By Greg Austin
“Right and wrong” is not as important as the obligation of states to the peaceful settlement of disputes.
The Diplomat has published many pieces on the South China Sea in recent weeks in response to reports that China had built a military airfield on Fiery Cross Reef. This was indeed an unwelcome development and worthy of close scrutiny. It fostered many questions about China’s long term military intentions. These concerns were exacerbated by the public presentations of several regional defense ministers at the ShangriLa Dialogue in Singapore in late May.
The speakers in Singapore who called for peaceful resolution of disputes and an end to creeping occupations or land reclamations were right to do so. This is the only correct position that counts. It was one outlined in my 1998 book, China’s Ocean Frontier, which documented the sequence of the various occupations in the Spratly Islands beginning in 1877 with Britain, and continuing through a French claim in 1930; a Japanese presence in the Second World War; Chinese occupation of one island in 1946 followed by its u-shaped or 9-dashed line; the Vietnamese occupations, first by the government of South Vietnam and then later by the government of unified Vietnam in the 1970s and 1980s; the formal Philippines claim in 1971; and Malaysian occupations beginning in 1978.
As the book points out, the most important issue in international law, as it concerns sovereignty of territory, including islands, is that of the critical date (the year the dispute was first evidenced). Physical occupations after the critical date are far less important and even irrelevant in many circumstances.
Read the full story at The Diplomat