This week we talk about China’s standard map, the nine-dash line, and shoals.
We also discuss WWIII, undersea minerals, and realities on the ground.
Recommended Book: Outlive by Peter Attia
Show Notes
* https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202308/28/WS64ec91c2a31035260b81ea5b.html
* https://www.uscc.gov/research/south-china-sea-arbitration-ruling-what-happened-and-whats-next
* https://amti.csis.org/island-tracker/china/
* https://globalvoices.org/2023/09/05/the-chinese-2023-map-has-nothing-new-but-why-are-chinas-neighbours-mad-about-it/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_China
* https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/philippines-taiwan-malaysia-reject-chinas-latest-south-china-sea-map-2023-08-31/
* https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-nine-dash-line-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-the-barbie-movie-209043
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_China_(1912%E2%80%931949)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line
* https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-nine-dash-line-and-what-does-it-have-to-do-with-the-barbie-movie-209043
* https://hir.harvard.edu/vietnam-and-china-conflicting-neighbors-stuck-in-nationalism-and-memory/
Transcript
In the wake of some stunning defeats to European powers in the 19th century, and its place on the winning side of WWII, the Chinese government saw quite a lot of territory disappear, but then gained a fair bit back, following that global conflict, and this necessitated the redrawing of many maps, most of which were substantially outdated, because of the relative rapidity with which their territory was changing during this period—they lost Vietnam as a supplicant state, for instance, but also added a fair number of former Japanese islands to their collection, including Taiwan, which it took from Japan in 1945, and where the former Chinese government fled following Mao's revolution, which is what led to modern day Taiwan as a separate state, by their reckoning, at least, from that of Mainland China, which doesn't agree.
And as is the case with Taiwan, not everyone in the area agrees about which other islands and bodies of water belong to whom, and the huge number of islands of varying sizes in the South China Sea are especially fraught, in terms of ownership claims, as many of them are worthless for the purpose of building real-deal settlements, but could be useful in terms of military infrastructure, allowing ships to dock and refuel, serving as weapons platforms for missiles and anti-aircraft equipment; that sort of thing.
These island-related controversies have sparked or been components of several recent conflicts in the region, including clashes between the Chinese and Vietnamese militaries in 1974 and 1988, and as an apparent effort to lock-in their claim to some of these territories, the Chinese government, in December of 1947, published a map called the Location Map of South Sea Islands, which showed the South China Sea, along with an eleven-dash line that encompassed a huge, u-shaped portion of the region, with the implication that everything within that line belonged to China, though the Chinese government never outright said "all of this is ours, stay out."
Beginning in the early 1950s, this line used only nine dashes, and had changed shape a bit, no longer including the Gulf of Tonkin as a concession to the now-independent North Vietnamese government.
But the former Chinese government, the one that was now occupying and governing from Taiwan, continued to use an eleven-dash line on their official map, the implication being that they don't recognize the changes to Chinese territory made by the successor Chinese government that usurped them back in the mid-20th century.
However many dashes are used, and whatever the specific expanse of them, though, the significance of this line on what's become known as the Chinese standard maps released at a regular cadence by the government have become the topic of furious debate, as the Chinese government has never really clarified what they're saying when they publish these things, allowing the implication to be that this is their home turf, their islands and ocean, but never taking the next step that would be required to formalize that claim.
The implication of any territorial barrier is the violence required to defend it, so the presumed rationale here is that, like Taiwan's status, which is in an official sort of superposition right now, the Chinese government claiming it as their own, the Taiwanese government claiming independence, and everyone else just kind of making positive or negative noises while seldom taking a firm stance one way or the other, allows everyone involved to be unhappy and to hold their own opinions, but to not feel like they need to go to war over the issue, because no hands have been forced in that regard; a stronger stance and a more formal declaration of independence by Taiwan, supported by other nations, would presumably necessitate military action from China, while the same sort of concrete move by China to retake the island by force would probably trigger action from its opposition, as well.
Leaving things flexible and vague, though, keeps everything nebulous enough that nothing needs to be blown up and no one has to die.
The same seems to be true with this larger pseudo-claim of territory from the Chinese government, these maps showing an area that looks a lot like it belongs to China, but the Chinese government never formally saying "this is ours, and thus, if you want to go to these islands, travel these waters, you'll need our permission, and we'll blast you to kingdom come if you step over the line we've drawn here."
What I'd like to talk about today are the implications of this sort of intentional geographic uncertainty, and the response to a new standard map the Chinese government recently released.
—
The 2023 edition of China's standard map, which usually displays its now-famous nine-dash line alongside other information about the country, like its territorial delineations, capitol cities, and the like, has created a moderate uproar throughout the area in part due to the addition of a tenth dash, and in part because it seems to have added to its collection of territory at the expense of many of its neighbors.
Among those who are upset about these new visual claims is the Russian government, which has become increasingly close with the Chinese government following its invasion of Ukraine, which has left it a bit of a pariah, globally, and it's been in many ways propped up and sustained economically by trade with China; but even they made a statement of distaste about this map, which seems to show that an island which was previously divided between Chinese and Russian control, is now just China's.
India is also pissed that highly disputed areas along its border with China have seemingly been folded into its neighbor's official collection of territories with the advent of this new map, and Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and of course, Taiwan, have also spoken out against what this new map implies—the latter of which, Taiwan, perhaps more than most, as that additional tenth dash seems to more firmly embrace it than previous maps, implying that Taiwan is becoming more China's than ever before, which in the current geopolitical context represents a potential military threat.
