Nine-dash line

File:9 dotted line.png

The nine-dash line (highlighted in green) as formerly claimed by the PRC.

The nine-dash line (Chinese: 南海九段线; pinyin: nánhǎi jiǔduàn xiàn; literally: "nine-segment line of the South China Sea"; Vietnamese: Đường lưỡi bò; literally: "cow's tongue line"), and at various times also referred to as the "10-dash line" and the "11-dash line", refers to the demarcation line used initially by the government of the Republic of China (ROC / Taiwan), and subsequently also by the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), for their claims of the major part of the South China Sea. The contested area in the South China Sea includes the Paracel Islands, the Spratly Islands, and various other areas including the Pratas Islands, the Macclesfield Bank and the Scarborough Shoal. The claim encompasses the area of Chinese land reclamation known as the "great wall of sand".

An early map showing a U-shaped eleven-dash line was published in the then Republic of China on 1 December 1947. Two of the dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin were later removed at the behest of Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, reducing the total to nine. Subsequent editions added a dash to the other end of the line, extending it into the East China Sea.

Despite having made the vague claim public in 1947, China has not (as of 2015) filed a formal and specifically defined claim to the area within the dashes. The People's Republic of China added a tenth-dash line to the east of Taiwan island in 2013 as a part of its official sovereignty claim to the disputed territories in the South China Sea.

History

China's 1947 map depicting the "eleven-dash line".

Following the defeat of Japan at the end of World War II, the Republic of China (Taiwan) re-claimed the entirety of the Paracels, Pratas and Spratly Islands after accepting the Japanese surrender of the islands based on the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations. In November 1946, the Republic of China sent naval ships to take control of these islands after the surrender of Japan. When the Peace Treaty with Japan was being signed at the San Francisco Conference, on September 7, 1951, both China and Vietnam asserted their rights to the islands. Later the Philippine government also laid claim to some islands of the archipelagoes.

The nine-dash line was originally an eleven-dash line first shown on a map published by the government of the then Republic of China (1912–49) in December 1947 to justify its claims in the South China Sea. The 1947 map, titled "Map of South China Sea Islands," originated from an earlier one titled "Map of Chinese Islands in the South China Sea" (Zhongguo nanhai daoyu tu) published by the Republic of China's Land and Water Maps Inspection Committee in 1935. After the Communist Party of China took over mainland China and formed the People's Republic of China in 1949, the line was adopted and revised to nine as endorsed by Zhou Enlai. After evacuating to Taiwan, the Republic of China has continued its claims, and the nine-dash line remains as the rationale for Taiwan's claims to the Spratly and Paracel Islands.

Under President Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan stated that "legally, historically, geographically, or in reality", all of the South China Sea and Spratly islands were Taiwan's territory and under Taiwanese sovereignty, and denounced actions undertaken there by Malaysia and the Philippines, in a statement on 13 July 1999 released by the foreign ministry of Taiwan. Taiwan and China's claims mirror each other. During international talks involving the Spratly islands, China and Taiwan have cooperated with each other since both have the same claims.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) rejected all rival claims to the Paracel islands, repeating its position that all of the Paracel, Spratly, Zhongsha (Macclesfield Bank grouped with Scaborought Shoal) and Pratas Islands Islands belong to the Republic of China along with "their surrounding waters and respective seabed and subsoil", and that Taiwan views other claims as illegitimate, in a statement released by Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs which added – "There is no doubt that the Republic of China has sovereignty over the archipelagos and waters."

The nine-dash line has been used by China to show the maximum extent of its claim without indicating how the dashes would be joined if it was continuous and how that would affect the extent of the area claimed by China. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia have all officially protested over the use of such a line. Immediately after China submitted a map to the UN including the nine-dash lines territorial claim in the South China Sea on 7 May 2009, the Philippines lodged a diplomatic protest against China for claiming the whole of South China Sea illegally. Vietnam and Malaysia filed their joint protest a day after China submitted its nine-dash line map to the UN. Indonesia also registered its protest, even though it did not have a claim on the South China Sea.

In 2013 the PRC extended their claims with a new ten-dash map. The "new" dash, however, is to the east of Taiwan and not in the South China Sea.

