claim ownership of a shoal or a bank that is under water at low tide: they are simply a part of the seabed. Article 5 of UNCLOS declares that the usual baseline for measuring a territorial sea is the low-tide mark. Underwater features, by definition, have no low-tide mark and therefore cannot have a territorial sea of their own. But that hasn't prevented the Chinese asserting a territorial claim based on ‘historic rights’ to the Macclesfield Bank and to the James Shoal (Zengmu Ansha) – both of which lie well below the surface.
As we saw in Chapter 2, the highest point of James Shoal is a full 22 metres below the sea and its status as the ‘southernmost point of Chinese territory’ is probably derived from a translation mistake by a Chinese government committee in 1935. It lies 107 kilometres off the coast of Borneo and more than 1,500 kilometres from the coast of Hainan Island. It's well beyond any possible Chinese territorial waters claimable under UNCLOS. The weight of nationalist sentiment, however, prevents Beijing from making a sensible retreat from this nonsensical position. Even now, Chinese naval ships en route to anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia still make a diversion to the shoal to demonstrate Chinese sovereignty over it. But since there isn't any dry land there on which to erect official monuments, they have to drop them over the side of their ships instead. There's now a small collection of Chinese steles lying on the seabed below. In March 2013 and January 2014 Chinese naval ships held military exercises at the shoal and added yet more rubble to the mound.
Interestingly, in another maritime dispute Beijing has rejected the idea that underwater features can have territorial status. Socotra Rock, also known as Ieodo or Suyan Rock, lies about 5 metres below the surface in the Yellow Sea, about halfway between the coasts of China and Korea. The South Korean government has built an ocean research station upon it, provoking protests from Beijing, but on 12 March 2012 China's Foreign Ministry spokesman asserted that ‘China and the Republic of Korea have a consensus on the Suyan Rock, that is, the rock does not have territorial status and the two sides have no territorial disputes’. This consensus, however, doesn't seem to apply to the James Shoal or to another, much larger underwater feature: the Macclesfield Bank.
The Macclesfield Bank is much closer to China and considerably bigger than the James Shoal: about 140 kilometres long and 60 kilo-metres wide. It's also slightly closer to the surface: its shallowest point is only 9 metres below the waves. In the neat official nomenclature adopted in 1947, Macclesfield Bank is the ‘central sands archipelago’ – Zhongsha Qundao – to match the western sands (Xisha or Paracels), eastern sands (Dongsha or Pratas) and southern sands (Nansha or Spratly) archipelagos. But the Zhongsha ‘archipelago’ is a work of geographical fiction. In official Chinese parlance, it groups the Macclesfield Bank with several other underwater features between Helen Shoal in the north and Dreyer Shoal in the south. Most controversially it includes Scarborough Shoal to the east, the only part of the Zhongsha that protrudes above the surface. Maps of the seabed, however, make clear that there is no ‘archipelago’ in the accepted sense of the word: there is no chain of islands, just isolated underwater features separated by wide areas of some of the deepest sea on the planet. None of these underwater features can generate any EEZ whatsoever. Only Scarborough Shoal could generate, at best, a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea.
There are no grounds under UNCLOS for China to claim sovereignty over James Shoal, Macclesfield Bank or areas of water beyond 12 nautical miles from any land feature within the ‘U-shaped line’. There is simply no mention of historic rights in UNCLOS, except in relation to areas within the territorial waters of an ‘archipelagic state’ –
As we saw in Chapter 2, the highest point of James Shoal is a full 22 metres below the sea and its status as the ‘southernmost point of Chinese territory’ is probably derived from a translation mistake by a Chinese government committee in 1935. It lies 107 kilometres off the coast of Borneo and more than 1,500 kilometres from the coast of Hainan Island. It's well beyond any possible Chinese territorial waters claimable under UNCLOS. The weight of nationalist sentiment, however, prevents Beijing from making a sensible retreat from this nonsensical position. Even now, Chinese naval ships en route to anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia still make a diversion to the shoal to demonstrate Chinese sovereignty over it. But since there isn't any dry land there on which to erect official monuments, they have to drop them over the side of their ships instead. There's now a small collection of Chinese steles lying on the seabed below. In March 2013 and January 2014 Chinese naval ships held military exercises at the shoal and added yet more rubble to the mound.
Interestingly, in another maritime dispute Beijing has rejected the idea that underwater features can have territorial status. Socotra Rock, also known as Ieodo or Suyan Rock, lies about 5 metres below the surface in the Yellow Sea, about halfway between the coasts of China and Korea. The South Korean government has built an ocean research station upon it, provoking protests from Beijing, but on 12 March 2012 China's Foreign Ministry spokesman asserted that ‘China and the Republic of Korea have a consensus on the Suyan Rock, that is, the rock does not have territorial status and the two sides have no territorial disputes’. This consensus, however, doesn't seem to apply to the James Shoal or to another, much larger underwater feature: the Macclesfield Bank.
The Macclesfield Bank is much closer to China and considerably bigger than the James Shoal: about 140 kilometres long and 60 kilo-metres wide. It's also slightly closer to the surface: its shallowest point is only 9 metres below the waves. In the neat official nomenclature adopted in 1947, Macclesfield Bank is the ‘central sands archipelago’ – Zhongsha Qundao – to match the western sands (Xisha or Paracels), eastern sands (Dongsha or Pratas) and southern sands (Nansha or Spratly) archipelagos. But the Zhongsha ‘archipelago’ is a work of geographical fiction. In official Chinese parlance, it groups the Macclesfield Bank with several other underwater features between Helen Shoal in the north and Dreyer Shoal in the south. Most controversially it includes Scarborough Shoal to the east, the only part of the Zhongsha that protrudes above the surface. Maps of the seabed, however, make clear that there is no ‘archipelago’ in the accepted sense of the word: there is no chain of islands, just isolated underwater features separated by wide areas of some of the deepest sea on the planet. None of these underwater features can generate any EEZ whatsoever. Only Scarborough Shoal could generate, at best, a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea.
There are no grounds under UNCLOS for China to claim sovereignty over James Shoal, Macclesfield Bank or areas of water beyond 12 nautical miles from any land feature within the ‘U-shaped line’. There is simply no mention of historic rights in UNCLOS, except in relation to areas within the territorial waters of an ‘archipelagic state’ –
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