SC justice says China's claim ‘a gigantic historical fraud’

Saying disputed territories like the Spratly Islands and the Scarborough Shoal never figured in maps of China before 1947, a senior justice of the Supreme Court called the Asian power's claim over almost all of the territories in the South China Sea “a gigantic historical fraud.”

 

In a speech at the De La Salle University Friday, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio said China's claim based on its nine-dashed line theory covers almost 90 percent of the total area of the South China Sea, and encroaches on 80 percent of the Philippines’ 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and 100 percent of its 150-nautical-mile extended continental self (ECS).

 

"(But) it is clear, patent obvious from all these ancient Chinese maps, whether made by Chinese authorities and individuals or by foreigners, that the southernmost territory of China has always been Hainan Island. Throughout the Chinese dynasties, China's territory never included the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal," Carpio said.

 

Carpio said teaching Chinese leaders and citizens after 1947 that China has "historical rights" to the South China Sea was part of a propaganda that Chinese people now consider as "historical facts."  China's nine-dashed line map was said to have been drawn that year.

 

In his presentation entitled, "Historical Facts, Historical Lies, and Historical Rights in the West Philippine Sea”, Carpio presented dozens of ancient Chinese and Philippine maps made either by Chinese, Filipinos, and foreigners to support the Philippines' claim over the West Philippine Sea.

 

"There is not a single Chinese map, whether made by Chinese or foreigners, showing that the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoal were ever part of Chinese territory," Carpio said.

 

Carpio noted that as late as September 29, 1932, the Chinese government through a note verbale to the French government officially declared Hainan Island as the southernmost part of the Chinese territory. 

 

Carpio said this would mean Scarborough Shoal, which is 500 nautical miles from Hainan Island, "is not part of, and could never have been part of, Chinese territory." 

 

The claim made by China under the 9-dashed line map is "glaringly false... and an egregious lie, and patently contrary to indisputable historical facts." He added: "China's 9-dashed line claim is on its face a gigantic historical fraud.”

 

According to China's nine-dashed line map, its southermost part territory is not Hainan Island but James Shoal, 50 nautical miles from the coast of Bintulu, Sarawak, Malaysia.

 

In the nine-dashed line map, Scarborough Shoal or Huangyan Island to the Chinese is the Nanhai island that 13th century Chinese astronomer-engineer-mathematician Guo Shoujing allegedly visited in 1279.

 

Carpio, however, said an official Chinese document published in January 30, 1980 titled "China's Sovereignty Over Xisha and Zhongsa Islands Is Indisputable"states that the Nanhai island visited by Shoujing was actually not Scarborough Shoal but Xisha or the Paracels, which are 380 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal.

 

Carpio said it was physically and legally impossible for Scarborough Shoal to be Nanhai Island, because the Nanhai that Shoujing described was large enough for the 27 Chinese observatories that he installed on the island. 

 

The Scarborough Shoal is composed of a "few barren rocks that barely portruded above water at high tide," Carpio said.

 

China has repeatedly invoked this "historical claim" over the South China Sea but Carpio had insisted, as he had repeatedly done in past speeches that the UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, had extinguished all historical rights of other states within the 200-nm EEZ of the adjacent coastal state.

 

Carpio and the West Philippine Sea issue

 

Since last year, Carpio has taken a clear stand on the West Philippine Sea issue in a number of his public speeches.

 

In August last year, Carpio, before the Philippine Bar Association, expressed his fear that territorial claims over disputed areas of the South China Sea could end up being dictated by naval strength and not by the Rule of Law. 

 

Three months before that, Carpio spoke before law students of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila where he tackled the same subject. He said that under the United Nations Charter, a winning state in a decision by the International Court of Justice can ask the Security Council to enforce the decision.

 

Carpio's practice of taking on the issue of the controversial territorial dispute was expected especially since he was the magistrate who penned the Supreme Court decision that unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of the Philippine Archipelagic Baselines law of 2009.

 

The Baselines Law was passed to beat the deadline of the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). Under the UNCLOS, a country's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) is determined to extend outward from that country's baselines. -NB/KG, GMA News