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Lat 8°N 7°N
Long 116°Ľ
114°C
14 7°N
#
111030'E
1.
9°N 12°N
111030'E
1140E
Spratly, Amboyna Cay, Thi Tu, Loai Ta, Flat Island and Nanshan were all within the area.
23. South Vietnam.
The Republic of Vietnam's present claim to sovereignty over the Spratly "archipelago" (no definition of area is given) is in its declaration of 15 July 1971. This states that the Spratly Islands were shown in Vietnamese maps of 1834 and that the occupation of the Spratly (and Paracel archipelago) was reported in the Annals of Vietnam. It goes on to say that the French Government "on behalf of the Vietnamese Empire" took possession of the islands in 1930 and 1933. Foreign powers were notified in September 1933 but only the Japanese protested. (This is not correct. The Chinese Government did protest - see para 29). The declaration states that the leader of the Vietnamese delegation to the San Francisco Conference publicly affirmed sovereignty over the Spratlys at that time and no objection was made. (This again skates over the fact of a Chinese declaration see also para 29.) Reconnaissance and naval patrols had been regularly despatched since independence and the President in a decree of 22 October 1956 placed the islands under the administration of Ba-Ria province.
24. A brief history of what the South Vietnamese have done in respect of their claim is as follows. No evidence has yet been found concerning a Vietnamese declaration at the San Francisco Conference but there is no reason to doubt that a claim was then made. A further claim reaffirming Vietnamese sovereignty over the Spratlys was made on 29 May 1956. In August 1956 a Vietnamese party were reported as having landed on the islands and raised the Vietnamese flag and planted markers (1) Claims were reaffirmed in 1957 and 1959. Interestingly the 1959 claim as reported in the official Vietnam Presse states that the decree of 22 October 1956 incorporated the archipelago into the new province of Phuoc Tuy and that the islands were under Ba-Ria province during French administration. This conflicts with the Vietnamese memorandum of 1971.
25. Two problems arise over the claim. First, the extent of the area claimed: it must presumably be the same as the French claimed in 1933 (see para 17). This is confirmed by the Vietnam Presse of 29 May 1963.
(1)
A Vietnamese party was said to have landed on Spratly Island to collect guano in 1937 and were still there in 1939 (see para 8 footnote 1).
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