Faulty translations misled Beijing’s sea claims (2)

(Continued from Wednesday)

Beijing’s apparatchik brazenly lies. It invokes “abundant historical facts” to claim all the islands, reefs, rocks, and waters of the South China Sea. Yet it cannot show any detail. That’s because it relies only on say-so of a middling 1933 Inspection Committee for Land and Water Maps.

That committee never visited the outermost edges of China. It only translated too literally into Chinese the names in old British maps of the SCS — including 20 mistaken seamarks.

From that Beijing contrived a “9-dashed line” map. The line encroaches on the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

Via the 9-dashed line, Beijing claims as southernmost limit James Shoal, 50 nautical miles off Sarawak, Malaysia but 950 miles from China. It is 22 meters underwater, absurdly the only national border in the world that is completely submerged. As farcically, Chinese admirals who come to visit would drop concrete and steel markers to the bottom of James Shoal, to delineate China’s territory (see Gotcha, 19 Nov. 2014).

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Two more lies are obvious in Beijing’s 9-dashed fantasy. That is, it considers Macclesfield Bank and Scarborough Shoal to be (its) “islands.”

Beijing calls Macclesfield Bank (English Bank in earlier maps) “Zhongsa Islands,” plural, to mean Central Sandy Islands. Yet by its name, Macclesfield Bank is not an island. It is a fully submerged atoll, the highest point being 9.2 meters below sea level. With area of 6,448 square km, it is one of the largest atolls in the world. It is named after HMS Macclesfield, a British warship that ran aground there in 1804. (See Gotcha, 15 Sept. 2014)

Under UNCLOS, an island is defined as a naturally formed area of land, surrounded by and above water at high tide. This, Supreme Court Senior Justice Antonio T. Carpio explains in many studies of the issue. Yet Beijing foists the underwater “Zhongsa Islands” on coastal states in the SCS.

Too under UNCLOS, no nation may appropriate a submerged seamark that is beyond its territorial sea, Carpio adds. Such seamark belongs to all nations, coastal or landlocked. Macclesfield cannot even be part of any EEZ because it is beyond 200 miles from either Hainan or Luzon. Yet Beijing claims the waters and living resources of Macclesfield. Carpio calls this “grand theft of the global commons” (Gotcha, 10 and 12 Sept. 2014).

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Beijing also foists Scarborough Shoal as “Huangyan Island” from historical distortion.

Huangyan is the Nanhai Island that in the 13th-century a Chinese astronomer-engineer-mathematician is alleged to have visited in 1279. Emperor Kublai Khan had wanted a survey of the Four Seas to update the Song Dynasty calendar system. The Chinese Embassy website in Manila claims:

“Huangyan Island was first discovered and drew (sic) into China’s map in China’s Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 AD). In 1279 Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing performed surveying of the seas around China for Kublai Khan, and Huangyan Island was chosen as the point in the South China Sea.”

The alleged Gou visit to Scarborough in 1279 is the only historical link that Beijing claims to the shoal. Yet a document entitled “China’s Sovereignty over Xisha and Zhongsa Islands Is Indisputable, issued Jan. 30, 1980, tells another story. In it, Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declares that the Nanhai Island that Guo visited in 1279 was in Xisha. Xisha is internationally called Paracel Islands, off the coast of Vietnam and more than 380 miles from Scarborough.

Beijing issued the document to dispute Vietnam’s strong historical claim. Published in Beijing Review, Issue No. 7, Feb. 18, 1980, it states:

“Early in the Yuan Dynasty, an astronomical observation was carried out at 27 places throughout the country. In the 16th year of the reign of Zhiyuan (1279) Kublai Khan or Emperor Shi Zu, (sic) personally assigned Guo Shoujing, the famous astronomer and Deputy Director of the Astronomical Bureau, to do the observation in the South China Sea. According to the official History of the Yuan Dynasty, Nanhai, Guo’s observation point, was ‘to the south of Zhuya’ and ‘the result of the survey showed that the latitude of Nanhai is 15ºN.’ The astronomical observation point Nanhai was today’s Xisha Islands. It shows that Xisha Islands were within the bounds of China at the time of the Yuan dynasty.”

This estops Beijing from saying that Scarborough is Nanhai Island, Carpio says. It officially has declared that Nanhai is in the Paracels, so it cannot claim that Scarborough is the Nanhai Island that Guo visited. Besides, Carpio adds, “It is ridiculous to claim that the Chinese astronomer-engineer-mathematician would visit and write for posterity about a few barren rocks that barely protruded above water at high tide.”

Unimaginable is how Guo went ashore to “visit” Scarborough. It was just rock, with no vegetation or space to accommodate an expedition party. The account that Guo installed one of 27 observatories on Nanhai Island rules out any possibility that Scarborough is Nanhai.

Based on the extant Gaocheng Observatory that Guo built in 1276 in Henan Province, his 27 observatories were massive, 12.6 meters high, Carpio notes. Their purpose was to calculate the duration of the calendar year. To operate an observatory, one had to climb to the top every day of the year to take measurements. No way could such an observatory have been built and operated at the time on the tiny rocks of Scarborough (see also Gotcha, 27 and 29, 2014).

Yet, Beijing’s rulers continue to teach historical lies to the Chinese. They dare not undo their propaganda, lest the people rise against them. So the farce continues, for he who rides the tiger is afraid to dismount. (For more of Justice Carpio’s researches, visit: www.imoa.ph)

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