copenlu/druid huggingface dataset:
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2022-07-21): Every Chinese student learns the name "James Shoal," or Zengmu Ansha, a small bank in the South China Sea, lying 72 feet below water. China officially claims the shoal as the southernmost feature of its territory, although Malaysia also claims it, under the UN Convention on the Continental Shelf. [...] "Where is the southernmost point of China’s territory?" is an often-asked question in high school examinations, explains Guan Siqi, 23, who works for an environmental NGO in Beijing. "At first you would wonder what the heck James Shoal was," Guan said. She said the nearness of other islands and countries to the nine-dash line made her wonder as a kid if China was being a bit of a bully, but it wasn’t until she read news about the territory the she learned it was actually disputed. [...] After this week’s court ruling, young Chinese say their belief that China’s territory extends to James Shoal is firmer than ever. No matter how the South China Sea issue plays out, Lin, the student in Australia, said, "I will stand by China."
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2016-07-19): For decades, Chinese schoolchildren have been taught that their homeland’s furthest southern reach was the underwater James Shoal (known in Chinese as Zengmu, a transliteration of "James"), which is located around 50 miles off the coast of Malaysia. Waters around the shoal are home to Malaysian oil and gas platforms. This geography lesson notwithstanding, Chinese maps gave scant attention to the South China Sea. That began to change after 2009, when a map with the nine-dash line was attached in a submission to the U.N. during a dispute with Vietnam. Today, Chinese passports are emblazoned with a map with nine dashes through the South China Sea—plus a 10th that ensures Taiwan, to which the Nationalists retreated in 1949, is counted as Chinese territory. Curiously, though, the dashes on the 2009 map (and on current Chinese passports) are located in slightly different places from those on the original 1947 map. In several cases, the new dashes hug the coasts of other Southeast Asian nations more closely, giving China an even more expansive claim to the waterway "Because the people who made the [newer] map were not strict, they didn’t follow the right image scale," says geographer Wang. "Some people are not working that rigorously." And though China also makes territorial claims in the East and Yellow Seas, these specks of land are not marked by dotted boundaries. Dashes, it appears, are reserved for the South China Sea.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2014-03-01): The first error occurred in 1933 when the Republic of China set up an official Inspection Committee for Land and Water Maps to catalogue every part of Chinese territory on land and sea. The Inspection Committee lacked the means to carry out any maritime surveys and so it plagiarized from a contemporary British Admiralty map and attempted to translate the names of maritime features into Chinese. James Shoal was erroneously translated as Zengmu Tan or sandbank. This error had the effect of transforming a shoal, which lies under the water, into a land feature above the water. The second error occurred in 1947 when the Republic of China drew up China’s claims to the South China Sea in a map containing eleven dash lines. Zengmu Tan was renamed Zengmu Ansha or reef. Despite the fact that James Shoal lies 22 meters below the sea, the People’s Republic of China advances the fictitious claim that it is a land feature marking the southernmost extent of China’s territory. [...] Malaysian foreign ministry officials were once again unavailable for comment. A day after the PLAN visit to James Shoal, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson asserted China’s "indisputable sovereignty" over James Shoal and denied that China had received an official protest from Malaysia.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-09-01): The committee’s naming efforts took them as far south as James Shoal, a small bank just 100km from the coast of Borneo, and as far south-west as Vanguard Bank (between James Shoal and the Vietnamese coast). It is not entirely clear why they did so: both of these features are underwater and so not islands at all. It appears that the committee simply copied a map produced by Edward Stanford Ltd. of London in 1918, which gives particular prominence to both James Shoal and Vanguard Bank. The committee then mistranslated the words ‘shoal’ and ‘bank’ – both of which refer to underwater features in English nautical terminology – by using the Chinese word tan, which means ‘sandbank’, an above-water feature. As a result, the official map published in 1935 featured two non-existent islands. This became highly significant in 1947 when another Chinese government committee declared the James Shoal to be China’s southernmost point. The legacy of this map-making is that China has been left claiming an underwater feature, 1,500km from its undisputed coastline, as an integral part of its territory. Untangling this particular cartographic knot is not going to be easy.