SC justice cites historical records to disprove China sea claims
MANILA, Philippines—From the 1960s to the 1980s, the Philippines and the United States have been using the Scarborough Shoal as an impact range when they practiced bombing runs, according to Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.
In his recent speech before the Philippine Women’s Judges Association, Carpio said “neither China nor any other country protested these bombing practices by American and Philippine warplanes, despite worldwide prior Notices to Mariners during the bombing practices.”
“If the Philippines can bomb a shoal repeatedly over decades without any protest from neighboring states, it certainly must have sovereignty over such shoal,” Carpio said.
Aside from that, he said a country claiming historical rights over internal waters or territorial sea must comply with four conditions.
These are:
1 the state must formally announce to the international community such claim to internal waters or territorial sea, clearly specifying the nature and scope of such claim;
2 the state must exercise effective authority, that is, sovereignty, over the waters it claims as its own internal or territorial sea;
3 such exercise of effective authority must be continuous over a substantial period; and
4 other states must recognize, tolerate or acquiesce in to the exercise of such authority.
However, even if China announced to the world of its 9-dashed claim in 2009, not one country recognized its claim.
Carpio pointed out that the 9-dashed claim of China is based on “historical lies.”
He explained that since the start of the Song Dynasty in 960 AD until the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 or a period of 952 years, “the southernmost territory of China has always been Hainan Island based on all official maps of China.”
Carpio, who has been very vocal about the country’s territorial dispute with China, added that another lie from China is its claim that the Scarborough Shoal or Huangyan is the Nanhai Island that the 13th century Chinese astronomer-engineer-mathematician Guo Shoujing allegedly visited in 1279, having been ordered by Emperor Kublai Khan to conduct a survey of the seas to update the Song Dynasty calendar system.
But Carpio said that in a document entitled ‘‘China’s Sovereignty Over Xisha and Zhongs Islands Is Indisputable’’ officially declared that the Nanhai Island is more than 380 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal which it issued to bolster its claim to the Paracels against Vietnam.
“China is now estopped from claiming that Scarborough Shoal is Nanhai Island. China has officially declared that Nanhai island is in the Paracels and thus China can no longer claim that Scarborough Shoal is the island that Gou Shoujing visited in 1279. Besides, it is quite ridiculous to claim that the famous Chinese Astromonmer-engineer-mathematician would visit and write for posterity about a few barren rocks that barely protruded above water at high tide,” he added.
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