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inhabitants have been Japanese. (1) The islands, according to a Japanese memorandum of 1939, were exploited economically(2) by various Japanese nationals up to the 1929 depression. The Japanese came back in 1937 and 1938 to survey and occupy the islands and on 30 March 1939 annexed all the islands in the area of Shinnan Gunto (see map 1).
9. However France in 1930 and 1933 had annexed a number of islands including Spratly Island. Much space in Foreign Office papers of the period (3) (see paras 42-44) is occupied by British concern with this claim; with the position regarding Britain's own possible claim to two islands; and with the possibility of cooperating with the French in order to lessen the Japanese threat.
10.
After the Second World War and the defeat of Japan, Japan specifically renounced her claims to the Spratly Islands in the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. Others reasserted their claims at this juncture. Itu Aba was said to have been occupied by a Chinese garrison from 1946 to
1949.
11. HMS Dampier visited various islands in 1951. In 1956 the islands once more figured in the news, and a variety of claims and counter claims were made. A garrison from Taiwan re-established itself on Itu Aba that year and has probably been there ever since. The United States conducted a mapping programme in the area in 1957.
12. Various claims have been restated since then but the question remained dormant until July 1971.
CLAIMS TO THE SPRATLYS
13. Before individual countries are discussed a few general points can be made. First, the area which each country claims or has claimed varies considerably. Secondly, the legal complexities of determining the strength of these claims appear to be considerable (4) and it is beyond the
(1) A small group of turtle fishermen from Indo-China together with a Cochin-Chinese official went to Spratly Island in 1937. Some of the group were reported in 1939 as still being on the island.
(2) The Japan Advertiser of 18 April 1939 stated that the Rasa Phosphate. company had shipped out 25,000 tons of guano between 1922 and 1929.
(3) The islands were visited by a British ship, HMS Herald, in 1937 and surveyed by her in 1938.
(4)
Even in 1931 the Foreign Office was able to produce a 10 page printed memorandum on "Considerations governing acquisition of territory, with reference to the question of sovereignty over Spratley Island and Amboyna Cay".
4
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