Scarborough Shoal

Scarborough Shoal, also known as Panacot, Bajo de Masinloc ("Masinloc Shoal" in Spanish), Huangyan Island (Mandarin Chinese: 黄岩岛; pinyin: Huáng Yán Dǎo; lit. 'yellow rock island'), Minzhu Jiao (Mandarin Chinese: 民主礁; lit. 'Democracy Reef'), and Panatag Shoal (Filipino: Buhanginan ng Panatag, lit. 'serene sandbank'), are two skerries located between Macclesfield Bank to the west and Luzon to the east. Luzon is 220 kilometres (119 nmi) away and the nearest landmass. The atoll is a disputed territory claimed by the Republic of the Philippines through the Treaty of Washington in 1900 via the 1734 Velarde map, as well as the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The atoll's status is often discussed in conjunction with other territorial disputes in the South China Sea, such as those involving the Spratly Islands, and the 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff. In 2013, the Philippines initiated arbitration against China under UNCLOS. In 2016, the tribunal ruled that China's historic title within the nine-dash line was invalid but did not rule on sovereignty.

Scarborough Shoal

Disputed atoll
Landsat 7 image of Scarborough Shoal in 2000
Scarborough Shoal Scarborough Shoal
Other names	Bajo de Masinloc Democracy Reef Huangyan Island Minzhu Jiao Panacot Shoal Panatag Shoal Scarborough Reef
Geography
Location	South China Sea
Coordinates	15°11′N 117°46′E
Total islands	2 islets with many reefs
Major islands	1
Highest elevation	1.8 m (5.9 ft)
Highest point	South Rock
Administration
People's Republic of China (de facto since 2012)
Province	Hainan
Prefecture-level city	Sansha
District	Xisha
Claimed by
Republic of China (Taiwan)
Municipality District	Kaohsiung Cijin
Philippines
Province	Zambales
Municipality	Masinloc
Demographics
Population	0

The English name of the atoll came from Captain Philip D'Auvergne, whose East India Company East Indiaman Scarborough grounded on one of the rocks on 12 September 1748 before sailing on to China.

Geography

Scarborough Shoal forms a triangle-shaped chain of reefs and rocks with a perimeter of 46 km (29 mi). It covers an area of 150 km² (58 sq mi), including an inner lagoon. The atolls' highest point, South Rock, is 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) above sea-level at high tide. Located north of South Rock is a channel, approximately 370 m (1,214 ft) wide and 9–11 m (30–36 ft) deep, leading into the lagoon. Several other coral rocks encircle the lagoon, forming a large atoll.

The atoll is about 198 km (123 mi) west of Subic Bay. The 5,000–6,000 m (16,000–20,000 ft) deep Manila Trench lies between the atoll and the Philippine island of Luzon to the east. The nearest point of land is in Palauig, Zambales on Luzon island, 220 km (119 nmi) due east.

International Laws

The doctrine of intertemporal law was established after the Island of Palmas Case ruling. Under the doctrine, treaty rights are assessed under the laws in force at the time the treaty is made, not at the time a dispute takes place. The findings "Were any island within those described bounds ascertained to belong in fact to Japan, China, Great Britain or Holland, the United States could derive no valid title from its ostensible inclusion in the Spanish cession."

International law on claims differ if the territory is inhabited or uninhabited. In the 1928 Island of Palmas case, for inhabited territories, the court stated that "although continuous in principle, sovereignty cannot be exercised in fact at every moment on every point of a territory. The intermittence and discontinuity compatible with the maintenance of the right necessarily differ according as inhabited or inhabited regions are involved, or region enclosed within territories in which sovereignty is incontestably displayed or again regions accessible from, for instance, the high seas." For uninhabited territories, the 1931 Clipperton Island case ruled that "if a territory, by virtue of the fact it was completely uninhabited, is, from the first moment when the occupying state makes its appearance there, at the absolute and undisputed disposition of that state, from the moment the taking of possession must be considered as accomplished, and the occupation is thereby completed. Xxx [T]he fact that [France] has not exercised her authority there in a positive manner does not imply the forfeiture of an acquisition already definitely perfected." The ruling was affirmed in the 1933 Eastern Greenland case.

In the Eastern Greenland Case between Norway and Denmark, the critical date doctrine was established. It was ruled by the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) that the Norwegian proclamation on July 10, 1931, annexing Eastern Greenland was the "critical date" in that specific case.

