CHINA-SOUTH CHINA SEA
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On June 3, 2014 China's authoritative official newspaper 'Liberation Army Daily' quite unusually published, apparently as an officially approved record, a summary in English of the remarks made by PLA Deputy Chief of Staff, Lt General Wang Guanzhong, at the Shangri-La Dialogue held in Singapore in the last week-end of May. The summary record is given below:
"Wang Guanzhong, PLA deputy chief of general staff answered questions raised on the site of the 13th Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD) and briefly expounded several ideas with regard to the nine-dotted lines on the South China Sea that the Chinese side held after he made his speech in the SLD on June 1, 2014.
First, China's sovereignty, sovereign rights, and claim of jurisdiction over the South China Sea were formed over a long period of 2,000-plus years. China already discovered and administered the South China Sea, especially the Nansha Islands, its surrounding reefs and related maritime areas, back in the Han Dynasty (206 BC - 220 AD).
Second, during the 2,000-plus years in the past, the Xisha Islands and the Nansha Islands have been subject to China's administration and belonged to China. During the Second World War, the imperialist Japan invaded China and seized the Xisha Islands and the Nansha Islands. In 1946, the Chinese government recovered the sovereignty over the Xisha Islands and the Nansha Islands from the Japanese invaders in compliance with the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration. The Chinese government set up and declared the so-called nine-dotted line in 1948. A great number of historic documents as well as the atlases published by various countries are clearly recorded and marked accordingly.
Third, no countries in the peripheral areas have ever questioned China's sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction over the Nansha Islands, the Xisha Islands and the related maritime areas for a very long time. The various issues about the South China Sea emerged mainly because of the rich oil resources discovered in the area in the 1970s.
Fourth, China is the contracting party of UNCLOS, which took effect in 1994. China's sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction over the islands, reefs and related maritime areas in the South China Sea were formed over a period of 2,000-plus years. The UNCLOS cannot go back and redesign any country's sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction already established. On the other hand, it acknowledges each country's history-based rights to the sea, islands and reefs.
Fifth, UNCLOS is not applicable to the adjustment of the ownership of sea, islands and reefs. The related laws of the sea form a system of law too enormous and plentiful to be covered merely by the UNCLOS. The adjustment of any country's maritime sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction is not delimited in the international laws of the sea either, because there is still a broader system of international laws, which covers the international law of the sea. It just doesn't work to explain things based merely on the UNCLOS. China signed on the UNCLOS and pays respect to it. On the other hand, the U.S. didn't sign on the UNCLOS because the U.S. felt that the UNCLOS is harmful to its benefits in many ways. Does it make any sense for a country which didn't sign on the UNCLOS to constantly use it to pick on China? What would the UNCLOS become if it is used in this way? Does the U.S. intend to respect it? The UNCLOS has become a weapon for the U.S. to take advantage of. Whenever the UNCLOS will do it good, it will wave this weapon against other countries. When the UNCLOS becomes useless for the U.S., the U.S. will just discard it and put it aside.
In the end, Wang Guanzhong expressed that China has always been consistent and unequivocal in dealing with the issue of sea islands and maritime borders by proposing to hold direct consultation and negotiation with the involved party to solve the issue on the basis of respect to historical facts and international laws".
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