James Shoal wrong translation hypothesis

File:James Shoal Dash location in 2009 & 1984 maps.jpg

Dash 4 location in Chinese 2009 (solid red) & 1984 maps. Dash 4 is 24 nm from the coast of Malaysia on the island of Borneo and 133 nm from Louisa Reef. James Shoal (Zeng-mu Ansha), the "Southernmost point of China", lay 21 meters under the sea, according to the 1984 map.

James Shoal was discovered by British surveyors in the early 19th Century via many of its surveys. James Shoal first appeared on the British Admiralty Chart in the 1870s. In 1933 a government committee of the Republic of China gave Chinese names to many features in the South China Sea. These were mainly translations or transliterations of the names on the British charts. The name 'James' was transliterated as Zeng Mu (the letters 'J' and 'M'). 'Shoal' was translated as 'Tan' - meaning sandbank. It appears the Chinese committee thought, wrongly that James Shoal was an island. In 1947 the RoC changed the name to 'Ansha' - meaning 'reef'.

Analysis

Origins and Evolution

Although China has not provided an official account, the first dashed-line map is widely reported by scholars and commentators to pre-date the existence of the People’s Republic of China, having been published in 1947 by the Nationalist government of the Republic of China. That map, which shows 11 dashes. Scholarly accounts indicate that the 1947 map, titled “Map of South China Sea Islands,” originated from an earlier one titled “Map of Chinese Islands in the South China Sea” (Zhongguo nanhai daoyu tu) published by the Republic of China’s Land and Water Maps Inspection Committee in 1935, and that Chinese maps produced after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 “appear to follow the old maps.” The maps published by the People’s Republic of China, however, removed the two dashes originally depicted inside the Gulf of Tonkin. Although not visible on the 2009 map, modern Chinese maps since at least 1984, including the vertically oriented maps published by China in 2013 and 2014 also include a tenth dash located to the east of Taiwan.

1937 Map of Chinese Islands in the South China Sea

Further information: List of former foreign enclaves in China

Conquest (the acquisition of territory by force or colonial wars) was historically considered a lawful mode of acquiring sovereignty, but has been illegal since October 1945 following the entry into force of the United Nations Charter (see Article 2(4)). France annexed the Spratly Islands as terra nullius in the 1930s—at the time, occupation by force was a valid method of acquiring sovereignty over territory. France had partially colonised China and owned 6 territories. Ten nations had colonised China (Austria-Hungary, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Russia, United Kingdom, United States).

Ongoing disputes

South China Sea claims and agreements.

File:JamesShoal dash4 China8th grade geography textbook.png

China 8th grade geography textbook. The arrow points to the dash, not to James Shoal which is too small to be depicted

According to Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, "China's nine-dash line territorial claim over the entire South China Sea is against international laws, particularly the United Nations Convention of the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS)". Vietnam also rejected the nine-dash line claim, citing that it is baseless and against the UNCLOS. In 2010, at a regional conference in Hanoi, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that "The United States has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia's maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea". The United States has also called for unfettered access to the area that China claims as its own, and accused Beijing of adopting an increasingly aggressive stance on the high seas.

As early as 1958, the Chinese government released a document pertaining to its territorial limits, stating that China's territorial waters cover twelve nautical miles, and announcing that this provision applies to "all the territory of People's Republic of China, including the Chinese mainland and offshore islands, Taiwan and its surrounding islands, the Penghu Islands, the Dongsha Islands, Xisha Islands, Zhongsha Islands, the Nansha Islands and other islands belonging to China".

Some parties have questioned the jurisdiction of the United Nations Convention of the Laws of the Sea on the dispute, arguing that the convention does not support claims based on sovereignty or title, and instead raises the right to continue using the waters for traditional purpose.

File:China's 2009 nine-dash line map submission to the UN.pdf

China's nine-dash map submission to the UN in 2009 heightened the dispute. The first page addresses China's claim to the "islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters", the second page, the nine-dash map, is not clear as to the meaning of the map

While China has never used the nine-dash line as an inviolable border to its sovereignty, this strategy together with the fact that China's government has never officially explained the meaning of the nine-dash line have led many researchers to try to derive the exact meanings of the nine-dash line map in the Chinese strategy in the South China Sea. Some scholars believe that this line cannot be considered as a maritime boundary line because it violates maritime laws, which states that a national boundary line must be a stable and defined one. The nine-dash line is not stable because it has been reduced from eleven to nine dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin as endorsed by Zhou Enlai without any reasons given. It is also not a defined line because it does not have any specific geographic coordinates and does not tell how it can be connected if it was a continuous line.

