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In China's view, I believe, the US will not interfered and since China is not going to fire the first shot, any skirmish will have to instigated by VN or PI. If such scenario arises, China will not hesitate to eliminate their forces in lighting speed because she is the defender and has world opinions on her side..
China's position, for years, was clear for the members that are involved in the SCS disputes, " come to the table and we'll talk one on one and find solutions peacefully", meaning joint developments. .
Another example of China's "MINE IS MINE, YOURS IS MINE AND WE SHARE." China should stop poaching in Philippine waters.
And you Filipino big mouths keep wondering why China is doing all this.
The second world war finished in 1945. As the winners in the second world war, US UK France USSR had right to ''divide'' the world again. However, China did not have this right since the contribution of China to the victory of the second world war was VERY VERY SMALL. Going back to the Chinese expansionist. This guy had responsibility to create the map of republic of China. He thought that China was also a winner and it was unfair for republic of China if China did not get anything. He decided himself to draw above map according to his imagination. He thought that the sea in the south of China should be considered as a bonus for republic of China. His idea was approved by other Chinese expansionists. In 1946, this map was published.
Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill would do fine without Chiang Kai Shek. They were always the big 3, not 4. While history admires the courage of the Chinese fighting the invading Japanese, lets admit that the number of Chinese soldiers who died is vastly incomparable to the ratio of Japanese soldiers who lost their lives in the process. Bottomline, despite the Chinese outnumbering the Japanese soldiers 10 to 1, you still got defeated by the axis Japanese if it weren't the help of US, Britain and Russia. Wheres the greatness in that?
The fact: our claim is based on facts and international law, China's claim is based on propaganda.
1. Fact Number One: the Philippines has exercised both effective occupation and effective jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc since its independence. In 1957, the Philippine government conducted an oceanographic survey of the area and together with the US Navy force based in then U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in Zambales, used the area as an impact range for defense purposes. An 8.3 meter high flag pole flying a Philippine flag was raised in 1965. A small lighthouse was also built and operated the same year.[29] In 1992, the Philippine Navy rehabilitated the lighthouse and reported it to the International Maritime Organization for publication in the List of Lights
2. Fact Number Two: We have a 1734 Murillo Map showing Scarborough and Spratlys are part of Philippine territory.
3. Fact Number Three: Scarborough shoal is in fact included in the Treaty of Paris. The Mapa General, Islas Filipinas, Observatorio de Manila by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey, also included Bajo de Masinloc as part of the Philippines.
4. Fact Number Four: Scarborough shoal and the Spratlys are within the EEZ of the Philippines.
The black-lines show the 1898 Treaty of Paris territorial limits; the blue lines are the baselines under RA 3046, as amended by RA 5466; and the green lines are the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Source: National Mapping and Resource Information Authority
5. Fact Number Five: Scarborough Shoal entered Philippine jurisprudence in 1916 when the Philippine Supreme Court decided a case involving a shipwreck there. The shipwreck predates China’s 1935 claim.
The lawsuit decided by the Philippines’ top court in 1916 – led by Filipino Chief Justice Cayetano Arellano – “is clear evidence that we were exercising jurisdiction over the shoal and incidents on it during the American colonial period” in the Philippines.”
“This case is proof we are the ones responsible when it comes to shipwrecks on Scarborough,”
Here’s the link to the actual SC decision that shows the Philippines’ jurisdictional claim on Scarborough over that of China:
G.R. No. L-10051
6. Fact Number Six: As early as 1734, we Filipinos already named Scarborough shoal as Panacot. It is only in 1935 when Chinese official records state that the shoal – which it mentions by its popular western name “Scarborough Shoal” – was part of its “Zhongsha Islands”. While the Chinese baptized the shoal a Chinese name only in 1947. So who's the one who named Scarborough shoal FIRST??? ANSWER: PHILIPPINES
Official Position of the Philippines over Scarborough shoal and its surrounding waters:
The basis of Philippine sovereignty and jurisdiction over the rock features of Bajo de Masinloc is not premised on the cession by Spain of the Philippine archipelago to the United States under the Treaty of Paris. The matter that the rock features of Bajo de Masinloc are not included or within the limits of the Treaty of Paris as alleged by China is therefore immaterial and of no consequence.
Philippine sovereignty and jurisdiction over the rocks of Bajo de Masinloc is likewise not premised on proximity or the fact that the rocks are within its 200-NM EEZ or CS under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Although the Philippines necessarily exercise sovereign rights over its EEZ and CS, nonetheless, the reason why the rock features of Bajo de Masinloc are Philippine territories is anchored on other principles of public international law.
