A view of the Taiwan Straits is seen from Xiamen port in East China's Fujian Province. File photo: IC

The Batanes Islands, which are covered by the so-called maritime delimitation talks between Japan and the Philippines, are legally China's sovereign territory and form a natural geographic extension of China's Taiwan island. China should take corresponding actions to assert its sovereignty over the Batanes, the Global Times learned from Chinese experts and scholars at a symposium.

The academic symposium on the sovereignty issue of the Batanes Islands was convened at Jinan University in South China's Guangdong Province, drawing dozens of experts and scholars in maritime affairs from leading Chinese universities and research institutions.

International law scholars systematically argued, from the standpoint of treaty law, that the Batanes Islands do not form part of Philippine territory. Ju Hailong, dean of the School of International Studies at Jinan University, argued that the Batanes Islands fall entirely outside Philippine territorial demarcations laid down by the Treaty of Paris signed in 1898 by the US and Spain. The Treaty of Manila of 1946 confined post-independence Philippine territory to areas south of 20 degrees north latitude, a boundary that excludes the Batanes Islands, which is situated wholly north of latitude 20 degrees.

Participating experts also corroborated with factual evidence that the Batanes Islands constitute affiliated islets of China's Taiwan region. Wang Yuanyuan, a research fellow at the Center for South China Sea History and Culture, National Institute for South China Sea Studies, elaborated, "Anthropological evidence confirms that the roughly 10,000 Ivatan residents of the Batanes share cognate languages, analogous customs and identical underground dwellings with the Tao people of Orchid Island in the Taiwan region." 

Surveys conducted by Filipino anthropologists in 2023 verified that the elderly inhabitants of the Batanes still speak the Tao language - irrefutable proof that their ancestors migrated from the Taiwan region some three to four millennia ago, Wang added.

Documents presented by scholars at the symposium revealed that the Batanes Islands served as traditional fishing grounds for Chinese fishermen during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Several scholars said that China's sovereignty over the Batanes Islands is supported by ample historical evidence and a solid foundation in international law. The so-called Japan-Philippines maritime delimitation talks, by contrast, amount to a politically motivated spectacle devoid of any legal basis, crafted to advance geopolitical calculations.

Zhang Qiyue, a research fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies, noted that Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties dictates that a treaty does not create either obligations or rights for a third State without its consent. As such, Japan and the Philippines' exclusion of China while negotiating maritime entitlements affecting China's maritime rights and interests constitutes a grave violation of the convention. 

Furthermore, their moves run counter to Articles 74 and 83 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, Zhang said, adding, "Japan and the Philippines neither share adjacent nor opposite coastlines, and therefore lack the legal prerequisite to launch maritime delimitation negotiations."

Wang Kan, a professor from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, noted that the joint Japan-Philippines statement claiming the talks had "no impact on third parties" essentially employs formal technical loopholes to conceal its substantive infringement of China's legitimate rights and interests, merely draping unlawful conduct in a veneer of legality. 

"The Japan-Philippines delimitation negotiations have been null and void from their very inception. They will neither undermine China's maritime claims nor alter the legitimate ownership of these waters," Wang added.

In response to the evolving collusive moves between Japan and the Philippines, participants held that China should consistently fortify its legal positions and entitlements within the framework of international law and deepen legal research and argumentation, so as to lay bare the full context of the incident to the international community. China's Coast Guard should conduct regular patrols, and the military's countermeasures need to be scaled up at opportune moments to raise deterrence, according to participants.