South China Sea: The mystery of missing books and maritime claims

On the off chance that you need to comprehend the way China truly

feels about its disputable case to colossal

swathes of the ocean off its southern shore, then

the island of Hainan is a decent place to begin.

This is a spot where everything is twisted towards

defending and maintaining that declaration of

power, from government and military arrangement,

to angling and tourism, and even history itself.

We went to the angling port of Tanmen, on

Hainan's east drift, due to late state

media reports about the presence of an

exceptional record - a 600-year-old book

containing proof of indispensable, national significance.

'Iron-clad evidence'

The book, in the ownership of a resigned

angler called Su Chengfen, is said to record

the exact navigational directions by which

his long-far off ancestors could come to the

scattered shakes and reefs of the far-flung Spratly

islands, numerous several nautical miles away.

China's request that these elements are

Chinese domain lays to a great extent on a "we were

there first" contention. So 81-year-old Mr Su's

book, "appreciated" and "wrapped in layers of

paper" is clearly a sort of oceanic Heavenly

Chalice.

Truth be told, the reports propose, it offers nothing less

than "ironclad verification" of China's responsibility for

South China Ocean.

So we went to meet Mr Su and discovered him hectically

building a model watercraft in his front yard, a short

stroll from the shoreline.

"It was passed down from era to

era," he lets me know when I get some information about the

book. "From my granddad's era, to my

father's era, then to me."

"It essentially taught us how to go some place and

returned, how to go to the Paracels and the

Spratlys, and how to return to Hainan

Island."

Be that as it may, then, when I request that see the report - the

presence of which was, only a couple of weeks back,

being so broadly reported in China and past -

there's a shocking improvement.

Mr Su lets me know it doesn't exist.

"In spite of the fact that the book was imperative, I tossed it

away in light of the fact that it was broken," he says.

"It was flipped through too often. The

salty seawater on the hands had consumed it... In

the end it was no more comprehensible so I tossed it

away."

Whatever it was, Mr Su's book is not, it appears,

any more ironclad verification of anything. But

maybe China's Comrade Party-controlled

media's eagerness not to give a couple of certainties a chance to get in

the method for the official story.

We go out, somewhat astounded by the

encounter, and are given another look at

Hainan's availability to control the message when

it goes toward the South China Ocean.

All over we go, we're trailed by a number

of passed out government autos; from the port

where we attempt to talk with anglers, to the fish

market where we address dealers, and all the

path back to our lodging.

The consideration appears somewhat superfluous as

no-one we approach needs to talk

anyway.

What's more, those that do, let us know nothing more

questionable than a basic redundancy of the

official line, that the South China Ocean has a place with

China since Chinese anglers were there

initially.

Yet, the powers are taking no risks. We

learn soon thereafter that one of the individuals who did

consent to answer a couple of our inquiries, a pontoon

chief, was instantly gotten and

addressed by the police.

Clash of publicity

Every one of this comes, obviously, in the midst of the much-

foreseen universal court administering on the

South China Ocean, expected some time in the following

couple of weeks.

The Philippines has gone to the Changeless Court

of Mediation in The Hague to request a specialized

administering about the degree of the regional waters

that can be asserted on the premise of the

ownership of different coastlines, islands and

rocks.

The decision is not broadly anticipated that would support

China, and may even go so far as to negate

its most far reaching claim - the "nine-dash line"

that envelops up to 90% of the debated

Ocean.

China has, maybe obviously, said it will

neither join in the tribunal nor acknowledge the

power of its decision.

Which is the reason it has rather been overwhelmingly

shielding its position by different means; tightening

up the purposeful publicity - especially its request

that history is on its side - and taking part in a

discretionary push to win associates to its bring about.

This may clarify why an outside

columnist's nearness in Hainan at this specific

minute in time is liable to pull in such close

consideration from the powers.

