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The Philippines has claims on territories which include the Spratly Islands, portions of North Borneo, and the Scarborough Shoal.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(October 2006) |
The Philippines has claims on territories which include the Spratly Islands, portions of North Borneo, and the Scarborough Shoal.
The Philippine government claims Spratly Islands features locating within its EEZ in the South China Sea as part of its territory. The Philippine government' has designated its EEZ in the eastern portion of the South China Sea as the "West Philippine Sea".
The Scarborough Shoal, more correctly described as a group of islands, atolls, and reefs rather than a shoal, is located in the South China Sea. The nearest landmass is Palauig town, Zambales province, Luzon Island, at 221 kilometres (137 mi). It is about 198 kilometres (123 mi) west of Subic Bay.
The Philippines, the People's Republic of China and Taiwan claim it.
In April 2012, the Philippines accused Chinese boats of fishing illegally and asked them to leave.
The Philippines is asserting jurisdiction over the shoal 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 Philippines said that the country "exercised both effective occupation and effective jurisdiction over Bajo de Masinloc since its independence". Thus, it claims to have erected flags on some islands and a lighthouse which is reported to the International Maritime Organization. It also asserts that Philippine and US Naval Forces have used it as an impact range and that its Department of Environment and Natural Resources has conducted scientific, topographic and marine studies on the shoal, while Filipino fishermen regularly use it as a fishing ground and have always considered it their own. [1] Likewise, multiple engagements and arrests of Chinese fishermen were already made at the shoal by the Philippine Navy for using illegal fishing methods and catching of endangered sea species. [2]
The legal basis of the Philippines' assertion is based on the international law on acquisition of sovereignty. Thus, the Philippine government explains that its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claim on the waters around Scarborough Shoal is different from the sovereignty exercised by the Philippines on the shoal itself.
The Chinese basis for the claim is that the shoal, according to China, was first discovered by Chinese in the 13th century and historically used by Chinese fishermen.
The Philippines claims fifty-two landforms in the Spratly Island group. Of these fifty-two landforms, only five islands, two cays, and three reefs are under Philippine occupation: the Flat Island (Patag), the Loaita Island (Kota), the Nanshan Island (Lawak), the Thitu Island (Pagasa), the West York Island ( Likas), the Lankiam Cay (Panata), the Northeast Cay (Parola), the Irving Reef (Balagtas), the Commodore Reef (Rizal), and the Second Thomas (Ayungin) Reef. Some of the other landforms claimed but not occupied by the Philippines as of now are either occupied by Vietnam, China, Taiwan or Malaysia. Landforms in the Spratly Islands group that have not been claimed by the Philippines are typically those that are closer to Vietnam. The farthest landform the Philippines claims is Ladd Reef, which is currently occupied by Vietnam.
The Philippines established a municipality in the province of Palawan named Kalayaan after all the landforms found on Pag-asa island,
Between 1658 and 1700, the Sultanate of Sulu acquired the eastern part of the territory of Northern Borneo after helping the Bruneian forces settle a civil war. The Sulu Archipelago then came under the control of the Spanish while the area of Northern Borneo was administered by the British after the sultans of Brunei and Sulu agreed to cede their control. The western and eastern parts of Northern Borneo became known as North Borneo. [4] [5]
In its process of decolonization beginning in 1946, Great Britain included Sabah in the newly formed Federation of Malaysia. The Philippines, which had already achieved its independence from the United States, protested the formation of Malaysia and filed claims for the whole territory of Northern Borneo under the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal. However, during a meeting to plan Maphilindo, the Philippine government stated that it had no objection to the formation of Malaysia, but claimed that the Sultan of Sulu wanted payment from the British government. [6] The first Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, said he would return to Kuala Lumpur to protest the Philippines' claim. [6]
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos later revived the claim and trained a number of Moro fighters to reclaim the territory in a secret mission named Operation Merdeka. [7] However, when the recruits gained knowledge of their true mission, most of them demanded to be returned home, as they did not want to kill their fellow Muslims in Sabah. [8] Their request was denied; Marcos did not send back his soldiers but instead executed most of the fighters in an event known as the Jabidah massacre. [9] This caused a southern Philippines insurgency to emerge, and the claim continued to be escalated by other claimants from the defunct Sultanate of Sulu. These claimants each attempted to give themselves legitimacy by self-proclaiming as the new Sultan of Sulu with support from politicians in the Philippine central government wishing to incorporate Sabah into the Philippines. Most new claimants and Philippine politicians today use the promised Malaysian lease payment as their main reason to take over the territory and also use it as a reason before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). [6]
The Spratly Islands are a disputed archipelago in the South China Sea. Composed of islands, islets, cays, and more than 100 reefs, sometimes grouped in submerged old atolls, the archipelago lies off the coasts of the Philippines, Malaysia, and southern Vietnam. Named after the 19th-century British whaling captain Richard Spratly who sighted Spratly Island in 1843, the islands contain less than 2 km2 of naturally occurring land area, which is spread over an area of more than 425,000 km2 (164,000 sq mi).
