Timeline of the South China Sea Dispute after WWII

In 1947, the Ministry of the Interior of China’s Nationalist government renamed a total of 159 islands, islets and sandbanks, including those of the Nansha Islands, historically under China’s jurisdiction in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, the Nationalist government officially published a chart of its territorial waters that China had owned in the South China Sea demarcated by an eleven- dash line.

In 1975, North Vietnam, on the pretext of “liberation,” occupied six islands and reefs of the Nansha Islands which were formerly seized by South Vietnam. Later, it seized another 18 islands and reefs, including Ranqingsha Reef (Grierson Reef) and Wan’an Bank ( Vanguard Bank). The Philippines occupied eight islands and reefs, including Feixin Island ( Flat Island) and Zhongye Island ( Thitu Island).

It’s not until the late 1980s in the 20th Century when the Chinese mainland started to take control over six minor islands and reefs. In 1994, China built fishery and sheltering facilities on Meiji Reef.

Entering the 1990s, Vietnam occupied five more reefs, bringing a total of 29 islands and reefs under its control. The Philippines also orchestrated a number of provocations on China’s Meiji Reef ( Mischief Reef), Huangyan Island, and Ren’ai Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal).

In late April of 1997, the Philippine Navy landed on Huangyan Island, blew up the territory monument that China had erected, and planted a flag of the Philippines on the island. China reacted by sending marine surveillance ships to the waters of the island, which faced a standoff with Philippine warships that did not ease until a few days later on May 3.

On May 9, 1999, the Philippine Navy deliberately ran its landing craft BRP Sierre Madre ( LT-57) aground at Ren’ai Shoal, using hull leak repair as an excuse, and stayed there with regular rotated soldiers, refusing to withdraw ever since.

In March 1999, the working group on the development of confidence- building measures held their first meeting in Manila, at which both sides agreed, after multiple consultations, to exercise restraint and refrain from taking any action that may escalate disputes. At the 8th ASEAN Summit convened in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on November 4, 2002, Mr. Wang Yi, then Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Ministers of the ten ASEAN Member States jointly signed the DOC.

Between January and February 2009, the Philippines’ House of Representatives and Senate adopted the Territorial Sea Baselines Bill, which claims China’s Huangyan Island and some islands and reefs in the Nansha Islands as Philippine territory. On May 6, choosing to ignore the outstanding territorial and maritime delimitation disputes in these waters, Vietnam and Malaysia jointly submitted to the CLCS information on the outer limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in the South China Sea.

On April 10, 2012, Philippine warships launched a surprise raid on twelve Chinese fishing vessels working in the lagoon of Huangyan Island. China was thus forced to take countermeasures, making urgent diplomatic representations to the Philippines and sending marine surveillance ships and fishing administrative ships to the waters around Huangyan Island.

On January 22, 2013, the Philippines initiated an arbitral proceeding against China at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. In 2014, the subsequent Ren’ai Shoal Incident and Drilling Platform 981 Standoff further aggravated the situation.

In April 2016, the U. S. and the Philippines conducted again the Shoulder- to- Shoulder exercises in the South China Sea, with more targeted items like retaking over islands, oil rig defense, etc., obviously aiming at disputes in the South China Sea.