“Ours before, still today, more so in the future”: who is claiming the whole South China Sea…and why?
Posted: March 8, 2012 Filed under: China-Philippines, China-Vietnam, Comment threads, Global Times, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PRC News Portals, State media, Weibo | Tags: 9-dash line, china maritime dispute, Chinese media, Hong Lei, MFA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nine dashed line, paracel islands, south china sea, spratly islands, u-shaped line, 洪磊 4 Comments
China’s official nine-dashed line, as attached to numerous documents submitted to the UN. China claims the islands within the 9-dashed line, not the whole maritime area contained within.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei has attracted some heat from the hot heads of China’s internet population, for daring to state [zh] that “no country, including China, has laid claim to the entire South China Sea”.
Apparently seizing upon this domestic criticism of Hong Lei, the Global Times’ English edition has published a piece positing that “public will” is increasingly influencing foreign policy on the sea disputes. While Vietnam and the Philippines have tried to “woo the public” with hawkish stances,
China uses less public will to press other countries and does not seek to present a hard stance to win people over, despite paying the price of occasional fierce criticism.
On the South China Sea issue, I think China’s claims are misunderstood by media employees, many alleged experts and, perhaps most significantly, ordinary people inside China. While opinion-page pundits like Pan Guoping may claim the entire sea for China, and international media can sneer at the outrageous ambiguity of the famous nine-dash line, the PRC’s claim has actually been quite clear for some years. As expressed ad nauseum in official statements and UN submissions over the past few years,
China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea and the adjacent waters
The islands . . . and the adjacent waters. China, pretty unambiguously, does not claim the whole South China Sea, and the attachment of the above map to diplomatic notes to the UN in 2009 and 2011 indicates further that the nine-dash line does not depict China’s claimed maritime boundaries. The BBC misrepresents the PRC’s position in every report it makes on the South China Sea, to which it attaches this map:
southseaconversations 讨论南海 
“There are cocoons growing in my ears!”: Hong Lei and Huang Shanchun’s responses to warmongering ‘netizens’
Posted: May 28, 2012 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: Comment threads, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PLA & PLAN, PRC News Portals, State media | Tags: censorship, Chinese internet, Chinese internet censorship, Chinese netizens, 黄善春, 黄岩岛, Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, Huang Shanchun, Huangyan, internet censorship, internet users, Luo Yuan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, nationalism, netizens, online nationalism, Panatag, public opinion, scarborough reef, scarborough shoal, 洪磊 | 5 CommentsGuangdong Military Region commissar Huang Shanchun 黄善春 meets “netizens”, May 14, 2012
Two weeks ago, with the state–inspired media wave receding, a timely fishing ban arriving to diffuse tensions, and China’s economic leverage and superior law-enforcement capabilities combining to put it on top in the dispute over Scarborough Shoal, the Foreign Ministry had a message for the world: the PRC authorities will continue to ignore public opinion on the South China Sea.
Only problem was, the way the message was delivered probably made it clearer, and definitely louder, for domestic audiences than foreign.
On Tuesday May 15, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, spokesman Hong Lei “responded” 回应 to some of the online public advocacy of a military solution to the Huangyan Island issue. The Ministry’s website documents the following exchange [EN|ZH]:
Hong didn’t actually address the issue of the “netizens'” advocacy of war at all — his answer just restated the official Chinese position that the PRC is committed to resolving the crisis through diplomacy. In fact, so little did Hong Lei say, and so widespread the reporting of it, it might even be (over-)interpreted as an application of the Taoist doctrine of “acting without acting” 为无为.
After all, it was the journalist’s question, rather than the spokesman’s answer, that created the media story.
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