Under the principle of Uti possidetis juris, the boundaries of former colonies must be respected by all states. It was established after the Frontier Dispute case between Burkina Faso and Mali). The ICJ ruled that uti possidetis juris is a "general principle, which is logically connected with the phenomenon of the obtaining of independence, wherever it occurs. Its obvious purpose is to prevent the independence and stability of new States being endangered by fratricidal struggles provoked by the challenging of frontiers following the withdrawal of the administering power…Its purpose, at the time of the achievement of independence by the former Spanish colonies of America, was to scotch any designs which non-American colonizing powers might have on regions which had been assigned by the former metropolitan State to one division or another, but which were still uninhabited or unexplored."

In international law, maps cannot establish title to territory unless if it is attached to a treaty. Moreover, maps unilaterally produced by a state, even if not attached to a treaty, can bind the producing state if it is "adverse to its interest". This was established in the 2002 Delimitation of the Border between the State of Eritrea and Ethiopia case, and was affirmed further in the Pedra Blanca arbitration between Malaysia and Singapore in 2008, when the ICJ ruled: "The map still stands as a statement of geographical fact, especially when the State adversely affected has itself produced and disseminated it, even against its own interest."

History

The 1734 Velarde map shows Galit, Panacot, Lumbay, Los Bajos de Paragua, as well as Borney. The map was one of the key evidences in the Philippines v. China PCA case against China's so-called nine-dash line claims.

Galit, Panacot, and Lumbay shown off the coast of Central Luzon in the 1734 map

Galit, Panacot, Lumbay and Scarborough Shoal shown off the coast of Central Luzon in the 1794 map

Scarborough Shoal, along with Galit, Panacot, and Lumbay shown off the coast of Central Luzon in the 1810 map, originally published in 1771.

Aerial view of Scarborough Shoal (1938)

Scarborough Shoal is named in English after a British civilian merchant ship, the Scarborough which grounded on the feature on 12 September 1748.

The Philippines believes that it refers to one of the 3 islands, Galit, Panacot, and Lumbay shown off the coast of Central Luzon in the 1734 Velarde map amid maps were published with Scarborough shoal, Galit, Panacot and Lumbay in 1771 map.

A number of countries have made historic claims of the use of Scarborough Shoal. In April 1800 it was named Maroona Shoal, after being surveyed by the Santa Lucia, a Spanish frigate, and this name was used on a chart in 1808, but later replaced in the Philippines by the name Bajo de Masinglo. The name Maroona Shoal was still in dual use on marine charts in English in 1889.

China said that it has a Yuan dynasty map and subsequent surveys by the royal astronomer Guo Shoujing during Kublai Khan's reign showing that Scarborough Shoal had been used by Chinese fishermen since the thirteenth century. According to Filipino judge Antonio Carpio, maps of ancient China show the island of Hainan as the southernmost point of the country.

In 1734, the Spanish colonial government published the first edition of the Velarde map, showing the territories included in the territory of the Philippines. According to the Phlippines, the map shows actual sovereignty over the Scarborough Shoal (called Panacot in the map), and the Spratly Islands (referred as Los Bajos de Paragua), and is the earliest map which shows sovereignty over the said territories. The atolls' current name in English was chosen by Captain Philip D'Auvergne, whose East India Company East Indiaman Scarborough briefly grounded on one of the rocks on 12 September 1748, before sailing on to China.

There are Qing dynasty maps based on 1767 work that show multiple islands in the South China Sea.

In 1771, Jean Baptiste Nicholas D. D'Apre de Mannevillette published a map of the China Sea which includes Scarborough Shoal, along with Galit, Panacot. and Lumbay which are close to the Luzon coast. The Spanish colonial government of the territory of the Philippines launched the first ever survey of Scarborough Shoal on 4 May 1792. The survey, Plano de la Navigacion, was taken by Alejandro Malaspina aboard the ship Santa Lucía, with Filipino comrades. A chart published in 1794, shows Scarborough Shoal in some detail with the date of the grounding incident indicated, while showing Galit, Panacot and Lumbay only as dotted-line outlines. In 1808, the Spanish colonial government published the 1808 Carta General del Archipelago Filipino, showing the sovereign territory of the Philippines, which according to the Phlippines included Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly islands, as recognized by the international community. In 1875, a more complete edition of the Carta General del Archipelago Filipino was published by the Spanish colonial government as the official territory of the Philippines.