But those other nations are also pretty peeved, as islands they claim as their own have been looped into this large u-shaped area, portrayed as being China's and China's alone; and although in many cases that's been true of previous versions of the map, as well, the context surrounding this version's release is substantially different than the context in previous years.
So in response to this hubbub of outcries, the Chinese government has said, basically, calm down, this is the same map, what are you all so upset about?
And to some degree that's largely true: most of these claims were on previous maps as well, but that additional dash does seem pretty aggressive in a world in which the Chinese government has made pretty clear that it both intends to retake Taiwan at some point, and that it's willing and able to do so, militarily, and in which the government has been feverishly investing in more guns, ships, jets, and missiles, and rapidly building out its military presence in these contested areas, including military bases high in the mountains along its border with India, in territory both nations claim as their own, and the construction of ship docks and turrets and missile launchers on tiny little islands in the middle of the ocean, which other nations claim, as well, but which China is physically occupying, punctuating their map-based claims with real-world threats toward anyone who challenges them; realities on the ground, to use the defense world parlance for building military assets of this kind in contested territory.
In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that China's nine-dash line didn't have any basis in international law, and that this region is mostly international waters, usable by anyone, anytime, for any reasons, more or less.
China dismissed this ruling and said it would ignore it, basically, so while other nations in the area, like the Philippines, have continued to fish in traditional areas, like the shoals surrounding the Spratly Islands, located between them and Malaysia and Vietnam in the South China Sea, China has been building artificial islands atop coral reefs on this island chain, dredging sand onto the reefs and then pouring concrete over that sand, allowing it to build permanent military structures and install radar systems, missile silos, and aircraft hangers, where it also now bases military aircraft.
This has been a huge investment and a lot of work for the Chinese government, but it's allowing them to convert the soft, vague claims printed on their maps into hard realities in the real-world; the international arbitrators in The Hague would not honor what they considered to be their historic, national territorial claims, so they went out and made them real; the equivalent of putting up fences around land with unclear ownership on a parcel near your home—it might still be legally debatable who owns that land, but it becomes very clear who has control over it and access to it and who can use it after a fence is put up; and that's even more the case when you begin to deny others access and imply that you are willing and able to defend it if someone decides to step into what is now, on a very practical level, your turf.
This carving out of new territory from international waters and in contested regions by the Chinese government has become an even more substantial issue over the past decade or so as the race to claim and develop undersea resources has become more frantic, with governments around the world scrambling to secure the minerals and other raw materials that will inform the next, post-fossil fuel paradigm, and many of these resources, from lithium to nickel to cobalt, are contained in hard-to-reach areas, like, in some cases, underwater continental shelves.
So just as the Arctic has become a hotbed for exploration and infrastructural development, everyone with borders touching the Arctic Ocean doing what they can to build-out their ship-based capacity, military bases, and knowledge of what's underneath all that water, for if and when they can eventually justify stepping in to start building and harvesting those raw materials, the South China Sea is also rich with such assets, and this line on this map, and all this real-world building and hardening of military defenses in the area, is meant to allow China, if and when it wants, to start claiming these resources as its own, as it will have already established clear ownership of the territory surrounding these stockpiles, and the ability to defend these assets if anyone else challenges their claim.
Physical conflict related to such claims has already broken out a few times, mostly related to fishing at the moment—the Chinese Coast Guard shooting high-powered water cannons at vessels owned by Philippines-based companies and Vietnamese fishing boats in order to drive them away and again, implicitly, partition-off these rich areas, over time redefining them as being for exclusive Chinese use.
But the big concern is that at some point these measures might become more serious and deadly, and this type of conflict, if it escalates, could spiral into something truly global.
The disagreement between China and Taiwan about who owns the island and whether the Taiwanese government is legit or not is generally seen as one of the most volatile hot-spots on the planet, in terms of the potential to accidentally set off WWIII, because of who's allied with whom, and what everyone involved has to gain or lose by engaging in such a conflict.
It's possible, though, that something seemingly lower-level, like a scuffle over fishing grounds, or the development of undersea mineral extraction infrastructure could be what sets off such a fight, as China defending international waters as if they are their own, putting up a fence on public property, basically, and then shooting anyone who approaches, becomes a test of the international system, and that could lead to a direct conflict between China and let's say the Philippines, and that could pull other regional entities like Vietnam and Indonesia, and maybe even India into the fight, which in turn would potentially bring the US and EU into the conflict, directly or indirectly, alongside Russia and Iran on China's side, again, directly or indirectly.
All of which could compound into something incredibly devastating, all because China is attempting to expand in a manner that is considered illegal by international bodies, because what we might think of as the Western bloc, the US and EU and India and its allies, are trying to box China in, as a response, which China doesn't like and which is probably amplifying their efforts in this regard, and because all of that is making this area a potential tinderbox for conflict—no one wanting to give ground, everyone aware the world is changing around them, economically, climactically, and so on, and everyone trying to set themselves up to be in the best possible position mid-century or so, doing the math and maybe even deciding a big conflict would be worth it, so long as that would make them a bigwig in the rapidly impending, next-step geopolitical paradigm.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe