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End of the colonial period (after World War II) The chronology of events69 and the discussion devoted to the question of the succession of States or of governments70 have highlighted the situation, a highly complex one in legal terms, which obtained in Vietnam in the immediate post-war years. However, as this situation was dominated by the presence of the French Expeditionary Force and a French administration (until 1954-1956), it is logical to lump these years together with the colonial history and to analyse them so as to include an examination of French positions. In this confused period, the two elements – material or intentional – constituting the maintenance of the rights need to be identified. These elements involve Japan (though it would very soon be completely expelled from the region). Where Vietnam is concerned, they involve France, the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Associated State of Vietnam. Where China is concerned, they involve the Government of Nationalist China and, after 1949, the Government of the People’s Republic of China. There are also, as we shall see, certain elements from the Philippines. The material elements The disorder created by the end of World War II was reflected in the material situation in the archipelagos. Different troops succeeded one another there or shared the occupation of the archipelagos even though this was not always asserted as an intentional act of sovereignty. Sometimes, these are simply facts of war. The Japanese army was present until the capitulation of Tokyo and would not leave the two archipelagos until 1946. • The Treaty of Chung-King of 28 February 1946 had given the Chinese troops responsibility for disarming the Japanese soldiers north of the 16th parallel. This Treaty authorized Chiang Kai-shek to occupy the Paracels, which he would appear to have done in November 1946. He also occupied the Spratlys, despite having no mandate to do so from the Allies, in December the same year.71 In support of this presence is the fact that, in 1947, the Ministry of the Interior of the then Chinese Government published an atlas in which China included the archipelagos. But contrary to the assertions of certain Chinese authors, this is not to say that China possessed ‘historical’ rights over the islands, as this inclusion was of late date and associated with particular circumstances. In May 1946, France landed a French infantry unit from the Savorgnan de Brazza on certain islands, but it remained there for only a few months. In late 1946, General Juin recommended the reoccupation of the Paracels in order to consolidate, as he put it, our position in the legal debate.72
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In early January 1947, a French military mission arrived on Pattle Island.73 In March the same year China re-established a foothold on Woody Island and protested against the French military presence.74 The political situation worsened just as, at the diplomatic level, France and China decided to open talks.75 The French were still present on Pattle Island (2 officers, 10 Europeans and 17 natives).76 On 5 May 1949, the Chinese reiterated the administrative attachment of the Paracels to Hainan Island. In April 1950, Nationalist Chinese troops were evacuated from Woody Island only to be replaced by troops from the People’s Republic of China. France once again indicated its desire to refer the case to the International Court of Justice. The presence of Communist Chinese troops in the Paracels in 1951 and in the following years has not been confirmed. In July 1949, the French Navy requested instructions and reported that one of the Spratly Islands (Itu Aba) was occupied both by a detachment from Communist China and by a detachment from Nationalist China. In October 1950, the French Government officially handed over control of the archipelagos, or rather, of the Paracels, there being no effective presence in the Spratlys, to the Bao Dai Government. Yet it was not until 1956 that the administration of South Vietnam, in the wake of the withdrawal of the French Expeditionary Force from Indochina, took over the French garrison on Pattle Island (Paracels). The same year, the People’s Republic of China occupied the other part of the archipelago from which it never withdrew. Also the same year (1956), the South Vietnamese Navy occupied some of the Spratly Islands and set up a boundary-marker there indicating sovereignty.
From this confused period, which is that of the first war of Indochina (1945-1954), and the ensuing months, scarcely any facts can be derived pointing to a sovereign administration of the archipelagos. However, what is recognized is: that a (partial) French, and subsequently South Vietnamese, presence was always maintained in the Paracels or rather on one island in that archipelago; that France was somewhat guarded with respect to the occupation of the Spratlys, while still retaining an interest in them even though they were occupied by the Vietnamese from 1956 onwards; that Nationalist then Communist China was present in part of the Paracels until 1950 then again from 1956 onwards; that the two Chinas were present much more fleetingly in the Spratlys; that the Philippines then displayed interest in the Spratlys or at least certain islets in that archipelago. However, in a period of political and military confusion such as the one under consideration here, intentions are decisive. They must therefore be scrupulously examined. The multi-faceted element of intention The claims of sovereignty, first made unilaterally, subsequently formed the subject of multilateral debate on the occasion of international declarations or agreements. a) France The diplomatic correspondence enlightens us as to French intentions in this period. The Government in Paris maintained its rights and reaffirmed them on every occasion.