In 1898, after the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States through the Treaty of Paris (1898), which had maps attached to it. However, Scarborough Shoal, the Spratlys, and parts of Tawi-tawi remained in Spanish hands as they were excluded in the treaty lines. This led to the signing of the Treaty of Washington (1900), which according to the Phlippines retroactively ceded Scarborough Shoal, the Spratly Islands, and the remaining parts of Tawi-tawi to the United States as part of the territory of the Philippines. During the Islas Palmas case, the United States, as representative of the territory of the Philippines, reiterated in a memorandum that the 1875 Carta General del Archipielago Filipino "is both an American official and a Spanish official map" of Philippine territory. According to the Philippines, this bound the United States on its recognition of the Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands as Philippine territory. From 1899 to 1902, the United States war department in the territory of the Philippines republished and reissued four times the 1875 Carta General del Archipelago Filipino with the addition of military telegraph lines, military cable lines, eastern cable company lines, and military department boundaries. The maps included Scarborough Shoal as part of Philippine territory, according to the Phlippines.

In 1909 China led an expedition to the Paracels and for the first time formally declared its claim.

International salvage litigation resulting from the wreck of the Swedish ship Nippon on 8 May 1913, on Scarborough Shoal, was heard and recognised by the claimants in the Philippines.

In the 1930s China and the Philippines, each without the knowledge of the other, pursued actions relevant to their claims on the Scarborough Shoal.

China published a map including Scarborough Shoal as its territory in April 1935.

In 1935, the Philippines adopted the 1935 Philippine Constitution, which reiterated the territory of the Philippines as per the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the 1900 Treaty of Washington, and the 1930 US-UK Treaty.

In 1938, the Commonwealth of the Philippines asked the U.S. State Department to determine ownership of the Scarborough Shoal, but there was no documentary evidence of an official Philippine claim to Scarborough Shoal.

In 1943, China published "China Handbook (1937-1943)" during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Its southernmost territory was defined as "Triton Island of the Paracel Group". China revised the content in 1947, claiming the Spratlys as their southernmost territory for the first time in history. In the 1947 China Handbook, China specifically recognizes that the Spratlys are contested among China, the Philippines, and Indochina.

The Philippine government conducted an oceanographic survey in 1957, and in 1965, the Philippine flag was raised in the area.

In an article from 18 February 1980, the Beijing Review confirmed that Guo Shoujing built an observatory in the Paracel Islands, and not Scarborough Shoal.

When China built their facilities on Mischief Reef within the Philippine EEZ in 1995, then National Security Advisor Jose T. Almonte pushed for the establishment of a lighthouse on Scarborough Shoal to bolster the Philippine claim. The parts of the lighthouse had been fabricated on the mainland Philippines but, according to Almontre, the project was scuttled for internal political reasons and to avoid antagonizing the Chinese.

The 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff between China and the Philippines led to a situation where access to the atoll was restricted by the People's Republic of China. The expected intervention of the United States to protect its ally through an existing mutual defence treaty did not commence after the United States indirectly stated that it does not recognise any nation's sovereignty over Scarborough Shoal, leading to strained ties between the Philippines and the United States. In January 2013, the Philippines formally initiated arbitration proceedings against China's claim on the territories within the "nine-dash line" that includes Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal, which it said is "unlawful" under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). An arbitration tribunal was constituted under Annex VII of UNCLOS and it was decided in July 2013 that the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) would function as registry and provide administrative duties in the proceedings.

On 12 July 2016, the arbitrators of the tribunal of PCA ruled in favor of the Philippines on most of her submissions.. They concluded in the decision that there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or resources, hence there was "no legal basis for China to claim historic rights" over the nine-dash line. Accordingly, the PCA tribunal decision is ruled as final and non-appealable by either country. The tribunal also criticised China's land reclamation projects and its construction of artificial islands in the Spratly Islands, saying that it had caused "severe harm to the coral reef environment". It also characterised Taiping Island and other features of the Spratly Islands as "rocks" under UNCLOS, and therefore are not entitled to a 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone. China however rejected the ruling, calling it "ill-founded". In 2019, Taiwan also rejected the ruling.

