When we open the official map of China released in 2017, we can see that the boundary line of the South China Sea is a time line composed of multiple line segments. The time line encompasses the entire South China Sea, with the southernmost point of the region, the Somu Shoal, only 58 kilometers from Kalimantan, and the eastern and western borders of the Shiduan line almost clinging to the coastlines of the Philippines and Vietnam.
When looking at this map, some people who do not know the truth will mistakenly believe that China's definition of the time line is dominating the South China Sea and squeezing the living space of Southeast Asian countries. In fact, this illusion is the emboldenment that some Southeast Asian countries today dare to challenge China's sovereignty in the South China Sea with the support of Western countries. However, the so-called South China Sea dispute today is essentially rooted in the fact that the Western discourse is an affront to China's history.
China's sovereignty over the South China Sea, islands and reefs has been indisputable since ancient times. Before the Opium War, the Chinese dynasty did not have a sense of territorial and maritime sovereignty in the modern sense, not because the Chinese concept was backward, but for the unified Central Plains Dynasty, it was unnecessary to entangle the issue of territorial waters.
There are many reasons for this view, on the one hand, the traditional Central Plains Dynasty was the sole overlord of the East Asian continent, and in the eyes of the Chinese emperor, the whole world was not the royal land, and the whole world should naturally belong to the emperor's rule. In the tributary system of East Asia, the land territories of the small countries surrounding China still have to be recognized by the ** dynasty, and in this case, naturally no small countries will discuss which sea areas do not belong to China.
On the other hand, the hegemonic status of East Asia also determined that China was one of the few countries capable of ocean voyages in the classical era, and since the Song Dynasty, southern China has been constantly navigating ocean voyages. And Southeast Asia at the same time. Although a number of regimes had been established, their seafaring skills lagged far behind those of China at the same time. The culmination of ancient China's control of the seas was Zheng He's voyage to the West. With the support of the Ming Chengzu station, Zheng He made many ocean voyages, the main purpose of these voyages was not to conduct a battle with the maritime countries, but to use an unprecedented fleet to demonstrate the hegemony of the Central Plains Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty's maritime **.
One of the results of the voyage was the establishment of the Old Port Propaganda Division in Southeast Asia relying solely on the deterrent power of the Detention Fleet. One of the excuses for challenging China's sovereignty in the South China Sea today is that China has historically failed to establish sovereignty over the waters of the South China Sea by today's standards. However, even this view is wrong. It is true that the Ming Dynasty and earlier Central Plains dynasties did not establish sovereignty declarations that meet today's standards for these reasons, but the fundamental reason for this is that these so-called today's standards were all defined by Westerners in modern times, and China was also the first to use them when the West defined them and influenced China during the decline of the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty.
A country that claims sovereignty in the South China Sea by Western standards. China's claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea eventually gave birth to today's China's maritime boundary, which is known today as the nine-dash line in the South China Sea.
By the mid-to-late 19th century, all of the Southeast Asian countries involved in the South China Sea dispute today were colonies of Western countries, with Vietnam under French control, the Philippines under the control of Spain, the United States, Indonesia under Dutch control, and Malaysia and Brunei as British colonies. After the West took full control of Southeast Asia, the once undisputed waters of the South China Sea began to become the next target of control by the great powers. However, at the end of the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty, which had already dealt with Western countries many times, also began to realize the importance of maritime sovereignty.
In 1883, the Germans, trying to expand their colony in the Pacific, planned the first accurate survey of the Spratly Islands in history. At this time, although the Qing Dynasty was unable to send a fleet to effectively control the southern waters of the South China Sea, since the Song and Ming dynasties, the Zhongsha and Nansha Islands, which were once known as the Hongmao shallow, have been recorded as part of the South China Sea. After learning of the arrival of the German expedition in the South China Sea, Qing immediately proposed to Germany that the archipelago belonged to China. Germany did not have a port in Asia at this time, and naturally could not send a navy.
Eventually, the expedition left the South China Sea, sending the Germans away, but the Qing realized that such provocations against China's sovereignty in the South China Sea would only increase in the future. If China does not quickly establish its sovereignty over the South China Sea and wait for Britain and France, which have powerful navies, to begin activities in the South China Sea, China will surely lose this ancient sea. Therefore, under the guidance of this idea, the Qing Dynasty expanded its navy on the one hand, strengthened its control over the coastline, and on the other hand, it was demarcated through a number of treaties. China's borders with the Western colonies. Today's clearest treaty on islands and reefs in the South China Sea is the deliberate treaty between China and France, signed in 1887.