The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by South China, in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Philippines, and in the south by the Indonesian islands of Borneo, eastern Sumatra and the Bangka Belitung Islands, encompassing an area of around 3,500,000 km2 (1,400,000 sq mi). It communicates with the East China Sea via the Taiwan Strait, the Philippine Sea via the Luzon Strait, the Sulu Sea via the straits around Palawan, and the Java Sea via the Karimata and Bangka Straits. The Gulf of Thailand and the Gulf of Tonkin are part of the South China Sea.
The South China Sea Islands consist of over 250 islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs and seamounts in the South China Sea. The islands are mostly low and small and have few inhabitants. The islands and surrounding seas are subject to overlapping territorial claims by the countries bordering the South China Sea.
The Sultanate of Sulu was a Muslim state that ruled the Sulu Archipelago, costal areas of Zamboanga City and certain portions of Palawan in the today's Philippines, alongside parts of present-day Sabah, North and East Kalimantan in north-eastern Borneo.
Scarborough Shoal, also known as Bajo de Masinloc, Huangyan Island, Minzhu Jiao and Panatag Shoal, are two skerries (rocks) 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 1734 Velarde map, while the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) claim it through the disputed nine-dash line. 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. It was administered by the Philippines as part of its Zambales province, until 2012, when a standoff was initiated by China through the use of warships against fishing boats, resulting in effective capture by the Chinese maritime forces.
The North Borneo dispute, also known as the Sabah dispute, is the territorial dispute between Malaysia and the Philippines over much of the eastern part of the state of Sabah. Sabah was previously known as North Borneo prior to the formation of the Malaysian federation.
James Shoal is a reef (bank) in the South China Sea, with a depth of 22 metres (72 ft) below the surface of the sea, located about 45 nautical miles off the Borneo coast of Malaysia. It is claimed by Malaysia, the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China (Taiwan). The reef and its surrounds are administered by Malaysia.
Philippines and the Spratly Islands – this article discusses the policies, activities and history of the Republic of the Philippines in the Spratly Islands from the Philippine perspective. Non-Philippine viewpoints regarding Philippine occupation of several islands are currently not included in this article.
Malaysia–Philippines relations refers to the bilateral relations between Malaysia and the Philippines. The Philippines has an embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Malaysia has an embassy in Manila and a consulate general in Davao City. The people of the two neighbouring countries have a long history of cultural and political relations.
The Malaysia–Philippines border is a maritime boundary located in the South China, Sulu and Celebes Seas. It separates the Malaysian state of Sabah, which is on the island of Borneo, and the Sulu Islands of the southern Philippines.
