China: We staked claim over Scarborough in 1949

Scarborough Shoal

In 1951, no less than then Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai asserted that Scarborough Shoal in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) was part of China’s territory.

In its latest fact sheet on the disputed rock formation, the Chinese Embassy pointed out that after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the PROC continued to exercise sovereignty over the shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Island.

The mission disclosed that Zhou said in a 1951 statement on the US and United Kingdom’s draft peace treaty with Japan that “the Xisha and Nanwei Islands, just like the Nansha, Zhongsha and Dongsha Islands, have always been China’s territory” although they had been occupied by Japan during World War II.

The embassy maintained that Huangyan Island, being part of the Zhongsha group of islands, “indisputably belongs to China.”

The mission also recalled “in 1983, the Committee on Geographical Names of China was authorized (by Beijing) to publicize the geographical names of selected islands in the South China Sea, in which Huangyan Island was included as the standard name and Minzhu Jiao as its alternative name.”

Misinterpretation

The Law of the PROC on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone, publicized in 1992,  explicitly provided in Article 2 that “the land territory of the PROC includes mainland China and its coastal islands; Taiwan and all islands appertaining thereto, including the Diaoyu Islands, the Pengshu Islands, the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha Islands, the Nansha Islands, as well as the Zhongsha Islands,” it said.

The embassy emphasized that “before 1997, the Philippines had never claimed sovereignty over Huangyan Island,” which Manila calls Bajo de Masinloc and Panatag Shoal.

“The official maps of the Philippines publicized in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and even 2011 had all marked Huangyan Island outside the boundary of the Philippine territory,” it also stressed.

The embassy said the Philippine claim that the Huangyan was located within Manila’s 200-mile economic zone was a “misinterpretation and abuse of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” Jerry E. Esplanada