As decided in a number of cases by international courts or tribunals, most notably the Palmas Island Case, a modality for acquiring territorial ownership over a piece of real estate is effective exercise of jurisdiction. Indeed, in that particular case, sovereignty over the Palmas Island was adjudged in favor of the Netherlands on the basis of “effective exercise of jurisdiction,” although the said island may have been historically discovered by Spain and historically ceded to the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris.
In the case of Bajo de Masinloc, the Philippines has exercised both effective occupation and effective jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc since its independence.
The name Bajo de Masinloc (translated as “under Masinloc” itself identifies the shoal as a particular political subdivision of the Philippine province of Zambales, known as Masinloc.
One of the earliest known and most accurate maps of the area, named Carta Hydrographical y Chorographica De Las Yslas Filipinas by Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde, SJ, and published in 1734, included Bajo de Masinloc as part of Zambales.
The name Bajo de Masinloc was a name given to the shoal by the Spanish colonizers. In 1792, another map drawn by the Alejandro Malaspina expedition and published in 1808 in Madrid, Spain, also showed Bajo de Masinloc as part of Philippine territory. This map showed the route of the Malaspina expedition to and around the shoal. It was reproduced in the Atlas of the 1939 Philippine Census.
The Mapa General, Islas Filipinas, Observatorio de Manila, published in 1990 by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, also included Bajo de Masinloc as part of the Philippines.
Philippine flags have been erected on some of the islets of the shoal, including a flag raised on an 8.3-meter high flagpole in 1965 and another Philippine flag raised by Congressmen Roque Ablan and Jose Yap in 1997. In 1965, the Philippines also built and operated a small lighthouse in one of the islets in the shoal. In 1992, the Philippine Navy rehabilitated the lighthouse and reported it to the International Maritime Organization for publication in the List of Lights (currently, this lighthouse is not operational).
Bajo de Masinloc was also used as an impact range by Philippine and U.S. Naval Forces stationed in Subic Bay in Zambales for defense purposes. The Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources, together with the University of the Philippines, has also been conducting scientific, topographic, and marine studies in the shoal. Filipino fishermen have always considered it as their fishing grounds, owing to their proximity to the coastal towns and areas of Southwest Luzon.
In 2009, when the Philippines passed an amended Archipelagic Baselines Law that is fully consistent with the Law of the Sea, Bajo de Masinloc’s was classified under the “Regime of Islands” consistent with the Law of the Sea.
Section 2. The baseline in the following areas over which the Philippines likewise exercises sovereignty and jurisdiction shall be determined as “Regime of Islands” under the Republic of the Philippines consistent with Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS):
a) The Kalayaan Island Group as constituted under Presidential Decree No. 1596; and
b) Bajo de Masinloc, also known as Scarborough Shoal.
China refused our offer of international arbitration, that itself is like an admission that its nine dash will not survive the ICJ.
The Philippines has already provided the world with the information they need to judge for themselves who the true owners of Scarborough is. And many countries have voiced their support to the Philippines because they believe that the Philippines is right.
But how about China? What evidence has she shown? Nothing!
China’s South China Sea jurisdictional claims: when politics and law collideChina’s South China Sea jurisdictional claims: when politics and law collide
July 29th, 2012
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
A running thread through the tensions at various Southeast Asian regional forums over the past four summers has been the uncertainty and insecurity generated by China’s jurisdictional claims in the South China Sea.
Legally, China claims sovereignty over the disputed islands and adjacent waters in the Sea and sovereign rights over relevant waters as well as the seabed and subsoil thereof — a claim in accordance with Law of the Seas (LOS) norms.
But operationally, China’s oceanic law enforcement agencies have unilaterally, and at times forcefully, enforced their writ across the more expansive political perimeter bounded by the ‘nine-dashed line’.
Plainly, these legal and political claims overlap but do not coincide. However, endless dwelling on the supposedly impenetrable logic of the nine-dashed line’s extremity is side-tracking attention from what ought to be the central premise of this issue: that China’s claim to the primary land elements lying within the nine-dashed line — the Spratlys and the Paracels — is markedly superior to those of its rival claimants.
Alone among claimants, China is capable of coupling ‘continuous and effective occupation’ of the islands, islets and reefs with a robust modern international law-based claim backed by relevant multilateral and bilateral instruments.
In 1952, Japan renounced all right, title and claim to the Spratly and Paracel Islands to the Republic of China (Taiwan), by way of Article 2 of the bilateral Japan–Taiwan Treaty of Taipei. This treaty followed — and referenced — the territorial renunciations of the Islands by Japan under the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which had not identified the beneficiary at the time — a treaty that was ratified by both the Philippine and (South) Vietnamese governments. And although neither country is bound by provisions in the bilateral Japan–Taiwan treaty, neither can produce a Spratlys/Paracels cession or reversion clause in their own bilateral treaties with Japan. Rather, their claims are supplementarily based on historical cartography in the case of Vietnam or, for the Philippines, ‘historical discovery’ that is (incredibly) of a post-World War II vintage!
