PROTECTING THE SEA: A Chinese fishery administration ship sets sail for the Xisha Qundao Archipelago in the South China Sea on a patrol mission in Zhuhai on May 16 (WEI MENG)

Disputes have recently broken out between China and some Southeast Asian countries and the United States in the South China Sea. The Beijing-based Economic Information Daily spoke to Liu Nanlai, a research fellow at the Institute of International Law under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on the origin of the South China Sea issue and China's position on it. Excerpts follow:

The South China Sea issue is a complicated matter concerning a number of countries. The disputes generally fall into three categories: territorial disputes over islands, the demarcation of the sea and navigation in the sea. Clashes between China and Viet Nam, the Philippines and Malaysia belong to the first two categories, whereas the third category involves the United States and Japan.

Since their discovery in the Qin and Han dynasties 2,000 years ago, the Chinese have been active in developing the islands in the South China Sea. Historical records show that the South China Sea islands had become part of Chinese territory by the Tang Dynasty (618-907). In the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), jurisdiction over the South China Sea was exercised by officials' inspection tours there.

In the 1920s and 1930s, China made representations when some Japanese and French people conducted commercial explorations in the South China Sea. Japan seized the islands in the sea during World War II. China took them back after the war. It not only sent warships and officials, but also put the South China Sea under the jurisdiction of Guangdong Province, moves that attested to China's sovereignty over the sea. No neighboring countries challenged the moves at that time. The Chinese Government announced that the South China Sea islands were Chinese territory in its territorial sea statement in 1958. Pham Van Dong, the then Vietnamese Prime Minister, supported this decision.

The international community began to establish the continental shelf system in 1945. The UN formulated the Convention on the Continental Shelf in 1958. At the same time, some Latin American countries asserted maritime rights over a 200-nautical mile zone. At its Third Conference on the Law of the Sea beginning in 1973, the UN discussed the continental shelf and the 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea adopted at the conference states that the continental shelf shall be determined according to the principle of "natural prolongation of the land territory" and that coastal countries have the right to establish a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone.

A coastal country has control of all resources on or under its continental shelf, living or not, but no control over any living organisms above the shelf that are beyond its exclusive economic zone, according to convention. An exclusive economic zone extends for 200 nautical miles beyond the baseline of the territorial sea, thus including the territorial sea, which extends up to 12 nautical miles from the baseline, and its contiguous zone.