In late 2016, following the visit of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte to seek warmer ties with China, the PRC gave "fishing rights" to Filipino vessels to access the atoll for fishing. In January 2018, Rappler reported that the Chinese Coast Guard frequently took the fish catch of Filipino fisherfolk, paying them "two bottles of mineral water" worth 20 pesos for every 3,000 pesos' worth of fish. On 14 June 2018, China's destruction of Scarborough Shoal's reefs surged to an extent which they became visible via satellites, as confirmed by the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Amid the steady deterioration of China-Philippines relations under Philippine president Bongbong Marcos on 30 April 2024, a Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) ship and a fisheries vessel, accompanied by invited journalists, attempted to approach the waters of the shoal. Chinese Coast Guard ships responded by firing water cannons at the vessels, which sustained damages. PCG spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela later said the water cannon incident was not an "armed attack" that could trigger the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty as there was no "death of a soldier or a member of the Philippine Coast Guard", citing Bongbong Marcos' earlier statement.

Land reclamation and other activities in the surrounding area

A March 2016 article by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said that satellite imagery had shown no signs of any land reclamation, dredging or construction activities in Scarborough shoal and the only vessels present were a Chinese civilian ship anchored within the mouth of the lagoon, which has been typical for several years, and two Filipino trimaran-type fishing ships outside the shoal. However, according to the then U.S. chief of naval operations Admiral John Richardson that did not mean that Chinese ships had not performed surveys in preparation for reclamation.

In September 2016 during the ASEAN summit, the Philippine government produced photos that it said showed fresh PRC construction activity at the atoll. A US administration official questioned the Philippines' claim, saying the United States had not detected any unusual activity at Scarborough Shoal.

Also in September 2016, the New York Times reported that PRC activities at the Shoal continued in the form of naval patrols and hydrographic surveys.

In March 2017 the mayor of Sansha City said China was to begin preparatory work for an environmental monitoring station on Scarborough Shoal.

PRC activities in and around the Scarborough Shoal have drawn criticism from US officials. In March 2017 U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin introduced the South China Sea and East China Sea Sanctions Act which would impose sanctions for Chinese entities and people helping to build South and East China Sea projects.

In June 2019 the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spotted a Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy warship, alongside two China Coast Guard vessels, and two Chinese maritime militia vessels near the shoal.

In September 2019, Antonio Carpio, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, said that China would try to reclaim the Scarborough Shoal within Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's term before it signs the Asean-China Code of Conduct because Duterte had said that Beijing could not be stopped from building because it was too powerful.

Academic Jay Batongbacal said that the visiting forces agreement between the Philippines and the United States deterred the transformation of Scarborough Shoal by the PRC into an artificial island, saying, "Scarborough Shoal is the only piece left in the puzzle that they're trying to build. They can now completely exclude other countries from the South China Sea militarily if they're able to put into place all of these military bases."

On September 26, 2023, the Philippine Coast Guard announced that they conducted an operation to remove the floating barrier installed by Chinese Coast Guard officers near the shoal in the southeast. A new floating barrier was deployed in 2024.

Sovereignty dispute

Claims by China and Taiwan

Map depicting the ROC and PRC's territorial claims in South China Sea, with Scarborough Shoal depicted within the nine-dash line of 1947.

The People's Republic of China and Taiwan (Republic of China) claim that Chinese people discovered the atoll centuries ago and that there is a long history of Chinese fishing activity in the area. The atoll lies within the nine-dash line drawn by China on maps marking its claim to islands and relevant waters consistent with United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) within the South China Sea. An article published in May 2012 in the People's Liberation Army Daily states that Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing went to the island in 1279, under the Yuan dynasty, as part of an empire-wide survey called "Measurement of the Four Seas" (四海測驗). In 1979 historical geographer Han Zhenhua (韩振华) was among the first scholars to claim that the point called "Nanhai" (literally, "South Sea") in that astronomical survey referred to Scarborough Shoal. In 1980 during a conflict with Vietnam for sovereignty over the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands), however, the Chinese government issued an official document claiming that "Nanhai" in the 1279 survey was located in the Paracels. Historical geographer Niu Zhongxun defended this view in several articles. In 1990, a historian called Zeng Zhaoxuan (曾昭璇) argued instead that the Nanhai measuring point was located in Central Vietnam. Historian of astronomy Chen Meidong (陈美东) and historian of Chinese science Nathan Sivin have since agreed with Zeng's position in their respective books about Guo Shoujing. a 2019 article in the publication Maritime Issues suggested that a common fishing ground for China, Vietnam and the Philippines as the best option to avoid deterioration of the conflict.

