What is the motive behind the ten-dash line? Is it sheer chutzpah on the part of China whose nine-dash line is already proving to be stranger than fiction? Why sow the ire of the world yet one more time?
What China basically did was to take the base-dash in the U-shaped nine-dash line situated near Natuna island and slap-cut-and-paste it to the southeast of Taiwan and then, for good measure, added another dash northeast and accordingly adjusted the rest of the dashes to encroach even closer to the shorelines of Southeast Asian countries.
Why did China make another scrambling of their dash lines? I think it’s a kneejerk reaction to our recent making public the historical provenance of the Spratly islands, as fishing is their only answer to the centuries of activities of the Iran?n in the Spratlys and Scarborough Shoals. And as pointed out in legalese, fishing does not one whit amount to a state act by any country in the disputed islets and reefs of the South China Sea.
What China aims with its new ten-dash line is to rein in its hold on Taiwan and the other islands to its east and south, short of the scattering of northern islands in Luzon. Is this a foreshadowing of the eventual takeover of Taiwan itself?
One of these islands, it must be pointed out, is what the Chinese now call Lanyu (Orchid Island), southeast of Taiwan. It is only separated from Batanes by the Bashi Channel of the Luzon Strait. But the indigenous people of the island called it Pongso no Tao (“island of human beings”) or Ma’ataw (“floating in the sea”) or Irala from the Iran?n word Iraya or Raya. This is opposite the direction toward the sea or Ilaod or Lilod.
The dichotomy of Iraya (Raya) and Ililud (Lilod) is a stock phrase among the Iran?n in the Illana Bay, southwest of Mindanao. Note, for example, how Buwayaan is traditionally referred to as Iraya and Magindanao as Ilud. Since ancient times, Ma’ataw is the northernmost node of the Batanes hopscotch group of islands. It was only in the 17th century when the French started to call the island Tabaco, which later Filipinos adopted as Botel Tobago.
Ma’ataw had been heavily influenced by the intrepid L?tao-Iran?n who had established their base at Penghu Liehtao in the Taiwan Strait when they had been engaged in commerce and pseudo-smuggling with the inhabitants of the southeast coast of China to circumvent tributary-trade. Lutao also means “to float.” A genetic test conducted by Australian National University and a Taiwan university between the Ma’ataw and the Ivatan peoples of Luzon showed they have the same DNA structure.
The people of Ma’ataw were Austronesians who traded and intermarried with the Ivatan people until the beginning of the colonial era. These two peoples get their wares from the L?tao-Iran?n who had maintained bases in Taiwan (Tatayawan or Tayawan to the Iran?n), particularly at its southern node, to get around the tributary trade scheme of the Celestial Empire. The L?tao-Iran?n were the early Filipinos who first came knocking at the door of China for trade. But in the 12th century, when the Chinese had mustered their own navy, they uprooted the L?tao-Iran?n and other merchant-pirates from their bases in a drive to control the Strait.
The Bashi Channel between Luzon and the Hengchun Peninsula is intermittently the site of flexing Chinese might. With the infamous nine-dash line (now ten-dash line) cutting across it, it hosts undersea cables that are sensitively connecting the countries of the world. It is dangerous how China, as an emerging superpower, is already starting to micro-manage (manipulate) everything in its path to the detriment of other countries near it.
* * *
Prof. Nasser Sharief is a resident historian, genealogist and paleographer at the Philippine Muslim Teachers’ College Institute of Iranun Studies. He currently serves as the secretary-general of the Southeast Asian Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry.