China keeps changing excuses for sea claim - Institute for Maritime and Ocean Affairs

Ancient Malays had crossed the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific millenniums before China started mapping its surrounding waters. With that fact, Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio prefaced a lecture last June at De La Salle University on China’s false historical claims over the South China Sea. “Historical Facts, Lies, and Rights” reviews Filipinos on their ancestors’ feats, and opens Chinese eyes to the bankruptcy of their communist leaders’ thinking. Following is a three-part serialization:

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1. China has always asserted that its nine-dashed-line claim is based on international law. Thus, in the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct, China agreed that the maritime disputes in the South China Sea shall be resolved “in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.” There is no mention whatsoever in the 2002 ASEAN-China Declaration of Conduct that “historical facts”shall also be a basis in resolving the maritime disputes.

2. After the Philippines filed in January 2013 its arbitration case against China before an international tribunal, invoking UNCLOS to protect the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Philippines, China stressed “historical facts” as another basis for its maritime claims in the South China Sea. China’s mantra now states that China’s nine-dashed line claim is based, in the words of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on “historical facts and international law.”