α

β

γ

δ

ε

ζ

η

θ

κ

λ

class=notpageimage|

Location of the major islands in Sansha administrative area of PRC.

Legend：
Black：α – Yongxing Island (Woody Island) (seat of Sansha)
Red：β – Chigua Reef (Johnson South Reef)
Green：γ – Dongmen Reef (Hughes Reef)
Yellow：δ – Huangyan Island (Scarborough Shoal)
Red：ε – Huayang Reef (Cuarteron Reef)
Blue：ζ – Meiji Reef (Mischief Reef)
Blue：η – Nanxun Reef (Gaven Reefs)
Black：θ – Zhongjian Island (Triton Island)
Green：κ – Yongshu Reef (Fiery Cross Reef)

Purple：λ – Zhubi Reef (Subi Reef)

In 1935, China, as the Republic of China (ROC), regarded the atoll as part of the Zhongsha Islands. That position has since been maintained by both the ROC, which now governs Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China (PRC). In 1947, the atoll was given the name Minzhu Jiao (Chinese: 民主礁; lit. 'Democracy Reef'). In 1983, the People's Republic of China renamed it Huangyan Island with Minzhu Jiao reserved as a second name. In 1956, Beijing protested Philippine remarks that the South China Sea islands in close proximity to Philippine territory should belong to the Philippines. China's Declaration on the territorial Sea, promulgated in 1958, says in part,

The breadth of the Territorial Sea of the People's Republic of China shall be twelve nautical miles. This applies to all territories of the People's Republic of China, including the Chinese mainland and its coastal islands, as well as Taiwan and its surrounding islands, the Penghu Islands, the Dongsha Islands, the Xisha Islands, the Zhongsha Islands, the Nansha Islands and all other islands belonging to China which are separated from the mainland and its coastal islands by the high seas.

China reaffirmed its claim of sovereignty over the Zhongsha Islands in its 1992 Law on the territorial Sea and the Contiguous Zone. China claims all the islands, reefs, and shoals within a U-shaped line in the South China Sea drawn in 1947 as its territory. Scarborough Shoal lies within this area.

China further asserted its claim shortly after the departure of the US Navy force from Subic, Zambales, Philippines. In the late 1970s, many scientific expedition activities organised by State Bureau of Surveying, National Earthquake Bureau and National Bureau of Oceanography were held in the atoll and around this area. In 1980, a stone marker reading "South China Sea Scientific Expedition" was installed on the South Rock, but was removed by the Philippines in 1997.

According to Filipino judge Antonio Carpio, during the proceedings of the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration, China sent a position paper wherein it reiterated its recognition of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the 1900 Treaty of Washington, and the 1930 US-UK Treaty. According to the Philippines, they define the country's territory with Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands specifically included. The Chinese government position paper surprised the Filipino delegation, prompting Carpio to say that China likely did not read the full texts of the treaties they used in court.

On 10 November 2024, China clarified its detailed basis, in terms of baseline, for a territorial water's claim, on the ​​Scarborough Shoal.

Claim by the Philippines

A 1774 reproduction of the 1734 map of the Philippine Islands showing Galit, Panacot, and Lumbay. In contrast, China and Taiwan's claims are backed by a map with eleven dashed lines dated 1947.

The Philippines state that its assertion of sovereignty over the atoll is based on the juridical criteria established by public international law on the lawful methods for the acquisition of sovereignty. Among the criteria (effective occupation, cession, prescription, conquest, and accretion), the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has asserted that the country exercised both effective occupation and effective jurisdiction over the atoll, which it terms Bajo de Masinloc, since its independence. Thus, it claims to have erected flags in some islands and a lighthouse which it reported to the International Maritime Organization. It also asserts that the Philippine and US Naval Forces have used it as impact range and that its Department of Environment and Natural Resources has conducted scientific, topographic and marine studies in the atoll, while Filipino fishermen regularly use it as fishing ground and have always considered it their own.

