US Tries to Break Mainland’s Nine-Dash Line in South China Sea Through Taiwan

 

Sources: China Times

 

June 16, 2014

 

Hsu Ho-chien

 

Post-graduate Student of University of Edinburgh

 

 

The situation in the South China Sea has become precarious since the beginning of this year.  Jeffrey A. Bader, a former senior director for Asian affairs on the National Security Council in the Obama Administration and a former United States Ambassador to Namibia, and Bonnie Glaser, a senior adviser for Asian affairs in the Freeman Chair in China Studies and concurrently a research fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies,  wrote articles to push the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan to clarify the historical background and substance of the eleven-dash line (nine-dash line for Beijing) in the South China Sea proclaimed by the ROC in 1947.

 

The ROC government, after WWII, dispatched a flotilla to explore and retake islands in the South China Sea occupied by the Japanese during WWII.  The ROC government proclaimed the U-shaped line (eleven-dash line) in the South China Sea to reiterate its sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea.  If the ROC could not hold its position over the South China Sea, it would be a blow to Beijing as Beijing also claimed  sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea despite the fact that there was no legally binding standing for Beijing’s claims.  Fortunately, Taipei has made no major adjustment to its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea in spite of encouragement, urging, and pressure from the US to change the ROC’s claims in the South China Sea.

 

The US is trying to make Taipei change its stance and then break the Mainland’s claims over the South China Sea.  A similar case occurred more than five decades ago, i.e., Tibet.

 

To date, the ROC government has never formally recognized the Central Tibetan Administration (or the Tibetan Government in Exile) or established any official relations with it.  Since the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, from the Beiyang Government (北洋政府，1912-1928), to the National Government, to the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, and the relocation of the National government from Nanking to Taipei, no Chinese regimes have made any change in its stance on Tibet, which has been intrinsically linked to traditional nationalism.

 

Whether or not the same long-lasting stance of Beijing or Taipei over the South China Sea and East China Sea would change depended on the development of the international situation and the review of future generations.

 

【Editor’s note: The Interior Ministry of the Republic of China (ROC), in 1935, ordered the Committee on the Review of Hydrographic and Land Maps to chart every island of China in the South China Sea.  The committee also made a bilingual geographical glossary of China’s islands in the South China Sea, proclaiming the integrity of sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea.  After WWII, the ROC government dispatched its navy to retake every island in the South China Sea which the Japanese had occupied during the war.  In October 1947, the Department of National Territory under the Interior Ministry issued a new bilingual geographical glossary of China’s islands in the South China Sea and mapped China’s islands in the South China Sea in 1948.   The famous U-shaped line (dubbed 11-dash line) appeared for the first time.  】