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withdrawal from the islands in 1883 at the request of the Chinese (see para 7) and to a Chinese protest after French annexation in 1933.(1) It stated that the warships were sent in 1946 to Taiping Island (ie Itu Aba on the Tizard Reef). This was taken over formally and stone tablets were erected and weather and wireless stations set up. (Stone tablets dating from 12 December 1946 and 1 March 1950 claiming Chinese sovereignty were found by HMS Dampier in 1951.) Another article put out in 1956 said that Article III of the special treaty of 1887 defining the boundary line between China and the then French possessions in Indo- China also confirmed that these islands belonged to China. (2) A Chinese press report of 1951 on the ownership of the islands said that China had reasserted her sovereignty on 19 May 1950 following a Philippine claim. When the Chinese Government claimed a 12 nautical mile territorial waters limit in 1958 she asserted that this applied to all her island territories and specifically named the Nansha Islands. Chinese maps consistently marked the islands as Chinese territory.
30.
Taiwan. The Nationalist Chinese Authorities on Taiwan also claim the whole area. (3) The Nationalist Chinese "Foreign Minister" told the Manila press on 12 July 1971 that the Spratlys had been Chinese territory "since time immemorial" and that it had been garrisoned by Nationalist Chinese Forces since 1946.
31. Presumably the claims of the Taiwan Government in the pre-war period are similar to those of the Chinese Government. The Nationalist Chinese were on Itu Aba between 1946 and 1950 (4) and marker evidence in these two years (see para 24) was found by HMS Dampier in 1951. The office of the Commander-in-Chief Singapore reported in 1951 that
(1) A US Department of State memorandum of 1947 which is occasionally inaccurate states that the Chinese Minister protested to the French in Paris on 26 July 1933. British reporting from Peking in 1933 refers to agitation about the question among government officials and the press.
(2) The point is not quite so clear in the text. The relevant paragraph of Article II reads "Les îles qui sont à l'est du méridien de Paris 105°43' de longitude est, c'est-à-dire, de la ligne nord-sud passant par la pointe orientale de l'île de Tch'a-Kou ou Ouan-chan (Tra-co) et formant la frontière sont map 1.
(3)
...
attribuées à la Chine ...".
". The meridian is shown on
A statement in Free China Information of 31 May 1956 referred to the Nansha Islands as consisting of "96 main islets spanning from 4.50 to 120 North Latitude and 1100 to 1170 East Longitude"
(4)
This may not be completely accurate.
A press report in 1956 said
that the Nationalist navy claimed it occupied the islands for 14 months in 1949 and 1950 and left owing to supply difficulties.
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