The DFA also claims that the name Bajo de Masinloc (translated as "Masinloc shoal") itself identifies the atoll as a particular political subdivision of the Philippine Province of Zambales, known as Masinloc. As basis, the Philippines cites the Island of Palmas Case, where the sovereignty of the island was adjudged by the international court in favour of the Netherlands because of its effective jurisdiction and control over the island despite the historic claim of Spain. Thus, the Philippines argues that the historic claim of China over the Scarborough Shoal still needs to be substantiated by a historic title, since a claim by itself is not among the internationally recognised legal basis for acquiring sovereignty over territory.

It also asserts that there is no indication that the international community has acquiesced to China's historical claim, and that the activity of fishing of private Chinese individuals, claimed to be a traditional exercise among these waters, does not constitute a sovereign act of the Chinese state.

The Philippine government argues that since the legal basis of its claim is based on the international law on acquisition of sovereignty, the exclusive economic zone claim on the waters around Scarborough is different from the sovereignty exercised by the Philippines in the atoll.

The Philippine government has proposed taking the dispute to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) as provided in Part XV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the Chinese government has rejected this, insisting on bilateral discussions.

The Philippines also claims that as early as the Spanish colonisation of the Philippines, Filipino fishermen were already using the area as a traditional fishing ground and shelter during bad weather.

Several official Philippine maps published by Spain and United States in 18th and 20th centuries show Scarborough Shoal as Philippine territory. The 18th-century map Carta hydrographica y chorographica de las Islas Filipinas (1734) shows 3 atolls Galit, Panacot and Lumbay. The map also shows the shape of Lumbay as consistent with the current maps available as today. In 1792, another map drawn by the Malaspina expedition and published in 1808 in Madrid, Spain also showed Bajo de Masinloc as part of Philippine territory. The map showed the route of the Malaspina expedition to and around the atoll. It was reproduced in the Atlas of the 1939 Philippine Census, which was published in Manila a year later and predates the controversial 1947 Chinese South China Sea Claim Map that shows no Chinese name on it. Another topographic map drawn in 1820 shows the atoll, named there as Bajo Scarburo, as a constituent part of Sambalez (Zambales province). During the 1900s, Mapa General, Islas Filipinas, Observatorio de Manila, and US Coast and Geodetic Survey Map include the Scarborough Shoal named as Baju De Masinloc. A map published in 1978 by the Philippine National Mapping and Resource Information Authority, however, did not indicate Scarborough Shoal as part of the Philippines. Scholar Li Xiao Cong stated in his published paper that Panacot Shoal is not Scarborough Shoal, in the 1778 map A chart of the China Sea and Philippine Islands with the Archipelagos of Felicia and Soloo, Scarborough shoal and 3 other shoals Galit, Panacot and Lumbay were all shown independently. Li also pointed out that the three shoals were also shown on Chinese maps which were published in 1717.

In 1957, the Philippine government conducted an oceanographic survey of the area and together with the US Navy force based in then U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay in Zambales, used the area as an impact range for defence purposes. An 8.3-meter high flag pole flying a Philippine flag was raised in 1965. An iron tower that was to serve as a small lighthouse was also built and operated the same year. In 1992, the Philippine Navy rehabilitated the lighthouse and reported it to the International Maritime Organization for publication in the List of Lights. As of 2009, the military-maintained lighthouse is non-operational.

Map showing territory claimed by the Philippines, including internal waters, territorial sea, international treaty limits and exclusive economic zone.

Historically, the Philippine boundary has been defined by its 3 treaties, Treaty of Paris (1898), Treaty of Washington (1900) and "Convention regarding the boundary between the Philippine Archipelago and the State of North Borneo". Many analysts consider that the 1900 Treaty of Washington concerned only the islands of Sibutu and Cagayan de Sulu., but a point of view argued that Scarborough Shoal has been transferred to the United States based on the Treaty of Washington (1900), ignoring the fact that the cession documents from the United States to the Philippines did not have any reference to the Scarborough Shoal.

Presidential Decree No. 1596 issued by President Ferdinand Marcos on 11 June 1978 asserted that islands designated as the Kalayaan Island Group and comprising most of the Spratly Islands are subject to the sovereignty of the Philippines, and by virtue of the Presidential Decree No. 1599 issued on 11 June 1978 claimed an Exclusive Economic Zone up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the baselines from which their territorial sea is measured.