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2014-08-26): James Shoal is a small bank in the South China Sea, lying under the water at a depth of 22 meters (72 feet). It is located about 80 km (50 mi) from the Malaysian coast and about 1,800 km from the Chinese mainland. Both the PRC and ROC officially claim the shoal as the southernmost feature of China. Malaysia also claims the shoal. As the bank is under the water, there is no way to erect a sovereignty stele. On April 20, 2010, however, the Chinese Marine Surveillance Ship-83 came to the water around the shoal. Several officers of the ship threw a sovereignty stele into the water. The stele is a big and heavy marble engraving with the Chinese characters Zhongguo (China). Another report from 2013 tells the story of Chinese naval officers and soldiers participating in an oath-taking ceremony on waters off Zengmu Ansha, pledging to safeguard China’s territorial integrity and marine interests.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2019-03-14): The so-called nine-, ten-, but also eleven-dash lines indicate the area that China considers it has sovereignty over. In 2009, the Chinese government circulated a nine-dash map through a set of notes verbales to the United Nations, taking inspiration from an eleven-dash line map published by the Nationalist Government of the Republic of China in 1947. This map, in turn, was seen to follow a map published by the Republic of China’s Land and Water Maps Inspection Committee in 1935. In these maps, the geographical extent of the area claimed by Beijing includes the islands, banks and shoals as well as the surrounding waters of the Paracels, the Spratlys, Scarborough Shoal and Macclesfield Bank, and the Pratas – known in China as the Xisha, Nansha, Zongsha and Dongsha archipelagos respectively – all the way down to James Shoal – also known as Zengmu Ansha reef – as its southernmost tip, 1,800 miles away from mainland China. [...] Scarborough Shoal is a disputed territory claimed by China, Taiwan and the Philippines. Since the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff, access to the shoal has been restricted by China. Scarborough Shoal forms a triangle-shaped chain of reefs and rocks with a perimeter of 46 km. It covers an area, including an inner lagoon, of 150 km2. The shoal’s highest point, South Rock, measures 1.8 m above water during high tide.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2020-07-15): China’s claims in the South China Sea fall into two types: "territorial claims" to the disputed rocks and reefs and "maritime claims" to the resources in the sea around those rocks and reefs. The United States, quite sensibly, has never taken a position on which country is the rightful owner of these territories. However, Pompeo’s statement breaks new ground by asserting that China has "no lawful territorial or maritime claim to (or derived from) James Shoal." This will be music to the ears of Malaysia because James Shoal (Beting Serupai in Malay, Zengmu Ansha in Chinese) is an entirely submerged piece of seabed about 50 miles from the coast of Borneo and more than 600 miles from China. China claims James Shoal as its "southernmost territory" because of a translation error by a Republic of China government committee in 1934. The committee used the Chinese word "tan" as a translation of "shoal." Tan means "sandbank," and this bureaucratic mistake led to a piece of seabed becoming defined as land. In 1947, the translation was changed to ansha, which means "hidden sand," but the territorial claim remained.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2013-02-09): Where is the "southernmost point of Chinese territory"? It's a controversial question and the least controversial answer might be Hainan Island . More controversial options would be the Paracel (Xisha) islands or the Spratlys (Nansha). But officially the southernmost point is even further south - as far south as the James Shoal, about 100 kilometres from the coast of Borneo. What's more surprising is that this piece of the motherland is actually invisible. There's nothing there to see, unless you have diving equipment. The James Shoal lies 22 metres below sea. Yet this inconvenience doesn't prevent PLA Navy ships visiting the shoal from time to time to demonstrate Chinese sovereignty over it. This ritual involves heaving a large piece of engraved stone over the side of the ship. There is now a small collection of Chinese stelae gathering organic encrustations on the sea floor, more than 1,000 kilometres from Hainan. [...] But how to translate "shoal"? It's a nautical word meaning an area of shallow sea where waves "shoal" up. Sailors would see a strange area of choppy water in the middle of the ocean and know the area was shallow and therefore dangerous. James Shoal is one of many similar features in the Spratlys.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2018-05-16): This view of China’s maritime territory would change dramatically over the following three years. It seems likely that this change was facilitated, perhaps even orchestrated, by two of Bai Meichu’s students. In 1927, while he was chair of the Department of History and Geography at Beijing Normal University, Bai taught Fu Jiaojin 傅角今 and Zheng Ziyue 鄭資約. After the Second World War, they were hired by the Chinese Ministry of Interior to advise the government on its territorial boundaries. They drew the government maps in 1946 and 1947 that led to the official Chinese claim in the South China Sea. Fu and Zhang used Bai’s map and his ‘U-shaped line’ to guide them. Thus China would claim the underwater features of the James Shoal and Vanguard Bank as its territory. This makes no sense at all – except if you understand this strange piece of history. The Chinese claim is the result of a series of mistakes. [...] It was not until 1948, therefore, that the Chinese state formally extended its territorial claim in the South China Sea to the Spratly Islands, as far south as James Shoal. Clearly something had changed in the years between July 1933, when the Republic of China government was unaware that the Spratly Islands existed, and April 1947, when it could "reaffirm" that the southernmost point of its territory was James Shoal.