Legal Basis of China's Claim over the Huangyan Island

• Author: Ran Guo
• Pages: 531-552

China 531

VI JEAIL 2 (2013)

Ran Guo

∗

   

    

     



     

    

    

    

    

 

    





Keywords

The Huangyan Island, Territorial Acquisition, Critical Date, Inter-temporal

International Law

Legal Basis of China

’

s

Claim over the

Huangyan Island

∗ Lecturer at East China Normal University, Shanghai, China. B.A. (Henan Normal Univ.), M.A. (Tianjin Foreign

Studies Univ.), Ph.D. (Wuhan Univ.). This research was supported by the following research projects: “The Legal

Dilemma and its Solution of China’s Oil and Gas Exploitation in Nansha” (Project No. 2013BFX003) sponsored

by the Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science and “The Interpretation of Historic Title and its

Function in the Dispute over Nansha” (Project No. CLS, 2012, D231) sponsored by the Chinese Law Society. Much

gratitude is extended to Professor Zewei Yang of Wuhan University for his advice. The author may be contacted

at: rguo@fl.ecnu.edu.cn / Address: School of Foreign Languages, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China,

200062.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14330/jeail.2013.6.2.09

532 Ran Guo

1. Introduction

The Huangyan Island

1

(15°07’N, 117°51›E) lies in the southeast Zhongsha Islands,

Sansha City, Hai’nan Province, China. It is about 160nm from Macclesfield Bank

and approximately 130 nm from Luzon Island of the Philippines.

2

As the only island

above sea level during high tide in the Zhongsha Islands, the Island forms a triangle-

shaped chain of reefs, rocks and islets, some of which are 0.5m to 3m above water,

such as South Rock (1.8m) and North Rock (1.5m),

3

encompassing a 15m deep lagoon

with a total area of 130km². China’s sovereign jurisdiction over the island had never

been challenged until April 30, 1997, when the Filipino navy drove an international

amateur radio group away from the island and began to claim sovereignty over

the Huangyan Island.

4

Since then, the Filipino navy has repeatedly detained and

even sunk Chinese fishing boats, arrested Chinese fishermen, and carried out so-

called law enforcement activities on the Island. Meanwhile, the Philippine baseline

law in 2009

5

and initiation of the arbitral proceedings against China in 2013 have

consistently escalated tension with China.

6

The primary purpose of this research is to prove China’s sovereign jurisdiction

over the Huangyan Island from an international legal perspective. This article

is composed of four parts including Introduction and Conclusion. Part two will

compare their claims and narrow down the dispute. Part three will probe into

their official claims through both the history of the Huangyan Island and the

corresponding factual or evidences made by each party under international law

and ICJ judgment. This is all investigated to reach a legally sound conclusion of the

ownership of the Huangyan Island.

1 The Huangyan Island (simplified Chinese:黄岩岛; traditional Chinese: 黃岩島; pinyin: Huángyán Dǎo) is also known

as Scarborough Shoal or Scarborough Reef in English, Bajo de Masinloc or Panatag Shoal (Kulumpol ng Panatag in

Filipino) by the Philippines.

2 Jinming Li, On the Sovereignty Ownership of Scarborough Reef on the Basis of History and International Law of the

Sea, 4 China’s Borderland history and GeoGraphy studies 71-77 (2001).

3 See Introduction to the Huangyan Island, China Unanhai (available only in Chinese), available at http://www.

unanhai.com/a/zhongshaqundao/2012/1212/1151.html (last visited on Sept. 2, 2013); Zhenhua han, a ColleCtion of

historiCal doCuments on China’s south China sea 703 (1988).

4 Supra note 2.

5 The Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo approved Republic Act No. 9522 to define the archipelagic

baselines of the Philippines on Mar. 10, 2009.

6 The Philippines initiated the arbitral proceedings to acquire its sovereign rights and jurisdiction over part of the South

China Sea, including the waters adjacent to the Huangyan Island, on Jan. 22, 2013, despite China’s reservation to the

dispute settlement procedures.