At the end of the day, ultimate title cannot be said to rest with any one party so long as a territorial claim is not resolved by way of a binding instrument between claimant states. At best, there are better claims and less-better claims to the territory in question. But given China’s law-based claim is superior to that of rival claimants, why does it persist with the infamous nine-dashed line?
As the successor government of Taiwan, the mundane reason is that Beijing is proceeding from the claim line that it inherited from the Chiang Kai-shek regime as the baseline for negotiation and compromise in an open territorial dispute. Beijing’s approach to negotiating its Himalayan boundary dispute with India is no different in this regard. But the technical reason is more complicated. Were China to submit an LOS-compliant claim to its outer continental shelf limits in the South China Sea, the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), tasked with examining its validity, would almost certainly strike down parts of the submission.
The CLCS appears on track to de-recognising Japan’s claim that the two high-tide elevations — totally the size of five tatami mats — within the Okinotori atolls in the Pacific are in fact ‘islands’ capable of generating an EEZ (that is ironically larger in dimension than the land mass of Japan itself). By the same reasoning, many of the high-tide elevations under Beijing’s control in the South China Sea would be found to be mere ‘rocks’. Although CLCS findings are non-enforceable, it would dent China’s case to certain disputed resource-rich zones within the Sea — hence its preference for the nine-dashed line.
The foremost motive for the nine-dashed line’s persistence is its intertwined character with the highly politicised, deterrence-based model of territorial dispute management that Beijing favours.
Territorial jurisdiction issues have never been treated as mere cartographic detail: they are tied to a larger political calculus of stability and good neighbourliness. In its maritime dimension, joint development of commonly held resources has been the established mode to implement this principle. Here, Manila’s misjudgement in abrogating its joint seismic study agreement with Vietnam and China in 2008 (compounding the error by unilaterally issuing exploration licenses within a disputed section of the study area) has been the principal cause of the swift deterioration in bilateral ties with China.
Furthermore, territorial settlements have never been concluded under duress, and China’s rulers calibrate their approach between a hard-line and a flexible one to suit the strategic circumstances at hand. The nine-dashed line has conveniently served as a hard-line expedient that Beijing’s competing maritime bureaucracies are not shy to lever to signal displeasure to other claimants.
So what are the enabling circumstances that would motivate China to set the nine-dashed line aside and adhere to best international practice in issuing forth maritime jurisdictional claims? Beijing has previously been willing to soften its inflated ‘natural prolongation’ principle with Korea and Japan to pursue fisheries and (in-principle) joint resource development, and the 2000 Gulf of Tonkin maritime delimitation agreement with Vietnam too was firmly in keeping with the highest international practices.
Given the fast-paced development of international maritime law, which is accentuating the gap between political calculus-based and rules-based orders at sea, it is in China’s self-interest to submit an LOS-compliant claim to its outer continental-shelf limits in the South China Sea. Beijing’s gains in goodwill earned will far outweigh the territory, and resources, relinquished. It might also allow China leeway to subsequently initiate a region-wide conversation on introducing limits to objectionable, threat-based activities in EEZs by foreign navies, under the guise of navigational freedoms.
Sourabh Gupta is Senior Research Associate at Samuels International Associates, Washington DC, and a 2012 EAF Distinguished Fellow.
Is that why Roosevelt, Churchill and Starlin included China in its exclusive permanent members of the
United Nations Security Council. Learn some history first before you rant here..
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While I think that nine *** map is kind of too much, but the claim China has over those islands are as strong as the next one if not stronger.
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The mean point here is "At the end of the day, ultimate title cannot be said to rest with any one party so long as a territorial claim is not resolved by way of a binding instrument between claimant states. At best, there are better claims and less-better claims to the territory in question." That is why everyone in the international community consider spartly and paracel as disputed territories rather than accepting anyone's claim over them.
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Is there any reason as to why the Filipino boys here take their grievances against the Chinese rather than to the Viets?
Obviously you copied those sentence from wikipedia, then why don't you copied the complete paragraphy here???Do you know that despite opposition from other leaders, especially Winston Churchill, China became a permanent member of the Security Council from its creation in 1945 because President Franklin Roosevelt facilitated Chiang Kai Shek Republic of China admission to the UN Security Council???
