China’s Ministry of Natural Resources released its updated “China Standard Map” on Sept. 1, which portrays China, including all of the contested territories which it has historically claimed in unresolved territorial disputes with India, Russia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and other countries. Such maps are standard fare with many nations, serving to indicate all contested areas. “I believe that no country in the world would mark disputed territories as belonging to rival claimants,” Chen Xiangmiao, an associate researcher with the National Institute for South China Sea Studies on Hainan Island stated, according to an article in the Sept. 6 South China Morning Post .
Furthermore, there are no new territories claimed in the latest map, compared to earlier versions. As the Washington-based The Diplomat stated bluntly], “China’s ‘new standard map’ does not mean what you think it means. Nothing in the map suggests that China is making a novel territorial claim.” SCMP concurred: “Beijing’s latest map does not mark out any new claims.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated on Sept. 6 that the map displayed areas historically considered “China’s inherent territory” which were marked on its maps as “a matter of course.”
None of which got in the way of an international brouhaha over the matter, heavily promoted in Western media. A number of the affected nations strongly protested over the Chinese map, which is understandable in such territorial disputes, but some of them seem to have been egged on by London and Washington, with the line that, if they didn’t forcefully protest, it would be read as a sign of acquiescence to China’s claims. “If they don’t object, it could be seen as them accepting China’s claims,” Chen Xiangmiao told SCMP.
