Chinese academics are now being called upon to produce studies that would justify Beijing’s tenuous claims to practically 90% of the South China Sea (SCS) after its maritime claims have been ridiculed worldwide for being as “factually correct” and “historically proven” as Marvel comics.
Xi Jinping and his top acolyte, Wang Yi, have been taking the peoples of the world for a ride by insisting China has “indisputable sovereignty” over the Spratlys, the Paracels and whatever else can be found beneath the surface of the SCS. China may have to get Superman, Batman and Robin as well as the practitioners of the Hogwarts school of sorcery to speak on Beijing’s behalf.
If the academic dons of China had the scintilla of proof that Beijing’s “historical claims” were genuine, they could written treatises and dissertations to show to the entire world that China had a “title” to the SCS, and that the Ming dynasts had “ruled” over reefs, shoals and seamounts in the vast sea. No one among them tried to gamble on the issue. Fact is, the “indisputable sovereignty” shtick originated in 1947, before the San Francisco Treaty was signed, sealed and delivered. It should matter a great deal that the 1947 was merely a sketch done by Kuomintang oceanographers who merely drew those areas where the Republic of China “could lay claims on islets.” Thus, the original 11-dash-line was not a territorial claim. The oceanographer who drew that sketch disavowed any plan to stake a Kuomintang claim on 90% of the SCS and refused to be part of a revanchist plot to extend Chinese territory beyond the 12th parallel. The oceanographer did not play with the tune of Xi Jinping’s pied piper until he died in the mainland.
Wu Shicun, founder of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies (NISCSS), told a seminar held in Hainan province last week that “narrative construction and discourse building are essential if we are to effectively defend our rights and interests in the South China Sea – both in the present and in future.” The earlier pieces of evidence cited by Beijing were smothered, as when a supposed “book” narrating the expanse of the Ming dynasty that supposedly included the Spratlys could not be produced, with officials admitting the “incontrovertible” proof was destroyed, or possibly shredded.
Wu doesn’t know whereof he speaks. Since 1602, when the Ricci-Li map of the world was created to satisfy the demands of the Ming emperor and delude himself that China had a “vast empire,” consisting of countries in Asia, Africa and even Europe when the fact was that China only sent out trade missions and gifted potentates and despots to ensure that Beijing would be their favored trading partner. This map, principally done by the Jesuit Fr. Matteo Ricci with the help of a Chinese cartographer surnamed Li, became significant only since Ricci drew the locations of 850 points in Europe, Africa, North and South America and put legends or descriptions of those areas. Extant copies of the original Ricci-Li map are in Europe, with perhaps the Jesuit order also possessing at least one copy.
What should concern Wu about this map is that the maps in Europe carried a caption about the 12th parallel that said the Ming dynasty’s territory ended with Hainan, and islets, reefs, cays and shoals beyond the 12th parallel (which passes the Philippines) are not Chinese territory. The Ricci text was read and appreciated by the Ming dynasty officials, including eunuchs like Zheng He, who used littoral boats for his trade mission to Asia and Africa. It is possible that this map is the one referred to by Wu and Xi’s cheerleaders. There are supposed to be two copies of the Ricci-Li map in China, one in Liaoning and the other one in Nanjing. The copies at the University of Minnesota (purchased from a Japanese collector for $1-million) and the US Library of Congress curiously did not have the legend or caption written by Ricci, which must have been erased or papered over with waves and other oceanic signs.
In a South China Morning Post report dated June 30, 2024, Wu lectured that China faced “an increasingly arduous battle over public perception and opinion,” adding that “rival claimants” were “stepping up cooperation with extraterritorial forces in the study of historical and legal issues” concerning SCS. Big, vacuous words from an academic who is now mobilizing “scholars” who would insist that China’s “historical claims” should trump the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which China is a signatory, after the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) threw precisely the opaque historical claims over the SCS since Xi became China’s leader. Yi Xianliang, a former ambassador to Norway who also served as deputy director of the foreign ministry’s boundary and ocean affairs department, also said the PCA’s 501-page July 12, 2016 ruling that favored the Philippines was a “bad joke.” Yet, he added it was incumbent upon the Chinese “to ask why the ruling is flawed” and ask if it “will happen again and how we can prevent it from happening again.” China had the chance to contest the case filed by the Philippines but it chose not to, thus waiving its right to defense its position on the basis of UNCLOS.
Well, the Beijing’s case has a Chinaman’s chance of succeeding, all because what China has is the nauseating daily diatribe of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) that regards China is still the Ming Dynasty that has the power of life and death over its subjects. Even if China insists on its territorial claims in the SCS, the rest of the world continues to ignore them. The challenge to Wu and Yi is simply this: Show your extant copy of the Ricci-Li map and compare it with the 1602 copies kept by Japan and South Korea as well as those in Europe. They’ll be surprised as the map commissioned by the Ming Dynasty stated in no uncertain terms that China’s territory ended in Hainan. As to the Philippine claim to Panatag and Ayungin shoals, the best evidence is a simple map and the continental shelf. The map shows China is thousands of kilometers away. The maritime features and outcrops in the SCS have nothing to do with China’s continental shelf. But then, Xi is infected with hybris, or the use of force or coercion to humiliate the Philippines, and also of hubris, which means overweening pride that destroys order, according to the Greeks.