Since the 1940s, China has taught its 13 years old college students that their territory is large of 5500 km from Mohe County, on the Amur River to James Shoal, 80 km (50 mi) off the Malaysian coast. On page 4 of 2012 Chinese eighth grade geography textbooks is a map of China with the 9 dash line and a 'pop-up box' with the text “The southernmost point of our country’s territory is Zengmu Ansha (James Shoal) in the Nansha Islands.” Shan Zhiqiang, the executive chief editor of the Chinese National Geography magazine, wrote in 2013: "The nine-dashed [...] is now deeply engraved in the hearts and minds of the Chinese people."

A study of the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, U.S. Department of State in 2014 said about a "possible interpretation": "...modern Chinese maps and atlases use a boundary symbol to depict the dashed line in the South China Sea. Indeed, the symbology on Chinese maps for land boundaries is the same as the symbology used for the dashes, and the text in the legend of such maps translates the boundary symbol as either “national boundary” or “international boundary” (国界, romanized as guojie). These maps also use another boundary symbol, which is translated as “undefined” national or international boundary (未定国界, weiding guojie), but this symbology is not used for the dashed line. The placement of the dashes within open ocean space would suggest a maritime boundary or limit."

In October 2008, the website WikiLeaks published a cable from the US Embassy in Beijing reporting that Yin Wenqiang, a senior Chinese government maritime law expert, had "admitted" he was unaware of the historical basis for the nine dashes.

File:China's 2009 nine-dash line errors.jpg

The map from China's 2009 Note Verbale submitted to the UN contains some errors:
* The scale at the bottom is wrong; 1 km is misrepresented as 635 meters yielding 200 nautical miles (370 km) versus the actual 127 NM (235 km)
* Lý Sơn District islands is virtually invisible while similar sized islands such Cu Lao Cham are clearly represented
* Triton Island in the Paracel archipelago is not on the map

According to the Kyodo News, in March 2010 PRC officials told US officials that they consider the South China Sea a "core interest" on par with Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, but subsequently backed away from that assertion In July 2010 the Communist Party-controlled Global Times stated that "China will never waive its right to protect its core interest with military means" and a Ministry of Defense spokesman said that "China has indisputable sovereignty of the South Sea and China has sufficient historical and legal backing" to underpin its claims.

At the Conference on Maritime Study organised by the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in June 2011, Su Hao of the China Foreign Affairs University in Beijing delivered a speech on China’s sovereignty and policy in the South China Sea, using history as the main argument. However, Termsak Chalermpalanupap, Assistant Director for Program Coordination and External Relations of the ASEAN Secretariat, said: “I don’t think that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) recognizes history as the basis to make sovereignty claims”. Peter Dutton of the US Naval War College agreed, saying, “The jurisdiction over waters does not have connection to history. It must observe the UNCLOS.” Dutton stressed that using history to explain sovereignty erodes the rules of the UNCLOS. It is understood that China ratified the UNCLOS in 1996.

Maritime researcher Carlyle Thayer, Emeritus Professor of Politics of the University of New South Wales, said that Chinese scholars using historical heritage to explain its claim of sovereignty shows the lack of legal foundation under the international law for the claim. Caitlyn Antrim, Executive Director, Rule of Law Committee for the Oceans of the USA, commented that "The U-shaped line has no ground under the international law because [the] historical basis is very weak". She added "I don’t understand what China claims for in that U-shaped line. If they claim sovereignty over islands inside that line, the question is whether they are able to prove their sovereignty over these islands. If China claimed sovereignty over these islands 500 years ago and then they did not perform their sovereignty, their claim of sovereignty becomes very weak. For uninhabited islands, they can only claim territorial seas, not exclusive economic zones (EEZ) from the islands”.

See also

• Baselines of the Chinese territorial sea
• First island chain
• List of irredentist claims or disputes
• Territorial disputes in the South China Sea

External links

• China's 2009 two-page document submission to the U.N. introducing the nine-dash line map (archived here)