China mulls over new base near PH

Posted to the Manila Standard Today (Jun 8): China mulls over new base near PH

The South China Morning Post based in Hong Kong reported on Saturday that China plans to create a military base in the Kalayaan Island Group, a move that is seen to further increase the tension in the ongoing territorial dispute between China and the Philippines.

The KIG is located near Palawan, and has been declared as part of  Philippine territory as early as 1946. The government has always maintained that the KIG is an integral part of Kalayaan town in Palawan, a municipality created by Presidential Decree 1596 in June 11, 1978.

China, however, claims the islands as its own, as part of a larger territory it calls Nansha (Spratlys).

The SCMP report said a military base will be built after the planned expansion of an artificial island located on the Fiery Cross Reef, which the Philippines calls Kagitingan Reef.

Chinese Naval Research Institute expert Li Jie told SCMP that the military base will feature an airstrip and a port. The base will also have storage for military supplies.

China has already constructed an observation post on the reef, the report said.

If the construction of a military base pushes through, China will have a strategic outpost in the heart of disputed territories in the South China Sea including the Spratlys and the KIG.

According to Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations in Renmin University in Beijing, the artificial island will be at least double the size of the US military base in Diego Garcia, which occupies an area of 44 square kilometers in the Indian Ocean.

Jin also said the proposal to construct the artificial island was submitted to the Chinese central government and approval will depend on the progress of Chinese reclamation at Johnson South Reef (Mabini Reef).

“It’s a very complicated oceanic engineering project, so we need to learn from the experience [on Johnson South Reef],” he told SCMP.

In an earlier report, supposed images of the planned military base were released by the blog Tiananmen’s Tremendous Achievements. The blog also said that the base will include an airstrip.

As this developed, a Chinese maritime security expert brushed off allegations that China has violated provisions of the United Nation on Law of the Sea, saying that the Unclos “does not properly address the issue of his country’s historic rights and sovereignty over the entire South China Sea.

In a statement posted in the state-owned China Daily, East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai professor Zheng Zhihua cited two provisions from the Unclos that he said do not clearly define the issue on historic rights.

“Some countries view China’s maritime claim in the South China Sea as ambiguous because of certain historic reasons. The first reason is that the Unclos does not properly address the issue of historic rights,” he said.

“Despite the reference to historic title in Article 15 and 298 (1)(a), the provision on historic bays in Article 15 (6), and the recognition of traditional fishing rights in Article 51, it does not have any provision for the definition of historic rights or their specific connotation and denotation,” Zheng said.

Citing provisions from the Unclos, the Philippines has filed a case before the Arbitral Tribunal challenging China’s nine-dash line claim, even as Vietnam, which had clashed with China over Beijing’s move to build an oil rig in the Paracels island, is also considering to file its own case before the tribunal.

“A few international observers also accuse China of deliberately obscuring its territorial claims in the South China Sea by using terms not found in the Unclos, such as “adjacent waters” and “relevant waters”. And some countries keep demanding that China “clarify” its nine-dash line map,” he said.

“The fact is that, if these countries do not change their mindset and attitude, the nine-dash line will continue to be vague for them irrespective of how clearly China defines it,” Zheng added.

He said that Beijing has full sovereign rights over Manila’s West Philippine Sea, Tokyo’s Senkaku island, and Vietnam’s waters, citing so-called “three official documents”.

Zheng said they have evidence such as the 1947 Location Map of the South China Sea Islands released by the Kuomingtang government in Nanking; the 1958 Declaration of the Government of New China on the Territorial Sea; and the 1992 Law on Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone.

“These documents state that the Dongsha Islands, Xisha Islands, Zhongsha Islands, Nansha Islands and other islands are part of the sovereign territory of China,” he said.

Zheng also argued that there is also no “consistent understanding” that has been reached in international law on historical rights.

Israeli professor of law and diplomat Yehuda Blum said that the term “historical rights” denotes the possession by a state, over certain land or maritime areas, of rights  that would not normally accrue to it under the general rules of international law”.

“Historic rights are a product of a lengthy process comprising a long series of acts, omissions and patterns of behavior which, in their entirety, and through their cumulative effect, bring such rights into being and consolidate them into rights valid in international law,” Zheng explained.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2014/06/08/china-mulls-over-new-base-near-ph/