China adopts new parameters for South China Sea claims

China’s observed shift from the so-called ‘nine-dash line’ toward a new legal theory to bolster its claims in the South China Sea (SCS) region could create new challenges for India’s interests in the area.
This shift has been noticed by member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and “is even more serious” than the old claim, according to Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah. He made these comments to local reporters last week.

“Four Sha” (four sands archipelagos) are the four island groups in the SCS region over which Beijing claims it has “historical rights”. The Chinese call them Dongsha Qundao, Xisha Qundao, Zhongsha Qundao and Nansha Qundao.

Internationally they are known as Pratas Islands, Paracel Islands, the Macclesfield Bank area and Spratly Islands.

China's shifting parameters in the region may cast a shadow on India's trade, which passes through it, and India's energy interests in Vietnam.

India has repeatedly called for upholding freedom of navigation and overflight through the SCS.

In the SCS region, Malaysia’s territorial claims overlap with China’s. So do claims of Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam. While Indonesia is not a party to the South China Sea dispute, Beijing does claim historic rights to areas overlapping with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, which has led to a rift between Jakarta and Beijing on the issue.

“The nine-dash line has proven to be a really easy target for critics of China’s South China Sea claims,” Benarnews, an online portal that specialises on SE Asia, quoted Julian Ku, a professor at the Hofstra University School of Law in Long Island, New York State, as saying. “It was also directly considered and rejected by the South China Sea Arbitral Tribunal in 2016.”

According to Benarnews, Bill Hayton, a journalist-turned-scholar who wrote a book on the South China Sea, said the ‘Four Sha’ theory has been “emerging slowly, with a boost after the arbitration tribunal ruling”.

“The Four-Sha is an attempt to develop an UNCLOS-like justification for control over the South China Sea, with some sort of legal basis,” he said. UNCLOS is United Nations Convention of the Law on the Sea.

A US State Department report on China’s SCS claims, titled ‘Limits in the Seas’, does not refer to the ‘Four Sha’ concept. But it refers to China’s sovereignty claim over Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha and Nansha.

But Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has claimed that his country will not use its strength to “bully” its smaller neighbours. He also highlighted the importance of settling disputes in the South China Sea peacefully.

“Stressing only one side’s claims and imposing one’s own will on the other is not a proper way for neighbours to treat each other, and it goes against the oriental philosophy of how people should get along with each other,” Wang told a virtual forum organised by the Chinese embassy in the Philippines on Monday.