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2022-05-20): Third, the PRC has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to James Shoal, off Malaysia. This one deserves a moment of study. James Shoal is a submerged feature on the sea floor some 20 meters beneath the surface. It is also only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia – and over 1,000 nautical miles from the Chinese mainland. Yet Beijing claims it as the "southernmost point of China"! The claim is absurd – appearing to derive from an erroneous old British atlas and a subsequent translation error, suggesting the underwater shoal was actually a sandbank above the waves. But it isn’t. And yet Beijing’s propaganda touts James Shoal as PRC territory and PLA Navy ships deploy there to stage ostentatious oath-swearing ceremonies. International law is clear: An underwater feature gives no rights. James Shoal is not and never was Chinese territory, nor can Beijing assert any lawful maritime rights from such spurious claims. [...] Other PRC commercial survey ships and rigs have been sent repeatedly into Southeast Asian waters in which China has no rights. Numerous PRC state-owned tourism, telecom, fisheries and banking firms invest in ways to enable Beijing’s unlawful claims and bullying. PRC fishing fleets in the South China Sea often operate as maritime militia under the direction of China’s military, harassing and intimidating others as a tool of violent state coercion.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2016-06-01): The dotted line encloses the main island features of the South China Sea: the Pratas Islands, the Paracel Islands, the Macclesfield Bank, and the Spratly Islands. The dotted line also captures James Shoal which is as far south as 4 degrees north latitude. On its significance, it is noted in an essay that, [...] It is noted that "Chinese activities in the South China Sea dates back 2000 years ago". Further, "China was the first country to discover, name, explore and exploit the resources of the South China Sea Islands and the first to continuously exercise sovereign powers over them". Following the end of World War II, stating that China actively resumed its activities over the area and by 1948, after conducting necessary surveys and renaming the islands, it was able to publish "an official map which displayed a dotted line in the South China Sea". The People's Republic of China, founded on 1 October 1949, maintained sovereignty of China over the South China Sea and officially pronounced as part of its 1958 Declaration on the Territorial Sea and 1992 Law of the People's Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone that "the territory of People's Republic of China includes, among others, the Dongsha islands, the Xisha islands, the Zhongsha islands, and the Nansha islands". See the Position Paper of the People's Republic of China, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1217147.shtml, para.4.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2020-10-22): The PRC’s maritime claims in the South China Sea have no basis in international law. Some even lack any basis in reality, such as its absurd insistence that James Shoal is the southernmost tip of China. James Shoal, which is more than 1,000 miles from China, is fewer than 50 miles from Malaysia—and 70 feet underwater, so it isn’t territory at all. Beijing’s sovereignty claim appears to derive from an old British atlas and a translation error suggesting the underwater shoal was actually a sandbank above the waves. It isn’t – yet Beijing continues pushing maritime misinformation. [...] Southeast Asian Leaders issued a strong statement at the June 26 ASEAN Summit that South China Sea disputes must be resolved in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The message was timely, given the July 12 anniversary of the powerful 2016 ruling by the South China Sea Arbitral Tribunal which rejected Beijing’s maritime claim as a violation of international law. The PRC, as party to UNCLOS, was obligated to comply, but instead dismissed the ruling as a "scrap of paper." Beijing meanwhile put advanced missiles and aircraft on contested outposts in the Spratlys, in clear violation of Xi Jinping’s 2015 pledge to a White House press conference not to militarize these features.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2015-06-16): Luconia Breakers (Hempasan Bantin / 琼台礁) is just over 100km north of James Shoal, the shallow patch of ocean that Chinese people are routinely taught is the southernmost point of their country’s "territory," despite it being several metres underwater. As this post will show, unlike James Shoal, the territory at Luconia Breakers actually exists above the waterline. This is significant because if the PRC ever needs to clarify the nature of its maritime claims under international law, it could end up adopting the "new" feature as its southernmost territory. [...] Most importantly, Qiongtai Reef may be China’s southern extremity — the southernmost point that has dry land. Unless an ice age comes [making] James Shoal protrude above the water…at present, Qiongtai Reef is probably the southern extremity of China’s land 中国陆地的最南端.