Even after the Agreements of 6 March 1946, it was considered that ‘It is for France, on behalf of Annam, to assert its rights in the wider world.’ 77 That included both the Paracels and the Spratlys. • • • In a telegram of August 1946, the French High Commissioner in Saigon indicated to the naval attache that France controlled the Paracels and that every ship planning to put into port there must request authorization to do so from the High Commissioner. The Paracels were the subject of negotiations with (Nationalist) China from February to July 1947. These talks were unproductive but were an opportunity for France to reaffirm its rights and to propose that they be put to arbitration. Later on (from 1951 to 1955), the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs even sought to assert that the Spratlys could not be Vietnamese, that their attachment to Cochin China had been purely administrative and that these (French) islands were now to come under the French Department of Overseas Territories.78 This argument was reiterated in a Note from the Department for Asia-Oceania of 11 July 1955… It was not to resurface after that date even though France never explicitly abandoned the Spratlys. On 16 June 1955, General Jacquot, French Commissioner General in Indochina, referred to a secret letter of agreement of 15 March 1949 addressed to Emperor Bao Dai, in which the High Commissioner, commenting on the Agreements of 8 March 1949, apparently recognized Vietnam’s sovereignty over the Paracels though remained silent on the Spratlys.79 The French position during this period was recognized and supported by other countries. An example was Great Britain which turned to France in 1948 with a request for permission to use Lincoln Island for military exercises, and a further example was the Australian Government which said it was prepared, on the occasion of the drafting of the peace treaty with Japan, to back up the claims of the French Union.
b) China The intentions of the Chinese were also very clear as regards the Paracels. Any passage by a French vessel was challenged and protests were sent to the French Consul in Canton. 80 In 1947, negotiations on the Paracels were held in Paris because holding them in Nanking was impossible owing to the intransigence of Chinese public opinion. In the negotiations, the Chinese took a very hard line and made the evacuation of Pattle Island by the French detachment a precondition of pursuing the talks.81 This was Nationalist China, which would appear to have pulled out in May 1950, though the People’s Republic of China took over the Chinese claims on its own behalf and asserted them in no uncertain terms, not only for the Paracels but the Spratlys as well. c) Vietnam During this period, the representatives of the Vietnamese people reaffirmed the sovereignty of Vietnam. The French authorities indicated this in a telegram dated 23 April 1949 to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in which it was stated that a lecture by Bao Dai’s directeur de cabinet had provoked an incident on the subject of the Paracels. And Mr Pignon, author of the telegram, explained that he had been obliged to give an assurance that the High Commissioner ‘considered the Paracels to be a crown dependency of Annam’ and that he
would support the Vietnamese in this dispute.82 This underscores the long-standing nature of Vietnamese intentions. d) The Philippines Lastly, the Philippines joined the fray in 1950 regarding part of the Spratlys at least, stating that they would not tolerate occupation of the islands by any hostile force. As we see, since the end of World War II, there has been an abundance of intentions to act as sovereign forming the highly complex fabric of this case. e) Multilateral declarations or agreements In the multilateral context, is there any room for a little objectivity in a case dominated by tension between the subjective opinions of States? Japanese desires with regard to the archipelagos, already expressed before the War and exemplified by the Japanese military occupation, were destroyed by the Japanese defeat and subsequent disarmament. Even before the end of the War, through the Cairo Declaration of 1943, published on 1 December 1945, the heads of government of the United States, China and the United Kingdom: • Announced that they proposed to divest Japan of all the Pacific islands captured or occupied since the beginning of the First World War, to restore to the Chinese Republic all the territories, such as Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores, which the Japanese had stolen from the Chinese and to expel Japan from all the other territories it had seized by force.83
The Spratlys and Paracels clearly form part of the other territories. The Cairo plan was to expel Japan from them. But unlike Manchuria, Formosa or the Pescadores, the archipelagos concerned here do not form part of the territories ‘stolen’ from China which the three Governments together proposed to restore to it. Now, China itself was party to the Declaration, Marshal Chiang Kai-shek having been present in person in Cairo, where the talks lasted several days. The omission of the archipelagos from this part of the 1943 Cairo Declaration is remarkable. It cannot have been fortuitous. There was neither reservation nor separate declaration by China regarding these territories. China’s interest in these islands at that time was therefore not decisive. At all events, China had been obliged to remain silent on this point, unable as it was politically to assert its uncertain claims before the States assembled there, whose number included France, in other words, a partner which had never recognized China’s rights over the islands and had even, on several occasions, proposed to China that the matter be referred to the International Court of Justice. Some years later, the peace treaty with Japan was to be drawn up. In 1951, the United States of America and the United Kingdom were the host powers at the San Francisco Conference. Fiftyfive States were invited, including the Associated States of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. It was decided not to invite either of the Chinese Governments to attend.84 The Treaty was signed on 8 September 1951 between Japan and 48 Allied Powers. The repercussions of this for the archipelagos in the South China Sea were extremely important.
