Vietnam occupied Amboyna Cay. Salleh, Razali and Jusoff (2009) claim that it was occupied twice in 1956 and returned in 1973, but in the same paper also cite its year of occupation as 1975.

Mark J. Valencia, Jon M. Van Dyke and Noel A. Ludwig, Sharing the Resources of the South China Sea (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), pp. 34–5.

See Salleh, Razali and Jusoff, ‘Malaysia's Policy Towards its 1963–2008 Territorial Disputes’, p. 113.

Cuarteron Reef, Fiery Cross Reef, Gaven Reef, Hughes Reef, Johnson South Reef and Subi Reef. It should be noted that Vietnam was to occupy Collins Reef (also known as Johnson North Reef) just 3km away from Johnson South Reef.

Namely Alexandra Bank, Alison Reef, Barque Canada Reef, Collins Reef (Johnson North Reef), Cornwallis South Reef, Great Discovery Reef, East London Reef, Grainger Reef, Ladd Reef, Landsdowne Reef, Pearson Reef, Petley Reef, Pigeon Reef, Prince Consort Bank, Prince of Wales Bank, Rifleman Bank (a lighthouse at Bombay Castle, at the northern end of Rifleman Bank, was built in the early 1980s), Sin Cowe East Island, Vanguard Bank and West London Reef.

DJ Sta, ‘China Builds more Spratly Outposts’, The Philippine Star, 24 May 2011, http://www.philstar.com/headlines/688856/china-builds-more-spratly-outposts.

Ronald A. Rodriguez, ‘Conduct Unbecoming in the South China Sea?’, PacNet Number 22A, Pacific Forum CSIS, 21 May 2004, http://csis.org/files/media/csis/pubs/pac0422a.pdf.

ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea, Manila, 22 July 1992.

While the joint submission by Vietnam and Malaysia and Vietnam's own unilateral submission did not mention the South China Sea islands per se, they laid claim to 200nm EEZs and continental shelf claims that extended to an equidistant line between Vietnam and Malaysia in the south and Vietnam and China in the north. This in turn instigated a series of notes and counter-notes from various states, including from China, Indonesia and the Philippines. Vietnam then responded with its own counternote that affirmed its sovereignty over the Paracel and Spratly Islands.

That is, a civilian-crewed US Navy auxiliary vessel.

Marciel noted that ‘starting in the summer of 2007, China told a number of US and foreign oil and gas firms to stop exploration work with Vietnamese partners in the South China Sea or face unspecified consequences in their business dealings with China’. Testimony of Deputy Assistant Secretary Scot Marciel, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs Committee on Foreign Relations, 15 July 2009, p. 4, accessed in January 2013 at http://vietnam.usembassy.gov/uploads/images/3VC0_Hwh5_paP5TLrjbLNg/MarcielTestimony090715p.pdf.

For a full list of the objections, see: Fravel, ‘China's Strategy in the South China Sea’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, vol. 33, no. 3, December 2011, p. 302.

Greg Torode, ‘Beijing Pressure Intense in South China Sea Row’, South China Morning Post, 23 September 2011, http://www.scmp.com/article/979876/beijingpressure-intense-south-china-searow.

For a brief description of these incidents, see: Carlyle A. Thayer, ‘Chinese Assertiveness in the South China Sea and Southeast Asian Responses’, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, vol. 30, no. 2, 2011, pp. 77–104.

Senate Resolution 217. For full text, see: http://webb.senate.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/06-27-2011.cfm?renderforprint=1.