Thank you for inviting me to testify today. For the United States, the South China Sea is an important area of the Asia-Pacific region for three reasons: 1) it is part of a major transit route for maritime commercial traffic to and from East Asia and for the United States Navy; 2) disputes over the […]
MANILA, Philippines – Filipino students may find themselves studying geography using globes depicting Beijing’s nine-dash line as stores selling school supplies in Divisoria, Manila continue to import products made in China. Aside from the nine-dash line, which the Philippines is questioning before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) amid maritime territorial […]
MANILA – The Philippines is fast losing its territorial waters to the Chinese, and patriotic Filipinos need to step up to the plate to defend it, as a united, independent nation. A forum organized by the newly-formed movement, Pilipinong Nagkakaisa para sa Soberanya (P1nas) had begun efforts to stir patriotic fervor, as it discussed China’s […]
China may show ‘evidence’ that Chinese sailors used to be present in the East Sea (South China Sea in international name), but according to international law, that does not prove its ownership. In the perspective of China, the country with many plans to turn the East Sea into its own pond, Mr. Li Guoqiang, a […]
Suggestions that China could claim historic fishing rights within the nine-dash line misinterpret international law. While Sourabh Gupta’s arguments, outlined in a recent Forum article, relating to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) Articles 62 and 123 have been disputed elsewhere, we argue that his argument regarding Article 56 is also […]
China’s ambiguous claim to the South China Sea, approximately demarcated by a series of hash marks known as the “nine-dashed line,” faced objections from an expanding number of parties over the past two weeks. While a challenge from the United States came from an unsurprising source, actions by Indonesia and Vietnam were unexpected in their […]
They have names like Pigeon Reef, West Sand, Taisho-To, and Scarborough Shoal. Most are no more than outcrops of rock poking out of the sea. Most have never been inhabited. Few have any direct economic value. If not for the perceived fish and oil wealth in the waters around them, the spat over these specks […]
As has been the case with many confrontations in history, aggressive countries draw proverbial lines in the sand to mark their own expansion plans against the resolve of other countries whose territories they covet. In the present day People’s Republic of China [PRC], however, it’s not a line in the sand but a “10-dash line” […]
Banyan Joining the dashes The South China Sea’s littoral states will fight in the museums, in the archives and on the maps Oct 4th 2014 | From the print edition Timekeeper THE countries around the South China Sea have long engaged in competitive cartography. It is now becoming a spectator sport. In June, at an […]
On September 11 the Philippines put “dozens of ancient maps on display” which they say show that China’s territorial claims have not historically included the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. China “seized control” of Scarborough Shoal in June 2012 and has not allowed Philippine fishermen to get close to it since. According to […]