Despite the fact that for our situation there may have been

another reason: we were, maybe, asking as well

numerous inquiries regarding Hainan's infamous

"oceanic state army".

China has been known not giving its anglers

military preparing for quite a long time.

In any case, as of late, the quantity of militiamen on

angling water crafts is accounted for to increment and

their activities seem, by all accounts, to be turning out to be more

decisive in endorsing and authorize

China's sway claims.

Their key favorable position is that they can be,

also, frequently are, utilized for sporadic military

engagements - involving domain adrift,

completing observation or annoying other

vessels - while working under the pretense of

regular citizen angling water crafts.

The exercises of the state army units in the port of

Tanmen have been all around recorded .

They even have their own base camp inside

the town's administration compound, respected with

a visit in 2013 by the Chinese President Xi

Jinping.

In spite of our endeavors however nobody would talk

about the part this shadowy power plays inside

China's angling armada, and the more we ask, the

more extraordinary the tailing and government

observation appears to turn into.

Prof Andrew S Erickson from the Chinese

Sea Thinks about Organization at the US Maritime War

School trusts the nearness of the local army in

officially grieved waters raises the dangers of a

hazardous heightening.

"I see a huge danger of error and

heightening," he let me know.

"The present approach that China is taking to the

utilization of its oceanic state army not just places them in

threat, [it] puts some other people and vessels

around them in threat and it surely forces a

danger of power being utilized against them by the US

furthermore, different strengths in honest to goodness self protection or to

guarantee the true blue entry of vessels."

A pyrrhic triumph?

Also, that danger may rise significantly further, he recommends,

after the Changeless Court of Discretion Decision.

"At the point when the arbitral tribunal at last without a doubt

some kind of a decision I think China is going to attempt

to figure out how to solidly enroll its

resistance, its determination and its disappointment and

"I think utilizing sea civilian army strengths to assist

approach in close closeness and conceivably

hassle US, Philippine and different vessels is

something that strategy producers from those

nations must be set up for."

In this way, while the Philippines could well soon be

given a decision that will vindicate its position, it

may end up being something of a pyrrhic

triumph.

The worldwide discretion won't oblige

China as to its broad cases in the

ocean. It has effectively made that unmistakable.

Be that as it may, it might rather promote persuade the

government and military pioneers in Beijing that

there is stand out route forward - power.

Obligation tourism

We end our excursion to Hainan in the southern city of

Sanya, watching a voyage ship set sail for the

debated Paracel Islands.

The five-day bundle visit started working in

2013 and a large number of Chinese vacationers have

since taken the outing, which is not open to outside

travel permit holders.

It's an unusual occasion idea - a long voyage to

take in a couple reefs and to a great extent uninhabited rocks,

numerous miles out to ocean.

They are the same rocks, obviously, that resigned

angler Su Chengfen's progenitors likely

visited each one of those hundreds of years back.

There is unquestionably some confirmation that complex

navigational learning from antiquated times has

to be sure been passed down, aurally, from one

era to the following.

Yet, the need to make all realities fit the authority

history seems to have mystically turned Mr Su's

legacy into hard, solid proof which is

at that point distributed in national daily papers in the

administration of a contention which itself doesn't

confront much cross examination.

Regardless of the possibility that Mr Su could deliver a 600-year-old book

to show us, it would be confirmation just of the antiquated

utilization of the South China Ocean, not so much

responsibility for.

Numerous other South China Ocean countries can, of

course, additionally indicate proof that angling

groups along their coastlines have long

been utilizing the waters as well.

Be that as it may, in China there is stand out account and our

involvement in Hainan is an impeccable outline of

how successfully that story is being shielded

what's more, strengthened.

I ask one lady, as she gets ready to board the

journey ship, why in the world she has decided to

invest her important get-away energy going by a couple

infertile rocks.

"We're not going to live it up," she answers.

"We've been instructed since birth that it's our

country's hallowed domain. It's our obligation to go

what's more, see."