Letters

Deng sought co-operation over islands

The gist of Philip Bowring's erudite article ('Island mentality ignores history', April 22) is the 'fact that China has a long record of written history does not invalidate other nations' history as illustrated by artefacts, language and genetic affinities, the evidence of trade and travel'.

China's position is merely that it has as valid a claim to the disputed island groups in the South China Sea as anybody else, as is borne out by written records. Indeed, in an article in the South China Morning Post in 2010 ('High stakes'), Jerome A. Cohen and Jon M Van Dyke, postulated as much.

Indeed, the late Deng Xiaoping showed China's objective recognition, in regard to the Diaoyu/Senkakus dispute, as well as the South China Sea disputes, that neither side's evidence overwhelmingly invalidates the other's. A very reasonable offer was made to Japan to set aside difference and jointly develop the islands.

It is evident that one has got to start from somewhere in history, preferably dated written records. Otherwise, the 1898/1900 treaties signed between Spain and the US that Mr Bowring referred to would equally not be worth the paper they are written on.

It is thus worth noting from the Cohen/Van Dyke article that it was in fact Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government in 1947, not the subsequent communist administration, that published the nine (originally 11) dashed lines encompassing the three South China Sea island groups.

Peter Lok, Chai Wan