7.
CONFIDENTIAL
on W/ Ressamen
now sex SCAD mmute ko wys of 3 Nov. 75
(onia) I' Kingdom I The Filipino, Tomas Cloma, rèstated his own claim to the 'Free Territory of Freedomland (see para.35 of memorandum) in the press and in interviews at the beginning of the year, urging support from the Philippines Government. In May 1974 HMG were notified of the establishment of the Principality of Freedomland'
a merger of Cloma's Free Territory of Freedomland' and the Republic of Koneuwe' on 22 April 1974. The territory claimed by the new state' is apparently the same as that originally claimed by Cloma in 1956 (see para 35 of memorandum). The claim embraces a far larger area. than that expressed by the Philippines Government in February 1974.
8. At an ECAFE session in Colombo on 30 March 1974 both the Chinese and South Vietnamese delegations reaffirmed their respective Governments' claims to the Spratlys and Paracels. At the Law of the Sea Conference in Caracas the South Vietnamese Foreign Minister raised the problem of the disputed islands, stating that the Spratlys and the Paracels were an inalienable part of RVN territory. The Chinese delegation to the Conference appears to have been deliberately absent at the time.
LAPSE OF CLAIMS
France
Paris kettu 4 F20. 1974 is SEAD and FCs kelio 20 9:25 Jan 1 Saigon
9.
At the time of the armed confrontation in the Paracels HMG made informal enquiries of the French as to the status of their claim. The French indicated privately that they considered their own claim to the Spratlys to have lapsed.
Britain
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10. The Secretary of State circulated a paper to the Defence and Oversea Policy Committee of the Cabinet on 27 June 1974 recommending that HMG should regard any British claim to Spratly Island and Amboyna Cay as having lapsed. The paper stated that, in the view of the Law Officers, there was now no substance in a British claim to the islands in international law and set out the political considerations against an assertion of our weak claim. These were that it would create a new and unwelcome British responsibility in South-East Asia; that it would be regarded as provocative by the other claimants, especially China; and that HMG would have no means of enforcing their claim, and would certainly not wish to resist a likely Chinese occupation of the islands. These recommendations were accepted by the Prime Minister in a letter of 8 July 1974. No public statement of the new UK position has yet been made.
11. In February 1974 a re-examination by Legal Advisers of the various claims to sovereignty over the Spratly Islands * led to the conclusion that the withdrawal of the French claim (and the invalidity in our eyes of any claim by the Nationalist authorities in Taiwan) left China's claim as very much the strongest. The Law Officers were however not specifically asked for their views on claims other than the UK claim and no public indication of preference for China's claim has been given.
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* see Annex below
21 January 1975
South & South-East Asia Section
Research Department
CONFIDENTIAL
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