page_title: Taiping Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Taiping Island / History
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 1946年12月、南沙諸島太平島に上陸した中華民国海軍将兵。左より4人目鄭資約、5人目林遵。中文（中国大陆）‎: 1946年12月14日，民国政府收复太平岛，全体接收官兵在岛上升起国旗并合影留念。画面前排左四为国民政府内政部代表郑资约，前排左五为支队指挥官林遵，前排右四则为南沙群岛接收专员麦蕴瑜。
context_page_description: Taiping Island, also known as Itu Aba, and also known by various other names, is the largest of the naturally occurring Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The island is elliptical in shape being 1.4 kilometres in length and 0.4 kilometres in width, with an area of 46 hectares. It is located on the northern edge of the Tizard Bank. The runway of the Taiping Island Airport is easily the most prominent feature on the island, running its entire length.
  The island is administered by the Republic of China, as part of Cijin, Kaohsiung. It is also claimed by the People's Republic of China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
  In 2016, in the ruling by an arbitral tribunal in the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in the case brought by the Philippines against China, the tribunal classified Itu Aba as a "rock" under United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Both Taiwan and PRC/China rejected this ruling.
  The adjacent unoccupied Zhongzhou Reef is also under the control of Taiwan.
context_section_description: From before the 1870s the island was used by fishermen from Hainan. They had a semi-permanent settlement. Supplies were shipped from Hainan to island in exchange for turtle shells.
  China first asserted sovereignty in the modern sense to the South China Sea's  island when it formally objected to France's efforts to incorporate Itu Aba and other islands and rocks into French Indochina during the 1884–1885 Sino-French war. The 1887 boundary convention signed between France and China places the Spratly and Paracel islands under Chinese rule. Chinese maps since then have consistently shown China's claims, first as a solid and then as a dotted line.
  At first, France recognized Chinese sovereignty of Spratly and Paracel islands, in exchange for Chinese recognition of Vietnam as a French territory. In 1932, a year after the Japanese formally invaded northeast China (Manchuria), France formally claimed both the Paracel and Spratly Islands.  China and Japan both protested.  In 1933, France seized the Paracels and Spratlys, announced their annexation, formally included them in French Indochina, and built a couple of weather stations on them, but did not disturb the numerous Chinese fishermen it found there. In 1938 Japan took the islands from France, garrisoned them, and built a submarine base at Itu Aba (now Taiping / 太平) Island. In 1941, the Japanese Empire made the Paracel and Spratly islands part of Taiwan, then under its rule.
  In 1945, in accordance with the Cairo and Potsdam Declarations and with American help, the armed forces of the Republic of China government at Nanjing accepted the surrender of the Japanese garrisons in Taiwan, including the Paracel and Spratly Islands.  Nanjing then declared both archipelagoes to be part of Guangdong Province. It was administratively attached to the municipality of Takao (Kaohsiung) in the Japanese colony of Taiwan. On 6 November 1946, the ROC government sent four warships to the South China Sea to secure islands within the region, commanded by Lin Zun and Yao Ruyu (姚汝鈺): ROCS Chung-Yeh (中業號), ROCS Yung-hsing (永興號), ROCS Tai-ping (太平號) and ROCS Chung-chien (中建號). The warships departed from Guangzhou and headed towards the Spratly and Paracel island groups. On 12 December the two ships led by Lin Zun, ROCS Tai-ping and ROCS Chung-Yeh, arrived at Taiping Island. In commemoration of the island being secured, the island was chosen to be named after the ROCS Tai-ping warship, and thus a stone stele reading "Taiping island" was erected on a breakwater tip southwest of the island. The other three ships likewise had their names used: Woody Island (in the Paracels) was named Yongxing (Yung-hsing) Island (presently PRC-occupied), Triton Island (Paracels) was named Zhongjian (Chung-chien) Island (presently PRC-occupied), and Thitu Island (Spratlys) was named Zhongye (Chung-Yeh) Island (presently Philippines-occupied).
  After being secured by Nationalist China, the island was placed under the administration of China's Guangdong Province. When the Chinese Communists gained control of mainland China, the defeated Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, but retained control of the Taiping garrison. Japan officially renounced its control and transferred the island to the trusteeship of the Allied Powers within the San Francisco Peace Treaty on September 8, 1951.  A different interpretation is that Japan officially renounced its sovereignty and transferred the island to the Republic of China under the provisions of the Taipei Peace Treaty.
  In 1952, a Philippine civilian began to mine sulfur from Taiping Island and that same year, a note attached to the Treaty of Taipei provided the Nationalist Chinese arguments for sovereignty over the island. The Nationalists established a permanent presence on the island in July 1956.
  From 2000, a detachment of the ROC Coast Guard Administration was stationed on the island, replacing the Marine Corps detachment. The Taiping Island Airport was completed in December 2007, and a C-130 Hercules transporter airplane first landed on the island on 21 January 2008.
  On 2 February 200
caption: ROC Navy at Itu Aba Island
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