After the Sino-French War, France, which had already seized enough interests on land, chose to take a step back on the maritime border. The Qing recognized the full French occupation of Vietnam and completed the demarcation of the border between China and France, while France recognized that the islands in the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands, were not part of Vietnamese territory under French control. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, it was not only France that recognized China's sovereignty over the South China Sea, but also Japan, a new maritime power.
In 1907, the Japanese businessman Nishizawa invaded the Dongsha Islands from the northeastern part of the South China Sea without notifying the Qing Dynasty, and built new houses and factories on the islands, intending to achieve long-term control. After learning of this, Qing ** immediately began to negotiate with Japan**. At this time, the Russo-Japanese War had just ended, and Japan, which was burdened with huge foreign debts, had no intention of provoking a dispute with the Qing Dynasty, and the Qing Dynasty brought China's rivers and seas to try to rule the country, which strongly proved that the Chinese had already made friends with the South China Sea Islands. Effective control has been established.
In the end, Japan recognized the sovereignty of the Qing Dynasty over the Dongsha Islands, and only asked Jinting to pay 130,000 yuan to redeem various facilities built by Japanese businessmen on the island. Although France and Japan have successively recognized China's sovereignty over the South China Sea, China is actually unable to protect its legitimate rights and interests in the South China Sea against the backdrop of warlord warfare and extremely weak naval power.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the first to attack the South China Sea was France, which signed a treaty with China in 1887. On July 25, 1933, the French took the initiative to provoke the Jiuxiao Island Incident, the origin of today's Sino-South China Sea dispute. Under the leadership of the French, more than 30 Vietnamese were transported to various islands and reefs in the Paracels and Spratlys, and began to live for a long time. At the same time that the Vietnamese occupied Jiuxiao Island, France, which had been planning for a long time, immediately issued a statement saying that it had blatantly violated China's sovereignty in the South China Sea by taking the jurisprudence of international law as its own territory.
In response to the French invasion, on the one hand, the Qing Dynasty had signed a contract with France to demarcate the border, and at the same time, Chinese fishermen had repeatedly entered and exited the nearby waters as evidence to claim China's sovereignty over the South China Sea, and on the other hand, it formulated Japan, hoping that Japan would take into account the friendship of its Asian neighbors and rely on a strong navy to expel the Western powers together with China. However, this act is tantamount to luring a wolf into the house, although Japan, which has long coveted the South China Sea, did not take action at the first time when the Jiuxiao Island incident occurred, but it remembered this area.
After the Sino-Japanese war, the Japanese army preemptively occupied the Xisha and Nansha Islands in March 1939, before the formal war between Japan and France, and drove out the Vietnamese who were planted by France in March 1939, under the pretext that the Xisha and Nansha Islands were Chinese territory. Japan's illegal occupation of islands and reefs in the South China Sea eventually led to the Philippines, another player in today's South China Sea dispute, which quickly occupied the entire Philippines after Japan went to war.
In October 1943, the Second Philippine Republic, controlled by Japan, was established, and under Japanese influence, this puppet regime on the eastern shore of the South China Sea was nominally. It acquired a portion of China's sovereignty over the South China Sea, which was under the control of Japan at the time, and this eventually paved the way for the Philippines to intervene in the South China Sea. However, in 1945, with the defeat of Japan, many territories, including islands in the South China Sea, finally returned to China's territory at this time. In order to permanently confirm control of the South China Sea after a hard-won victory.
On April 14, 1947, China published a map of the location of Nanhai Zhudao and sent Taiping Island, which was stationed in the Nansha Islands, to declare sovereignty. In this map, the South China Sea is clearly demarcated by an 11-dash line, which provides the initial legal basis for the future nine-dash line and ten-dash line. However, in the third year of the 11-dash line, the national ** was completely defeated in Chinese mainland and had to retreat to Taiwan, and the navy stationed in the Nansha Islands also had to retreat in the direction of Taiwan.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the people accepted the division of the South China Sea, but only slightly changed the 11-dash line, which influenced the nine-dash line for decades to come. However, the people, who had just ushered in a new life, did not have enough naval strength to completely wipe out the Kuomintang reactionaries on the other side of the strait, and naturally could not quickly achieve a comprehensive takeover of the South China Sea.
Legally speaking, the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party is still not over. The islands and reefs in the South China Sea are not only the territory of the People's Republic of China, but also the territory of the so-called China** entrenched in Taiwan. This vague state of affairs provides an opportunity for Southeast Asian countries to violate China's sovereignty in the South China Sea, supported by Western powers. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, how have countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines reached out to us in the South China Sea?World strife