The South China Sea (11 page)

On the day of the announcement, the Chinese consul in Manila, Mr Kwong, asked the American colonial authorities in the Philippines for a map of the islands. It's clear from contemporary reports carried by the influential Shanghai newspaper
Shen Bao
(formerly transliterated as
Shun Pao
) that the Chinese government was unable to work out which islands had been annexed or where they were located. On 28 July, the newspaper reported that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had asked the government to send a ship to investigate what was going on. Two days later, the paper's Paris reporter informed readers that the islands were uninhabited coral reefs and different from the Paracels. Nonetheless arguments about the islands’ location raged in the paper for several weeks. It seems the Chinese government believed the French had changed the names of the islands just to confuse the situation. It had to turn to foreign governments for advice. On 1 August the Americans in Manila gave Mr Kwong a map. He was reportedly surprised to learn that the Paracels and Spratlys were in fact different places.
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It wasn't until 15 August that the map reached the government in Nanjing. The Chinese government continued to dither even as protests continued on the streets.

Instead, Japan became the first country to protest against the French move, on 21 August, arguing that a Japanese company, Rasa Industries, had been mining yet more guano in the islands until very recently. However, it turned out that they too were confused: Rasa had been active on Pattle Island in the Paracels.
Shen Bao
continued to report disarray among the authorities for many weeks. Despite all the bluster and outrage, the Chinese government never actually formally protested against the French move.
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The reason seems to be that, at this stage, the Chinese government regarded the Paracels as its southernmost territory and not the Spratlys. A once-secret report for its Military Council, from 1 September 1933, seems to confirm this:

Unable to exert any physical leverage, the Chinese government turned instead to its map-makers. On 7 June 1933, just as rumours of the French occupation of the Spratlys began to circulate, it established the Review Committee for Land and Water Maps. While the committee deliberated, another cartographer, Chen Duo, published his
Newly-Made Chinese Atlas
in which the Chinese sea border stretched down to 7° N – firmly including those Spratly Islands which France had just claimed.
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This may have influenced the committee because, after a year and a half of study, it finally responded to Paris’ provocations. Instead of a 21-gun salute, the committee deployed a list. The first volume of its journal, published in January 1935, included Chinese names for the 132 islands and islets in the South China Sea that the committee believed rightfully belonged to China. Of these, 28 were in the Paracels and 96 in the Spratlys. The list was not a collection of traditional Chinese names for the features but transliterations and translations of the Western names printed on navigation charts. In the Spratly Islands, for example, North Danger became Be˘i xiăn (the Chinese for ‘north danger’), and Spratly Island became Si-ba-la-tuo (the Chinese transliteration of the English name) and in the Paracels, Antelope Reef became Líng yang (the Chinese word for antelope). Another island in the Paracels (the westernmost outcrop of the Amphitrite group), was called ‘West Sand’ in English and it seems likely that this name was given to the entire Paracels which became Xisha (‘west sand’ in Chinese). The Macclesfield Bank, in the centre of the sea, was named Nansha (‘southern sand’) and the Spratlys named Tuansha (‘chaotic sand’).
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It's significant, of course, that at this juncture the Macclesfield Bank was regarded as ‘southern’.

It's clear that in many cases the committee simply translated the names of the features on the British maps into Chinese, including many of the existing errors and adding some of their own. James Shoal seems to be a case in point. The committee gave it the Chinese name of Zengmu (the transliteration of James) Tan. But
tan
is the Chinese word for a beach or sandbank – something that sticks out of the water. In English nautical terminology, however,
a shoal is an underwater feature – a raised area of seabed (the word is derived from an Old English word for ‘shallow’). James Shoal is in fact 22 metres below the surface. But because of the committee's unfamiliarity with the area they declared it to be a land feature. Thus it would seem that China's claim in the South China Sea is, to some extent, based on a translation error. What's now described as the ‘southernmost point of Chinese territory’ doesn't exist – any more than the Wan-li Shi-tang did eight centuries before.

The committee continued with its territorial mission. Three months later, in April 1935, it published
The Map of Chinese Islands in the South China Sea
, taking the country's sea border right down to 4° N – the location of James Shoal, only 107 kilometres from the coast of Borneo and over 1,500 kilometres from the Chinese mainland.
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Then one of China's most eminent geographers, Bai Meichu, added his own innovation. Bai had been one of the founders of the China Geographical Society. He was also an ardent nationalist and in 1930 had drawn his own version of the ‘Chinese National Humiliation Map’ to educate his countrymen about just how much territory they had lost.
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In the year Bai became director of the society's editorial board, he declared: ‘Loving the nation is the top priority in learning geography, while building the nation is what learning geography is for.’
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In 1936, at the age of 60, he created his most enduring legacy: a map in his
New China Construction Atlas
including a U-shaped line snaking around the South China Sea as far south as James Shoal. This was then copied by others. Between 1936 and 1945 versions of the line were published on 26 other maps. Some stretched down to the James Shoal, though most only included the Spratlys.
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A decade later, it was Bai's line that would be taken up by the Chinese government, copied and asserted to define China's historic island territories.

