The claimants: China and the Philippines

While the dispute certainly involves several other claimant-states like Malaysia, Vietnam,
Taiwan, or Brunei Darussalam, the paper from here on focuses on China and the
Philippines.Specifically, it delves into the cases of Scarborough Shoal (international name;
Chinese name: Huangyan Island; Philippine name: Bajo de Masinloc) despite Taiwanese
involvement; and the more contentious Spratly Islands, which involves all the aforementioned
claimant-states. Not only these two states the most vocal among all parties, but also are the ones
most actively engaged and reciprocated each others actions, prompting periodic episodes of
tensions and low points. However, the conflict resonates far-ranging repercussions than the
Philippines or China itself, as the US enters the scenario despite physically being half-a-
worldaway. This adds a new dimension into the regions security affairs, as the US implements it
pivot to Asia policy and bent on securing its global supremacy amid a rising China.
The boundaries of their historical claim are marked by a "nine-dash line" that protrudes
from China's southern Hainan Island and loops toward Indonesia. This line has always been
something of a mystery. It was drawn up by cartographers of the Kuomintang regime in the final
years of the Chinese civil war before the Kuomintang fled to Taiwan in 1949. (Browne, 2014)
The line started not with nine dashes but 11. Two were scrubbed out in 1953 after the victorious
communists adopted the line. Scale and precision are prized by map makers, but the nine-dash
line lacks any geographical coordinates. It looks as though it was added with a thick black
marker pen.
However, the nine dash-line-map cannot be justified and has no basis in international
law. The map shows that there are nine dashes or dotted lines (it used to be more than nine)
forming a U-shaped line around almost the whole the South China Sea area, which China claims
is part of its territory. The area includes the Spratlys group, a cluster of oil-rich islands disputed
by five other countries, including the Philippines.
On the other hand, the Philippines is an archipelagic state under the definition of the
UNCLOS.
As an archipelagic state, Philippines have a right to employ straight baselines, provided
they shall not depart to any appreciable extent from the general configuration of the archipelago.
An archipelagic State may draw straight archipelagic baselines joining the outermost
points of the outermost islands and drying reefs of the archipelago provided that within such
baselines are included the main islands and an area in which the ratio of the area of the water to
the area of the land, including atolls, is between 1 to 1 and 9 to 1.
Given its proximity to the Philippines, common sense dictates that the Shoal is
laying within Philippine territorial waters not that of China and international law is on the side of
the Philippines. The Treaty of Paris of 1898, The Treaty of Washington of 1900, and the Treaty
with Great Britain of 1930 all state that the westernmost limit of Philippines territory is the 118th
degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, arguably excluding Scarborough.
Until now the Dispute remains unresolved. As of January 2013, the Philippines is
utilizing the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in order to pursue international
mediation through the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea to solve its conflict with
China. There are some still some unknowns of the case.