“China issued this official document to bolster its claim to the Paracels to counter Vietnam’s strong historical claims to the same islands. The astronomical observation point Nanhai was today’s Xisha Islands. It shows that Xisha Islands were within the bounds of China at the time of the Yuan dynasty,†Carpio pointed out.
Carpio, who has apparently been studying the territorial dispute pending before the United Nations International Tribunal on Law of the Seas (ITLOS), also noted that it is puzzling how Guo Shoujing went ashore to “visit†Scarborough Shoal when “it was just a rock, with no vegetation, and did not even have enough space to accommodate an expedition party.â€
“Worse, the Chinese historical account that Guo Shoujing installed one of the 27 Chinese observatories on Nanhai Island clearly rules out any possibility that Scarborough is Nanhai Island because no observatory could have possibly been physically installed on Scarborough Shoal at that time,†he added.
Assuming China’s historical claim is valid, it should no longer be honored under international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Carpio said.
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