Several Nations have joined India in condemning China’s new national map, which aims to claim territories of almost all of the countries that share China’s maritime borders. After India strongly protested against China’s hegemonic move, Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan have all rejected China’s new national map, issuing strong statements accusing Beijing of claiming their territory.
China released a new map of its famous U-shaped line covering about 90% of the South China Sea, a source of many of the disputes in one of the world’s most contested waterways, where more than $3 trillion of trade passes each year. China’s U-shaped line loops as far as 1,500 km (932 miles) south of its Hainan island and cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia.
India had lodged a strong protest on Tuesday with China over its so-called “standard map” laying claim over Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin, and asserted that such steps only complicate the resolution of the boundary question.
The External Affairs Ministry also rejected China’s claims as having “no basis”.
“Just making absurd claims does not make other people’s territories yours,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said while reacting to the Chinese move.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam have rejected as baseless a map released by China that denotes its claims to sovereignty including in the South China Sea.
The Philippine government has slammed China’s 2023 edition of its so-called “standard map” that still shows swaths of Philippine features in the West Philippine Sea.
“This latest attempt to legitimise China’s purported sovereignty and jurisdiction over Philippine features and maritime zones has no basis under international law,” the Philippine Foreign Ministry said.
The Philippines called on China on Thursday “to act responsibly and abide by its obligations” under international law and a 2016 arbitral ruling that had declared the line had no legal grounds.
Malaysia said it had filed a diplomatic protest over the map.
Its Malaysian counterpart in a statement said the new map holds no binding authority over Malaysia, which “also views the South China Sea as a complex and sensitive matter”.
The map was different to a narrower version submitted by China to the United Nations in 2009 of the South China Sea that included its so-called “nine-dash line”.
The latest map was of a broader geographical area and had a line with 10 dashes that included democratically governed Taiwan, similar to a 1948 map of China. China also published a map with a 10th dash in 2013.
Asked about the latest map, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jeff Liu said Taiwan was “absolutely not a part of the People’s Republic of China”.
“No matter how the Chinese government twists its position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, it cannot change the objective fact of our country’s existence,” he told a press briefing.
Late on Thursday, Vietnam’s foreign ministry said China’s claims based on the map have no value and violate Vietnamese and international laws.
Vietnam “resolutely rejects any claims in the East Sea by China that are based on the dashed line,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Pham Thu Hang said in a statement, referring to the South China Sea.