The history of Sabah can be traced back to about 23–30,000 years ago when evidence suggests the earliest human settlement in the region existed. The history is interwoven with the history of Brunei and the history of Malaysia, which Sabah was previously part of and is currently part of respectively. The earliest recorded history of Sabah being part of any organised civilisation began in the early 15th century during the thriving era of the Sultanate of Brunei. Prior to this, early inhabitants of the land lived in predominantly tribal societies, although such tribal societies had continued to exist until the 1900s. The eastern part of Sabah was ceded to the Sultan of Sulu by the Sultan of Brunei in 1658 for the former helping a victory over Brunei enemies, but many sources stated it had not been ceded at all. By the late 19th century, both territories previously owned by Sultan of Brunei and Sultan of Sulu was granted to British syndicate and later emerged as British North Borneo under the management of the North Borneo Chartered Company. Sabah became a protectorate of the United Kingdom in 1888 and subsequently became a Crown colony from 1946 until 1963, during which time it was known as Crown Colony of North Borneo. On 16 September 1963, Sabah merged with Malaya, Sarawak and Singapore to form Malaysia.
The Spratly Islands dispute is an ongoing territorial dispute between Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam concerning "ownership" of the Spratly Islands, a group of islands and associated "maritime features" located in the South China Sea. The dispute is characterized by diplomatic stalemate and the employment of military pressure techniques in the advancement of national territorial claims. All except Brunei occupy some of the maritime features.
Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve conflicting island and maritime claims in the South China Sea by several sovereign states, namely the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The disputes involve the islands, reefs, banks, and other features of the region, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and various boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. The waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands, which some regard as geographically part of the South China Sea, are disputed as well. Maritime disputes also extend beyond the South China Sea, as in the case of the Senkaku Islands and the Socotra Rock, which lie in the East China Sea.
The Luconia Shoals, divided into the North and South Luconia Shoals, and sometimes known as the Luconia Reefs, are one of the largest and least-known reef complexes in the South China Sea. Some geographers classify the shoals as the southernmost part of the Spratly Islands.
The Ligitan and Sipadan dispute [2002] ICJ 3 was a territorial dispute between Indonesia and Malaysia over two islands in the Celebes Sea, namely Ligitan and Sipadan. The dispute began in 1969 and was largely resolved by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2002, which opined that both of the islands belonged to Malaysia.
The article covers events that are related to the South China Sea dispute. In the South China Sea, historically China, Japan and France have disputed over Spratly and Paracel Islands. Presently, the Paracel Islands are disputed among China (PRC), Taiwan (ROC), and Vietnam, while Pratas Island is contested between China and Taiwan. Additionally, the Spratly Islands are subject to intertwined claims by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei. Because of this, numerous countries with territorial disputes have had conflicts in the South China Sea since the past.
The Philippines has an exclusive economic zone that covers 2,263,816 square kilometers (874,064 sq mi) of sea. It claims an EEZ of 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its shores. This is due to the 7,641 islands comprising the Philippine archipelago. The coordinates are between 116° 40', and 126° 34' E longitude and 4° 40' and 21° 10' N latitude. It is bordered by the Philippine Sea to the east and north, the South China Sea to the west, and the Celebes Sea to the south.
Vietnam claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 1,395,096 km2 (538,650 sq mi) with 200 nautical miles from its shores.
Malaysia claims an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 334,671 km2 (129,217 sq mi) with 200 nautical miles from its shores. The EEZ includes much of the southern area of the South China Sea. Malaysia has the 29th longest coastline of 4,675 km (2,905 mi). The coastline comprises two distinct parts of Malaysia. The Peninsular Malaysia's coastline to the west is 2,068 km (1,285 mi) and East Malaysia's coastline is 2,607 km (1,620 mi). They are separated by the South China Sea. The total land area, including inland bodies of water, of Malaysia is 330,803 km2 (127,724 sq mi). Peninsular Malaysia borders Thailand in the north, while East Malaysia borders Brunei and Indonesia on the island of Borneo.
Map of British North Borneo, highlighting in yellow colour the area covered by the Philippine claim, presented to the Court by the Philippines during the Oral Hearings at the ICJ on 25 June 2001
