Truth and lies about Spratly, Paracel DR. NGUYEN NHA   Vietnamese navy officers looking at maps proving Vietnam's sovereignty over Hoang Sa at a museum in Da Nang on April 29 By Dr. Nguyen Nha. Nha’s Phd dissertation’s title is “The process of asserting sovereignty of Vietnam over Hoang Sa and Truong Sa”. He is the first Vietnamese to earn a Phd on this topic. East Sea issues are escalating in intensity, worrying international scholars at many East Sea conferences who fear a tragedy could occur in Asia, like one that happened to Europe in World War II. The world nowadays does not know or deliberately refuses to know that it is the sovereignty dispute over islands wherein involved parties or party pay(s) no heed to historical truths and to international law that causes intensity to escalate. During a recent international conference in Quang Ngai, one scholar from a university in Hong Kong said that historical facts about Vietnamese sovereignty are propagandized in a very limited manner to the world. I have recently demanded for more heed to the historical truth about sovereignty over Paracel (Hoang Sa) and Spratly (Truong Sa). The “ownerless land” declaration Let’s pay attention to what actually happened in 1909. In that year, China started to claim sovereignty in the East Sea. The Guangdong  government reasoned that Paracel was an “ownerless land” and started to carry out its occupation via western means like ordering a warship to fire 21 shots, flag planting, erecting border lines in Paracel and renaming it Xisha.  Or let’s focus on the event in 1898 when a British insurance company demanded compensation from the Hainan government for the looting by Hainan residents of the Bellona ship (Germany) that sank in 1895 and of the Unofi Maru ship (Japan) that sank in 1896 in Paracel. The Hainan government then denied that Paracel belonged to China. Vietnam has so much evidence to prove that Paracel belongs to Vietnam, from imperial court documents of the Nguyen dynasty, local government papers, court historical archives, monographs, and maps to Western documents, and maps drawn by the West and even documents and maps published in China. Western documents like Gutzlaff (1849) or the Great Annam Map clearly wrote that Paracel is Yellow Sands or Hoang Sa. Vietnam possesses the sovereignty truth on a continuous and peaceful basis through many eras with the Hoang Sa militia, the Bac Hai team travelling to Hoang Sa and Truong Sa for fish and for cast-away products as far back as the early 17th century, or with the navy planting landmarks, and erecting sovereignty steles from 1816-1836. Such activities have become an annual routine. As China once announced Paracel was ownerless and did not belong to China, all other evidence surfaced thereafter was just fabrications or far-fetched deductions that are valueless and go against the historical truth. The uncut history In April, 1956, taking advantage of the French army withdrawing from Indochina, Taiwan occupied the largest island -- Itu Aba, i.e Ba Binh island, of Truong Sa (China renamed it Taiping Island to commemorate the Taiping warship that occupied it at the end of 1946); China occupied the largest island of Hoang Sa archipelago and taking advantage of new relations with the US after the Shanghai Communiqué (1972), occupied the whole Hoang Sa archipelago on January, 19, 1974. From that time on (compared to the years before 1949), China started to pay more attention to the claim that China has exercised sovereignty over Hoang Sa for a long time with ample ahistorical evidence. China has been trying to collect, selectively use and manipulate data and if necessary, distort information, being helped by a number of scholars who reason on the premise that “islands in the South China Sea from time immemorial are part of China’s territory”, “they were discovered by the Chinese people the earliest”, “the Chinese carried out businesses there earliest”, or “managed by Chinese dynasties the earliest”. (Guangming Daily, November, 24, 1975). After that, on January 30, 1980, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China released diplomatic documents that officialized claims as set out in the aforementioned newspaper article and in 1988, released a sizable compilation penned by Han Zhenhua and his associates. But the information therein is very vague and not verified while most of the ancient documents that China cited are books written about foreign countries (Zhu Fan i.e the books did not discuss Chinese matters) such as Yi Wu Zhi (Exotic things) by Yang Fu and Zhu Fan Zhi (Notes on foreign countries) by Zhao Juguo. As there is no truth in such rhetoric, with maps drawn by China and the West telling a different story, and since the Guangdong government once asserted Paracel ownerless, it is very easy to deny such claims, especially considering the international legal system at the end of the 19th century under which sovereignty was established only on the basis of effective, continuous and peaceful occupation on the state level. If we want to invalidate China’s nine-dotted line declaration in 2009, it is also easy. Just rely on the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea – UNCLOS 1982, especially when China used hazy and unacceptable data. Nowadays, most people in China brush aside the 1909 event when Guangdong government declared Paracel an “ownerless land”. Almost everyone there presumes something like “islands in the South China Sea from time immemorial belong to China; if we further consult ancient Chinese texts, this is apparent, nothing to suspect”… Such presumptions are widely propagandized among Chinese people. But the truth is that if we consult ancient texts, there will be nothing, just wild inferences. To avoid a tragedy in Asia as many have feared, and for the sake of justice, stability, peace, and sustainable cooperation, there is no way but to respect the historical truth, respect international law; and struggle for a win-win solution. Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's. TuoitreNews