Three questions for Obama / What Chinese scholars say

Nations’ ties reshape through time. Each side’s expectation needs periodic reassuring. Leaders thus must restate exactly where they stand.

Visiting Barack Obama reportedly will bring up today corruption and human rights issues. Noynoy Aquino is to table the strain Beijing is causing in the West Philippine (South China) Sea.

Of concern to Filipinos is the clash of Beijing’s nine-dash claim with the UN Convention on Law of the Sea and freedom of navigation. So Obama needs to be asked:

• Do you support coastal states’ right to a 200-mile exclusive economic zone and so, as a responsible nation and ally, condemn China’s invasion of Scarborough Shoal and Mischief Reef, which are within 200 miles of the Philippines but 700 miles from China’s nearest province?

• What action do you think would make China heed freedom of navigation in the high seas, given that its response to diplomatic calls was unilaterally to impose an ADIZ (air defense identification zone) on all aircraft passing above the East China Sea?

• For you, would China’s making good its threat forcibly to evict a duly commissioned Philippine Navy vessel from James Shoal constitute an act of war to activate the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty?

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Chinese scholars increasingly are questioning the bases of Beijing’s “historic geographic claims” over the East and South China Seas. Despite communist rulers’ muzzling of free speech, academics are publicizing their views, in Chinese and English, to ease regional tensions.

A recent research under the pen name Li Woteng debunks the historicity and legality of the “nine dashes.” Posted on Sina, China’s most popular online forum, the article “Nine-Dash Line: Keep or Eliminate” continues to elicit comments.

Li recounts that Bai Mei Chu drew a map in 1936, during China’s reconstruction, without any justification. Bai concluded then: “Those were the places that our fishermen earned livelihood, those obviously belonged to our sovereignty.” Yet there’s no record of anyone conducting an investigation, Li rues.

When first drawn there were 11 dashes. “Since then the nine dashes have had no definition, no one knows what it is, and the government hasn’t got any explanation,” Li says. “There’s an assumption that an official in charge of home affairs Zheng Si Yue (superimposed) it on the map arbitrarily.”

Noted scientist Li Linghua, of China’s National Oceanographic Data and Information Center, prefaces Li Woteng’s study as “worthy.” He writes: “In an increasingly integrated global economy, our country needs to seriously consider Mr. Li’s proposal and promptly eliminate this ‘traditional’ line to pave the way for resolving the sea disputes.”

Li Woteng says: “It is ridiculous that the nine-dash line has been on the Chinese map for more than 60 years, but Chinese experts still argue about it.” The line has been adjusted several times, including the deletion of two dashes within the Tonkin Gulf (making the 11-dash line under Chinese Kuomintang Party rule the nine dashes of today). “This suggests there is no clear legal origin for the nine-dash line,” Li adds.

Only UNCLOS is the legal basis for territorial mapping, Li asserts. The 1982 pact binds signatory states to respect each one’s 200-mile EEZ. Chinese borders emanate from it. Li says: “The 1992 Law on the Territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone of the People’s Republic of China stipulated that China’s waters extend 12 nautical miles from the baseline. The 1996 Declaration on the Baseline of the Territorial Sea defined the Shisha archipelago (known in Vietnam as the Hoang Sa archipelago) as the baseline. This proves that the nine-dash line is not China’s sea demarcation line.”

Li Linghua’s 90 separate studies on maritime issues and laws corroborate Li Woteng’s. “The nine-dash line is unreal,” he says in the latest one. “The map was established by our predecessors with no longitudes or latitudes, and it was not based on laws and regulations. It was merely a unilateral announcement by China in 1947.”

Beijing has never officially announced the U-shaped line, he notes, but many textbooks and newspapers consider it the official sea border, making most Chinese believe it. “The government needs to clarify the legitimacy of the line,” he says, “lest there be clashes in the future when Chinese people rely on the line to oppose any country they think is violating it.”

Li’s study made waves in a conference in June 2012 organized by the Tianze Economic Research Institute and the news website Sina.com. The event drew many scholars and saw arguments over solutions to the dispute between what the Chinese media describes as “hawks” and “doves,” the latter including the 66-year-old Li. In a lecture a month earlier at Wu Han University, Li said the real legal foundation has to be the UNCLOS. “China is a member of the convention, so it should not have drawn its own borders after strong objection from the Vietnamese and Philippine governments,” he said then.

Under UNCLOS, he says, “people in every country in the East and South China Seas, including China, have a 200-mile area large enough for fishing and developing marine resources. If neighboring countries develop economically in the future, China will also benefit. We should have a global point of view.”

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