SECRET UK EYES ONLY
Government asked for the views of the British Government on the area and gave a list of the reefs which she considered to be in the area of "Dangerous Ground". Confusion is also caused by the fact that different islands have been given different names by different countries. For instance the Chinese Government calls Spratly Island, Nanwei, and the Filipinos call Itu Aba, Ligao.
5. According to our Embassy at Manila (July 1971) the present inhabitants of the islands are as follows. Three companies of Taiwanese marines are occupying Itu Aba. (1) Descendants of an American called Meads (see also para 37) and occasional fishermen also inhabit some of the islands. Small contingents of Filipino troops are on Thitu, Nanshan and Flat Island. It is most unlikely that there are any Vietnamese on the islands.
HISTORY
6. It is difficult to sort out precise historical details from a welter of claims and counter claims. British records have concentrated on the history of two islands, Spratly and Amboyna Cay. These were, according to a Foreign Office memorandum of 1932, first visited in 1864 by Commander Ward RN. (2) In 1877 Mr Treacher (then Acting Governor of Labuan and Acting Consul-General in Borneo) registered a claim by two men (one a British subject) to the land and products of Spratly Island and Amboyna Cay and gave permission, subject to the approval of the Secretary of State, to hoist the British flag over them. Foreign Office investigations had shown that no foreign government had officially claimed sovereignty over the two islands and that they were so distant from Borneo and the Malay Peninsula that neither could claim them as dependencies on the grounds of contiguity or geographical position.
More investigation needs to be done, even concerning that period, to attain a complete picture of the situation. The Vietnamese Government for instance restated her view in 1971 that the islands of the group figured on Vietnamese maps in 1834, while the Chinese Government claims inter alia that the German Government, which sent men to survey the islands in 1883, withdrew after a protest from the Chinese Government.
8. Chinese fishermen, often from Hainan, certainly have visited various islands over a long period of time to fish and collect turtle. The other
(1) According to the Americans Itu Aba was being used in 1971 as a storage dump for excess defense material procured in Vietnam.
(2) The Admiralty supplied further details about the early history of these islands in 1933.
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