All this list-making and map-drawing came to an abrupt end with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. The job of protecting the country's sovereignty was passed to the military and the previous objects of Chinese nationalistic anger – Britain, Russia and the United States in particular – became allies against the greater enemy. But the Second World War would reset the territorial battle in the South China Sea. Japan had occupied Taiwan in 1895, so when American forces in the Philippines surrendered in May 1942 almost the entire coast of the Sea, from Taiwan to Singapore and back again, fell under the control of a single power for the first time
in its millennia-long history. The South China Sea became a ‘Japanese lake’ and would remain so until January 1945. The Japanese occupied Woody Island in the Paracels and Itu Aba in the Spratlys. The base on Itu Aba was virtually destroyed when American planes napalmed and strafed it on 1 May 1945 and the island was abandoned sometime before the arrival of a US reconnaissance mission on 18 November 1945.
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Two Australian commandos were landed on Woody Island in the Paracels by the American submarine, USS
Pargo
, on 3 February 1945 and observed two Japanese and a European living there under a French tricolour. After the commandos withdrew, the
Pargo
shelled all the buildings.
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On 8 March American aircraft bombed radio stations on both Woody Island and Pattle Island
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and when another submarine, the USS
Cabrilla
, visited Woody Island on 2 July, the tricolour was still flying, but this time with a white flag above it.
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As the course of the war turned, the allies began to debate where lines would be drawn on maps once it had ended. As early as May 1943, a few weeks after the battle of Guadalcanal, the US State Department drew up document T–324 to help decide what should be done about the islands of the South China Sea. Allowing Japan to hold on to them was a non-starter, but since they were ‘of no vital interest to any single country or territory’, the American position remained vague.
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Later documents continued the theme, arguing that no single country had a clear-cut claim on the islands. Document CAC–301, ‘Spratly and other islands (Shinnan Gunto)’, prepared on 19 December 1944 ahead of the Yalta Conference, recommended that the Spratlys be placed under ‘the projected international organization’ – the future United Nations – although noting that this would require the approval of France. Another document, CAC–308, recommended three options for the Paracels: international trusteeship, a deal between China and France, or thirdly – ‘unless France should provide evidence of the alleged transfer of the Paracels to Annam by China in 1816’ – support for China's claim.
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After the war, however, the State Department recognised the improbability that any of the islands would be placed under UN control because it would require an unlikely degree of flexibility from France. As a result, the US left its position vague.

On 4 July 1946, the Philippines became independent of the United States and less than three weeks later Vice-President Elpidio Quirino
declared the Spratly Islands part of its sphere of influence. The French authorities, trying to reassert their control over Indochina, sent a minesweeper, the FR
Chevreuil
, out to the Spratlys. It found them uninhabited and, on 5 October 1946, placed a stone marker on Itu Aba asserting French sovereignty. On 9 December 1946 the Chinese Navy – having just received several ships, trained crews and charts of the waters from the United States – despatched two vessels to the Paracels and two to the Spratlys.
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The
Taiping
(formerly the USS
Decker
) and the
Zhongye
(probably the former USS LST–1056) arrived at Itu Aba on 12 December where their crews erected a rival stone marker, claiming the island for China. Then, in January 1947, Chinese and French forces landed on different islands in the Paracels – again making rival claims (for more on this see Chapter 3).

In May 1947 the Chinese parliament approved a motion calling on the government to recover all the Paracels from France, by force if necessary, and to clearly ‘delimit our territory’. Force was out of the question but delimiting territory was easier. The Geography Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs drafted a list of new names for all the islands in the South China Sea. Itu Aba was renamed Taiping Island and Thitu Island was renamed Zhongye (after the ships on the 1946 expedition) and other features were awarded similarly patriotic titles: Spratly Island became Nanwei – ‘noble south’ – for example. Perhaps realising their mistake, the committee changed James Shoal from a sandbank (
tan
) into a reef (
ansha
). The names of the four sets of features were also adjusted: the Paracels remained Xisha – West Sand – but Pratas became East Sand – Dongsha. The name Nansha – South Sand – which had previously referred to the Macclesfield Bank was moved south to describe the Spratlys and the Macclesfield Bank (previously the Nansha) was re-designated the Zhongsha – Central Sand.

By the end of 1947, the department had finalised a cross-reference table for all the old and new names of the islands and islets – whose number had crept up to 159.
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The list was officially announced on 1 December, the same day the islands were all formally placed under the administration of the Hainan Special District.
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Around the same time, the department printed a new ‘Location Map of the South China Sea Islands’, which was formally published by the Ministry in February 1948 as an adjunct to its new ‘Administrative Division Map of the Republic of China’. All the
new names were included – along with the line originally drawn on Bai Meichu's map a decade earlier. Eleven dashes raced down the eastern side of the South China Sea from Taiwan to the coast of Borneo and then northward to the Gulf of Tonkin in a great U-shape. No official explanation of the meaning of the line was provided although one of its cartographers, Wang Xiguang, is reported to have said that the dashes simply indicated the median line between China's territory – in other words, each claimed island – and that of its neighbours.
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On 12 June 1947 a meeting between officials of the Republic of China's Navy, Defence and Interior ministries agreed that the government claimed everything within the line but would negotiate precise maritime boundaries with other countries at a later date and according to the international laws in operation. No border had been delimited – it was the beginning of what would later be called ‘strategic ambiguity’ in the South China Sea.
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But by then the days of the Republic of China were numbered. Within months its leadership had fled to Taiwan and the Communist Party had proclaimed the People's Republic. The Communists adopted the maps and lines of its predecessors although, in 1953, in what is assumed to have been a special favour to brother Communists struggling for independence, their cartographers reduced the number of dashes to nine by removing two from the Tonkin Gulf between China and Vietnam.
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The border in that piece of sea was only finally defined by the two countries in 1999. In June 2013, the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping issued a new official map of the country and added a tenth dash, to the east of Taiwan, making clear that it too was firmly part of the national territory.
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