Foreign countries’ claim over islands will not succeed

Edited and translated by People's Daily Online

The Philippines and China have been stuck in a stalemate for many days. The Philippines recently conducted military exercises with the United States and the South China Sea issue has again become the focus of world opinion. The Philippines pretended to be bullied by a big country and hoped to get support from the United States. They will never succeed because it not only violates the principles of International Law but also ignores the historical facts.

Both the Nansha Islands and Xisha Islands originally belong to China. The Philippines and Vietnam’s territorial claim of South China Sea Islands is mainly on the basis of the system of exclusive economic zone and continental shelf regulated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In fact, it is not a reason to infringe on the South China Sea Islands.

The UNCLOS only allows the coastal countries to establish 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea Islands but there is not any provision stipulating that coastal countries can demand or occupy it. In addition, the UNCLOS cannot replace other norms of International Law. The UNCLOS states initially that the signatory countries of the UNCLOS should act according to the rules and principles of general International Law when facing issues non-included in the UNCLOS.

The principles of historical rights and International Law are the most effective principles to determine the ownership of the territories, namely, the principles of first discovery, first occupation and first exercise of jurisdiction. China has had jurisdiction over the South China Sea since the Song and Yuan dynasties. Even in modern times, the Republic of China was internationally recognized to take over the South China Sea Islands based on the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation after the defeat of Japan. The administrative regions map of the Republic of China had marked the boundary line in the South China Sea in 1947 and the People’s Republic of China also re-declared its territorial sovereignty of the South China Sea Islands in the Declaration of the Government of the People's Republic of China on the Territorial Sea in 1958.