The Philippines' bilateral dispute with China over the atoll began at the start of 1997 with Filipino naval ships preventing Chinese boats from approaching the atoll including at one point turning away a boat carrying ham radio operators and again. On 5 June of that year, Domingo Siazon, who was then the Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs, testified in front of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States Senate that the Shoal was "a new issue on overlapping claims between the Philippines and China".

In 2009, the Philippine Baselines Law of 2009 (RA 9522), principally authored by Antonio Trillanes and sponsored by Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, was enacted into law by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The new law classified the Kalayaan Island Group and the Scarborough Shoal as a regime of islands under the Republic of the Philippines.

In 2012 the Department of Foreign Affairs asserts that Philippine sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Scarborough Shoal are not premised on the cession by Spain of the Philippine archipelago to the United States under the Treaty of Paris and whether the shoal is included within the limits of the 1898 treaty is immaterial and of no consequence.

In 2015 the Philippines offered to downgrade its claim over parts of the Malaysian state of Sabah in exchange for Malaysia to adopt a different position on maritime claims that could help strengthen Philippines' case in its arbitration against China. However, Malaysia considered this to be against their maritime interest and with the added risk of hurting the country's ties with China.

Related arbitration under UNCLOS

This section is an excerpt from South China Sea Arbitration.[edit]

The South China Sea Arbitration (Philippines v. China, PCA case number 2013–19) was an arbitration case brought by the Republic of the Philippines against the People's Republic of China (PRC) under Annex VII (subject to Part XV) of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, ratified by the Philippines in 1984, by the PRC in 1996, opted out from Section 2 of Part XV by China in 2006) concerning certain issues in the South China Sea, including the nine-dash line introduced by the mainland-based Republic of China since as early as 1947. A tribunal of arbitrators appointed the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) as the registry for the proceedings.

On 19 February 2013, China declared that it would not participate in the arbitration. On 7 December 2014, it published a white paper to elaborate its position that, among other points, the tribunal lacks jurisdiction. In accordance with Article 3 of Annex VII of UNCLOS, the Philippines appointed 1 of the 5 arbitrators, while China did not appoint any. On 29 October 2015, the tribunal concluded that it had jurisdiction to consider seven of the Philippines' submissions, subject to certain conditions, and postponed the consideration of its jurisdiction on the other eight submissions to the merits phase.

On 12 July 2016, the arbitral tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines on most of its submissions. It clarified that while it would not "rule on any question of sovereignty ... and would not delimit any maritime boundary", China's historic rights claims over maritime areas (as opposed to land masses and territorial waters) within the "nine-dash line" have no lawful effect unless entitled to under UNCLOS. China has rejected the ruling, as has Taiwan. As of November 2023, 26 governments support the ruling, 17 issued generally positive statements noting the ruling but not called for compliance, and eight rejected it. The United Nations does not hold any position on the case or on the disputed claims.

See also

• China–Philippines relations
• List of territorial disputes
• South China Sea Islands
• West Philippine Sea

Other East Asian island disputes

• Kuril Islands dispute
• Liancourt Rocks dispute
• Okinotorishima, another smaller shoal with three skerries
• Paracel Islands
• Pratas Island and the Vereker Banks
• Senkaku Islands dispute
• Spratly Islands dispute

Further reading

• Bautista, Lowell B. (December 2011). "PHILIPPINE TERRITORIAL BOUNDARIES: INTERNAL TENSIONS, COLONIAL BAGGAGE, AMBIVALENT CONFORMITY" (PDF). JATI – Journal of Southeast Asian Studies. 16: 35–53. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 July 2013.
• Bautista, Lowell B. (February 2012). "The Implications of Recent Decisions on the Territorial and Maritime Boundary Disputes in East and Southeast Asia". Maritime Energy Resources in Asia: Legal Regimes and Cooperation: NBR Special Report #37. Academia.edu.
• Bautista, Lowell B. (1 January 2010). "The Legal Status of the Philippine Treaty Limits in International Law". Aegean Review of the Law of the Sea and Maritime Law. 1. Academia.edu: 111–139. doi:10.1007/s12180-009-0003-5. S2CID 153653227.
• Bautista, Lowell B. (Fall 2009). "The Historical Background, Geographical Extent and Legal Bases of the Philippine Territorial Water Claim". The Journal of Comparative Asian Development. 8 (2): 365–395. doi:10.1080/15339114.2009.9678488. S2CID 219624498.
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