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of People's Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-09-28): James Shoal[1][6] is a shoal (bank) in the South China Sea, with a depth of 22 metres (72 ft) below the surface of the sea,[1][7] located about 45 nautical miles (83 km; 52 mi) off the Borneo coast of Malaysia. It is claimed by Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The reef and its surrounds are administered by Malaysia. [...] Chinese students are taught and tested in schools that James Shoal is the southernmost point of Chinese territory, and that territory within the nine-dash line has always belonged to China, without any reference to the disputes over the islands and surrounding waters by neighbouring countries.[22] [...] The PRC has no lawful territorial or maritime claim to (or derived from) James Shoal, an entirely submerged feature only 50 nautical miles from Malaysia and some 1,000 nautical miles from China’s coast. James Shoal is often cited in PRC propaganda as the "southernmost territory of China." International law is clear: An underwater feature like James Shoal cannot be claimed by any state and is incapable of generating maritime zones. James Shoal (roughly 20 meters below the surface) is not and never was PRC territory, nor can Beijing assert any lawful maritime rights from it.[1][23][24][25][26]
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of People's Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-09-01): The committee’s naming efforts took them as far south as James Shoal, a small bank just 100km from the coast of Borneo, and as far south-west as Vanguard Bank (between James Shoal and the Vietnamese coast). It is not entirely clear why they did so: both of these features are underwater and so not islands at all. It appears that the committee simply copied a map produced by Edward Stanford Ltd. of London in 1918, which gives particular prominence to both James Shoal and Vanguard Bank. The committee then mistranslated the words ‘shoal’ and ‘bank’ – both of which refer to underwater features in English nautical terminology – by using the Chinese word tan, which means ‘sandbank’, an above-water feature. As a result, the official map published in 1935 featured two non-existent islands. This became highly significant in 1947 when another Chinese government committee declared the James Shoal to be China’s southernmost point. The legacy of this map-making is that China has been left claiming an underwater feature, 1,500km from its undisputed coastline, as an integral part of its territory. Untangling this particular cartographic knot is not going to be easy.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of People's Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2021-04-03): Article 11 of the Maritime Traffic Safety Law of the People’s Republic of China provides, ‘Military vessels of foreign nationality may not enter the territorial waters of the People’s Republic of China without the approval of the Government of the People’s Republic of China.’ 28. [...] "In several thousand years of history it has been constantly under the actual jurisdiction of our country, and not only has our country always considered it as an internal sea, but also [in fact] is internationally recognized". Fu Chu, Concerning the Question of Our Country’s Territorial Sea, Beijing, 1959; translated in J.A. Cohen and Hungdah Chiu, People’s China and International Law (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974) at 484. [...] See ‘Statement of the Government of the People’s Republic of China on China’s Territorial Sovereignty and Maritime Rights and Interests in the South China Sea’, 12 July 2016, available at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/nanhai/eng/snhwtlcwj_1/t1379493.htm.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of People's Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2024-09-24): A 2012 Chinese eighth-grade geography textbook includes a map of China with the nine-dash line and the text "The southernmost point of our country's territory is Zengmu Ansha (James Shoal) in the Nansha Islands." Shan Zhiqiang, the executive chief editor of the Chinese National Geography magazine, wrote in 2013: "The nine-dashed line ... is now deeply engraved in the hearts and minds of the Chinese people."[42] [...] - ^ a b c Jamandre, Tessa (14 April 2011). "PH protests China's '9-dash line' Spratlys claim". Malaya. Archived from the original on 19 April 2011. Retrieved 2 June 2011. [...] 人民日报：中国在南海断续线内的历史性权利不容妄议和否定 - ^ a b c "外交部「南海議題及南海和平倡議」講習會媒體提問紀要". Ministry of Foreign Affairs Republic of China (Taiwan) (in Chinese). 8 April 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2021.
Claim: James Shoal is a territory of People's Republic of China (James Shoal, 2024-10-09)
Evidence (2016-09-28): The committee’s naming efforts took them as far south as James Shoal, a small bank just 100km from the coast of Borneo, and as far south-west as Vanguard Bank (between James Shoal and the Vietnamese coast). It is not entirely clear why they did so: both of these features are underwater and so not islands at all. It appears that the committee simply copied a map produced by Edward Stanford Ltd. of London in 1918, which gives particular prominence to both James Shoal and Vanguard Bank. The committee then mistranslated the words ‘shoal’ and ‘bank’ – both of which refer to underwater features in English nautical terminology – by using the Chinese word tan, which means "sandbank," an above-water feature. As a result, the official map published in 1935 featured two non-existent islands. This became highly significant in 1947 when another Chinese government committee declared the James Shoal to be China’s southernmost point. The legacy of this map-making is that China has been left claiming an underwater feature, 1,500km from its undisputed coastline, as an integral part of its territory. Untangling this particular cartographic knot is not going to be easy.