China and the United Nations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaAs one of the "Big Four" allies in World War II (China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the Republic of China (ROC) was one of the founding members of the United Nations. President Franklin Roosevelt had acknowledged China's war effort in World War II and stated his desire to allow China to "play its proper role in maintaining peace and prosperity" in the world, even though China was not socially influential or militarily strong.[1][2] Thus, despite opposition from other leaders, especially Winston Churchill,[3] China became a permanent member of the Security Council from its creation in 1945.[4] In 1949, the Communist Party of China seized power in mainland China and declared the People's Republic of China (PRC), claiming to have replaced the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China and the ROC government retreated to the island of Taiwan (which it gained control of in 1945 at the end of WWII), Quemoy Island, and the Matsu Islands.
From your wiki sourceChina has the weakest claim. China's claims to sovereignty have no basis. Ancient maps, traditional fishing grounds, and old explorers are not enough to establish sovereignty. Both China and Philippines signed UNCLOS, and the areas in question fall within Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_SeaFollowing World War II, Chinese exercise of sovereignty over the South China Sea region, the Spratly and Paracel archipelago and their adjacent waters was relatively uncontested. The United States and Spain had not included the Spratly Islands within the territorial limits of the Philippines in the Washington Treaty of 1898 and the Treaty of Paris in 1900. This understanding was reinforced by the 1973 Philippine Constitution, which followed the signing of the 1951 Philippine-US military alliance. In 1975, Vietnam explicitly recognized China's territorial sovereignty over The Spratly archipelago, and before December 1978 the Malaysian published continental shelf map did not include the reefs and waters of the Spratly archipelago in Malaysian territory.
Honestly your view regarding this dispute do not really matter in all, neither does anyone else from those claimant states, otherwise this won't be a dispute. This will only be solved by diplomacy or by military action, well for everyone else especially US the formal is prefered.We do not share your view that China is a claimant country...In our eyes, China is more like a professional land grabber and NOT a claimant country. Remember, China to this date has not shown any evidence to back up her claims. The world has not seen and examined her so called 1279 map. China have failed to identify specific historical evidence backing Beijing's claims that it owns disputed islands in the West Philippine Sea.
So what happened to your claim before 1970's??? BTW, EEZ does not garanttee your territory claim over those islands. You can only claim 12 miles from your coast as your territory water according to UNCLOS. So are those islands within the 12 miles radius of Philippine???
Only if one country's foreign affairs is dictated by some big mouth military personal let it be general or foot soldier.China is bullying us and has threatened war with the Philippines. That's why sinophobia is rising in the Philippines.
Remember this guy:
An Outraged Chinese General( Chinese Major General Luo Yuan}Tells The Philippines It's Their 'Last Chance'
The three countries have been going back-and-forth over rights to supposed oil and gas reserves throughout the region, with Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also attempting to lay claim on the deposits.
There were hopes the issue would be brought closer to resolution during the recent Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, but that get-together seems to have had exactly the opposite effect.
Brian Spegele at the WSJ's China Real Time Reports that Chinese Major General Luo Yuan left the summit, got back to China and penned a warning to the island nation that he published in the Global Times newspaper.
In it, he warns the Philippines that it's facing its "last chance" to reach an agreement on the resource laden South China Sea and the Spratly Islands.
In one swift move Luo brought renewed attention on what Spegele calls the "region’s hottest potential military flashpoint."
Always refreshingly outspoken, Luo didn't stop there and continued by saying "The biggest miscalculation of the Philippines is that it has misestimated the strength and willpower of China to defend its territorial integrity.”
Maybe Luo was still smarting an unknown slight at the Cambodia conference because he he also accuses the Philippines of high-jacking the Asian Nations summit, and declares Manilla's "continuing provocations" destined to fail.
Spegele points out the sharp words from such a senior military commander come at a difficult time, when China is focused on tensions within the Korean peninsula, and burdened by problems facing its only Middle Eastern ally Iran.
Georgia thought the same thing in 2008. Beside even if this result in military action, why do you even think China will be interested in invading Philippine mainland? If Philippine mainland is invaded, then I see more reason for US to be involved, but even if this dispute come to its worst, it is going to be some sea skirmish. In that case US's real interest is "Don't f**king disturb my shipping lines..."If the war between China and Philippines happens, America will come to the defense of our territory. China will definitely lose. I guess this Chinese Major General Luo Yuan will regret his words. Each family in China has only a single child. Does this Chinese general want Chinese families lose their children in order to invade other countries? It will be an very unjust war. I suppose many Filipino guys in this forum lets KNOWLEDGE, EVIDENCES of sovereignty, MAPS, DOCUMENTS ... do the TALKING since they want to avoid a WAR. But it does not mean that they are afraid of war if you look again at Filipino history.
Only if one country's foreign affairs is dictated by some big mouth military personal let it be general or foot soldier.
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Georgia thought the same thing in 2008.
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