How China can cement its territorial claims in the South China Sea
Mark Valencia says China can clarify its position on its territorial claims in the South China Seain a way that not only maintains the status quo and preserves its interests, but is also arguably fairer to its neighbours
China has painted itself into a diplomatic and legal corner regarding its claims in the South China Sea. Its infamous and ambiguous "historic" nine-dash line has been variously interpreted by rival claimants as a national boundary; a sovereignty claim to all water and land within it; and, more optimistically, as an indicator of a sovereignty claim only to the islands and reefs and some submerged features it encloses.
The first two interpretations and China's frequent and expanding naval exercises in the South China Sea frighten smaller and weaker Southeast Asian countries and serve as convenient targets for US and Japanese anti-China propaganda.
Indeed, China has been under withering political and legal attack for allegedly violating the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which it ratified in 1996.
The Philippines - with tacit US support - has filed a complaint against China with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, established by the convention. However, China has refused to participate in the case and is taking a propaganda pounding for not doing so. The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July approved a resolution condemning China's behaviour in Asian seas, behaviour that China sees as defending its claims. Meanwhile, rival claimants as well as the US and other Western powers have criticised some of China's actions in its 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone as violating the freedom of navigation. And they and Vietnam say China's drawing of enclosing baselines around the disputed Paracel Islands is illegal.
By this simple but velvet manoeuvre, China could mollify its critics … and build confidence
Several policy analysts and I have suggested that China could turn the tables on its antagonists by making a statement that clarifies the nine-dash line as commensurate with the most optimistic interpretation - a claim to sovereignty only over all legal islands and rocks enclosed by the line.
According to the convention, legal islands are those features that are naturally formed areas of land and above water at high tide. They must be able to sustain human habitation or economic life. Otherwise, they are rocks which have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.