China's Lawfare and Maritime Claims

So you can put that on for me, please.

That's it.

So what we see is an example of what

Kanahara-san was just talking about,

which is essentially the fact that China, in practicing

lawfare, does not actually need the sanction

of the international law, although it would like it.

What it really needs is a narrative

that it can sell to enough people

backed by military and paramilitary force.

So this is what we have seen happening over the years.

the last month and a half in east of Taiwan. This is at the delimitation area between the border,

the EEZs, the Exclusive Economic Zones of Japan and the Philippines. And China began to run this

patrol right after Japan and the Philippines announced delimitation talks. China announced

that it was sending this patrol in response to those delimitation talks to protect China's

sovereign rights and interests in this area. Now,

If you look at the little map here, you'll see a picture taken from China's 2023 standard

map that shows the now 10-dash line east of Taiwan, and if you compare that to where the

patrols have been going, you'll notice that they go far east of where the 10-dash line

is.

So this is beyond where China has previously claimed.

So what did they do to...

By the way, China has, after running the first patrol, and including some maritime safety

vessels, it has begun a second...

I should say, it's not out there right now because there's a typhoon, but it will be

back.

So this has now become the new normal.

China is now going to run an intrusive patrol along the EEZ border between Japan and the

Philippines, and according to its own rhetoric, is going to do so perpetually until further

notice.

So, how does it justify such an expansive claim of sovereignty?

Well, they assembled some academics in Guangzhou.

with Jianan University, but involved a bunch of other universities, and a couple of days ago they began to issue state media reports about their conclusions.

And I will read just the text that comes off one of these state media reports.

Participants unilaterally, excuse me, unanimously, concluded that the Bataan Islands, that's Bataanis,

constitute a natural geographical extension of Taiwan, the sovereignty belonging to China,

and that the so-called Japan-Philippines Maritime Treaty,

in the area hold no legal validity.

The symposium was convened in direct response to the joint statement issued at the recent

Japan-Philippines summit.

So what happened?

China saw an opportunity.

Japan and the Philippines announced negotiations. Japan used that pretext to do something that they wanted to do anyway,

which is begin running these patrols east of Taiwan into the Philippine Sea. So this is outside the Dendash Line.

They then assembled the scholars to give them the legal overlay, the veneer, to be able to justify what they wanted to do anyway.

So we call this a pretext to escalate. The pretext was the talks. The escalation now is underway.

They intended to go in the future, you can see by the quotes behind me, and they have now assembled the beginnings of their law fair.

Now so far there have not been any official, government officials, talking about the TANAS part of this, the claim over the TANAS, but this is the trial balloon.

They are starting with a provincial level paper, provincial level state media report, I'm sure we will see an official report coming out of this symposium.

followed by, in the future, I'm sure there will begin to be government officials talking about this.

But this is Chinese law bearing in practice, and we're seeing it in real time.

And by the way, if you want to look up the sources for this,

you can go to either our C-Live Facebook page or our X page, and we've included the links.