Thread by @bill_hayton

More nonsense history of the South China Sea published by the South China Morning Post - this time written by the CEO of a private equity firm. I guess this is what corporate bosses have to do to gain favour from Beijing these days. Anyway, rebuttal...
scmp.com/week-asia/opin…

"until recently, the US had not disputed or objected to China’s claims"
The US is neutral on the TERRITORIAL claims of all sides. It (& many other states) is not neutral on the unlawful MARITIME claims of the various sides. If you don't understand this, don't write the article

"China’s Nationalist government, under Chiang Kai-shek, used US supplied warships to recover several major islands in the South China Sea from Japan"
No islands were 'recovered' from Japan. Japanese forces had all departed in 1945. Chinese forces didn't land until December 1946

Yes, the US transferred warships to the ROC Navy but that was because they were wartime allies. It was in no way an endorsement of any island-claiming missions.

Two warships went to Woody Island in the Paracels and two went to Itu Aba in the Spratlys. This was the FIRST TIME EVER that any Chinese official is recorded visiting the Spratly Islands. It was not 'recovering' the islands, it was claiming them for the first time.

"Taiwan... has more extensive claims in the South China Sea than Beijing: whereas Beijing’s sovereign claim is defined by the nine-dash line, Taipei’s is defined by an eleven-dash line."
Laughably bad. The RoC drew the line, the PRC removed two dashes. But it's the SAME LINE

"records show these islands were already claimed as part of China on the official maps of the Qing dynasty in 1724, 1755, 1767, 1810 and 1817"
No, no, no they don't. Ronald Po has written a very good book on this (Blue Frontier) that destroys the idea. Here's an extract:

"1934 and 1935, the Nationalist government published two documents, “Map of South Sea Islands” and “A Table Comparing Chinese and English Names of China South Sea Islands” which further codified this claim."
Yes they did - BECAUSE THEY COPIED ALL THE INFORMATION FROM FOREIGN MAPS

More importantly, after having copied the list and the maps, the ROC officials explicitly decided NOT TO CLAIM THE SPRATLY ISLANDS in 1935

"the South China Sea islands “were first discovered, named, and used by the ancient Chinese""
So why do so many of them have British names?
Take Jin Yin Dao - Money Island - named after William Money of the Bombay Marine!

Or Lingyang Jiao - Antelope Reef - named after the East India Company ship Antelope which surveyed it. (Just discovered what seems to be a good article by Yannan Ding describing this survey )
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

"“After the end of World War II, [our] government, with support from other Allied nations, stationed forces on the South China Sea islands in 1946"
NO IT DIDN'T! What support? From whom?

"Why did other claimants not object to the claim of sovereignty at that time?"
THEY DID! France, the sovereign power in Indochina made its own rival claims. The Philippines, independent in July 1946 asserted a claim before the RoC expedition of that year.

"These other countries’ claims to the islands of the South China Sea rest on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos)"
NO THEY DON'T! UNCLOS governs maritime claims - not territorial claims. If you don't know the difference, don't write articles like this.

"Unclos generally considers a country’s coastal waters to include the “continental shelf”"
NO IT DOESN'T! Read the darn thing... The phrase "coastal waters" doesn't even appear. "territorial waters" are limited to 12 nautical miles
un.org/depts/los/conv…

"The problem with the Unclos definition of coastal waters"
The phrase "coastal waters" doesn't even appear in UNCLOS

"all the neighbouring countries have overlapping claims with each other"
He's still mixing up territorial and maritime claims here

"It is important to note that mainland China does not consider all the waters within the nine-dash line to be its sovereign waters"
I invite Mr Shan to reference any official statement by the PRC that makes this explicitly clear

"[The PRC] does not object to freedom of navigation and overflights in well-established international passageways through the South China Sea."
UNCLOS gives all ships the right to sail pretty much ANYWHERE, not in 'international passageways'

And then the final boilerplate:
"maintaining the status quo, formulating a code of conduct, shelving disputes and jointly developing the resources are the best and only option to all"

1. the PRC is violating the status quo
2. the PRC is blocking a code of conduct
3. UNCLOS gives countries EXCLUSIVE economic zones, joint development is PRC code for "give me some of what's yours"

There are many authors who really know about the history of Chinese claims in the South China Sea, not least @Chris_PC_Chung (finish that PhD Chris!)

Why doesn't the @SCMPNews commission them instead.

After all, they wouldn't commission me to write about the private equity industry.
Right, that's enough. Time for lunch.

I lied. Here's a plug for the book. Chapter Eight tells the story of the creation of the Chinese territorial claims in the SCS... (now it's lunch)
yalebooks.yale.edu/book/978030023…