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THE MODERN CREATION OF CHINA’S ‘HISTORIC RIGHTS’ CLAIM IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

The overlapping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea threaten to spark conflict in East Asia. On several occasions in recent years, disputes over the right to extract oil and gas have caused clashes between Chinese and Southeast Asian vessels. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was agreed by almost all countries in 1982 to try to resolve such disagreements. However, the People's Republic of China is currently trying to claim rights that go beyond UNCLOS and infringe on the UNCLOS-based rights of the other claimants. It deploys two arguments in particular: that the archipelagos in the South China Sea collectively generate rights to maritime resources and that China enjoys ‘historic rights’ in the sea. Neither of these arguments is found within UNCLOS, however. This article explores the origin of these Chinese arguments and finds that the ‘historic rights’ claim can be traced to a single Taiwanese academic writing in the 1990s during a period of intense debate in Taiwan over its relationship with the PRC.