Under Article 2 of the Treaty, Japan renounced all rights, titles and claims to a number of territories, the Spratlys and Paracels among them. However, following a French recommendation, the Treaty did not effect any devolution of these territories. The People’s Republic of China protested, admittedly not from within the Conference since it had not been invited to attend, by a Declaration of 15 August 1951. The absence of attribution was to generate much comment and lead to various theories. According to D.P. O’Connell, four solutions were considered:85 • • • • a condominium over the abandoned territories of all the States at war with Japan; joint sovereignty to be acquired solely by the States parties to the peace treaty (which excluded China, absent from San Francisco); return to the status of terra nutlius by derelictio (this was the position put forward by Maurice Faure in the French Assembly during the debate on ratification); appropriation by the occupants of these territories after Japan’s departure.
It should be noted that the latter solution would have led to the division of the Paracels between France and China and to the attribution of the Spratlys to France if anything. However, this solution lacked any legal basis. The title and the rivalry in the maintenance of the title were so clearly established prior to the Japanese occupation that, once that episode was over, the historical depth and acquired validity of the claims of each party could be carefully examined. And in that process of investigation, all elements count, including, and above all, the public declarations and silences or reservations which followed or accompanied these declarations. Hence, the conditions in which the cessation of hostilities with Japan was effected require detailed examination. At the request of Mr Gromyko (the USSR being present in San Francisco), an amendment was tabled at the plenary meeting of 5 September 1951. It envisaged the recognition by Japan of the sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China over a series of territories including the Paracels and the Spratlys. Yet this amendment was rejected on that occasion by 46 of the countries present. Only Poland and Czechoslovakia supported the USSR.86 The (Nationalist) Republic of China, concluding a peace treaty of its own with Japan on 28 April 1952, formally took note of Japan’s renunciation of all rights to the islands, but did not have any claim of its own included in this (bilateral) treaty. While San Francisco was not a particularly favourable context for a successful outcome to the Chinese claim, bilateral negotiations were much more so. However, the text only mentions Japan’s renunciation and does not put forward any proposals with respect to devolution. It is difficult therefore to agree with the authors who assert that this text implied recognition by Japan of Chinese sovereignty over these islands.87 In reality, a rigorous argument based on the general rules for the interpretation of treaties leads to the opposite conclusion that the text’s silence on this point leaves the question of the future status of the archipelagos completely open. True, the People’s Republic of China for its part, speaking through Mr Chou en-Lai, Minister for Foreign Affairs, stated on 15 August 1951, in connection with the draft peace treaty with Japan, that ‘the Paracels and the Spratlys have always been Chinese territories’. However, the very terms of the (individual or collective) peace treaties with Japan, the declarations made in them or from which these treaties stem,
signify that Nationalist China, which after 1949 took over the mantle of continuity from the former single Chinese Government, did not make any claim to the archipelagos on the occasion of the Cairo Declaration and bilaterally recognized Japan’s renunciation without putting forward a claim of its own. These two elements, the latter having all the solemnity of treaty instruments and the former substantial political force, warrant the conclusion that at that time the Republic of China ceased asserting rights to the disputed islands. However, this does not settle the question of the claim reiterated loud and clear by the representatives of the People’s Republic of China very soon after they had seized power. Did that claim have any basis since the surviving predecessor State (the Republic of China) had, through its silence, renounced its rights? Could it be argued that it had renounced them in favour of the People’s Republic of China? This is not plausible in the context of relations between the two States, which is a context of breakdown. Consequently, Chou En-lai’s claim, made on 15 August 1951, and rejected by the Conference on 5 September with the Soviet amendment, had no basis and the San Francisco Conference and surrounding events weakened the position of China which, as we have seen, had always been expressed as challenging Vietnam’s previous positions and exercising the balance of power. How then is one to sum up the situation in 1954/56, when France quit Indochina? Leaving aside the claim to the Spratlys by the Philippines, a claim which barely surfaces, it will be seen that, over this long period (1884-1954/56), the Franco-Vietnamese positions on the one hand and the Chinese positions on the other fluctuated, though to varying degrees. • • France left behind the hesitations of the early colonial period, which hesitations may well have weakened its title. It actually administered the two archipelagos until the Japanese occupation. In the Paracels it did so in a clear (though belated) affirmation of succession to the rights of Annam, and in the Spratlys as the occupant of a terra nullius. In the situation which France gradually found itself facing as the World War gave way to the War in Indochina, it maintained both its presence and its claim until, through its departure, it left (South) Vietnam to take over where France left off. However, in the commentary on the San Francisco Treaty (or certain Ministry of Foreign Affairs Notes), where the idea was mooted that France might wish to keep the archipelagos for itself, not for Vietnam, its tone was ambiguous.88 Throughout this whole period, the representatives of Vietnam were not able to speak as a State. However, when they spoke, whether in 1925 (the former Minister for War to the Emperor), in 1949 (Bao Dai’s directeur de cabinet), or in 1951 (the representative of the Associated State of Vietnam in San Francisco), their position was always the same. The archipelagos had long been Vietnamese. And so they must remain. This desire, this intention, combined with the French presence (after the period of hesitation), provides support for the maintenance of the title in favour of Vietnam. Despite certain weaknesses, the Chinese case is not totally devoid of content.
Before the War, while China may have made its opinion known sporadically, it nevertheless did so repeatedly (1909, 1921 and 1932). Since the War, Chinese interest in the Paracels has been persistent. Where these islands are concerned, China has shown great tenacity. The abandonment by Nationalist China (by omitting to put forward a claim in the peace treaty with Japan) might be considered as a position dictated by political circumstances, which would give further credence to the idea of the succession of one China to the other. For China never indicated any acquiescence in the Annamese or French claim. It did not do so through the mouthpiece of the local mandarins in 1896, for although making it clear that the islands were not Chinese, they added that neither did they belong to Annam either. Nor did China do so later, since in 1938, when France occupied the archipelagos, it was understood that the rights of the two parties would be reserved.89 It would therefore be difficult to find any trace of genuine Chinese acquiescence in the Franco-Vietnamese title, unless drawing on documents not yet published. It is here that the notion of the critical date comes back into its own. The first possibility is to opt for the 1880s. A strong conception of the right of peoples to self-determination and of respect for the territorial integrity of peoples under colonial domination prompts a choice of 1884 as the critical date, as well as the assertion that nothing which happened later can be taken into consideration if it breached a long-established right acquired by the people. However, two other critical dates selected from the period under consideration can be suggested. The 1930s, and in particular 1937, when France first proposed to China to go to arbitration, may be considered as another point in the crystallization of the dispute. It has been seen above that, on these dates, France still possessed a title superior to that of China over both archipelagos (for different reasons). Lastly, the years 1954/56 (chosen as the critical date by Jean-Pierre Ferrier) were decisive by virtue of the reappearance of the Vietnamese people on the international stage (even though speaking through two States). Each of these three ‘critical dates’ opens up a perspective which appears favourable to the Vietnamese argument. However, it must be acknowledged that the post-war years confused matters a great deal, in that, although the Franco-Vietnamese title was not destroyed, the conditions in which it was exercised were problematic. It must also be acknowledged that the Chinese claim, although originally unfounded (i.e. in 1909) and greatly weakened by the San Francisco Conference, must be seen together with the duration of the Chinese presence in the islands, even if unlawfully established through the use of force and therefore unable to produce any legal effects. It now remains to consider the fate of the archipelagos during recent decades.
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