India (Common Wealth) _Malaysia and India have filed challenges against China’s new map, which appears to increase Beijing’s territorial claims.
The 2023 edition of China’s “standard map,” published Monday on the website of China’s Ministry of Natural Resources, claims Arunachal Pradesh and the Aksai Chin plateau as Chinese territory. It also includes a portion of Malaysia’s maritime territory off the coast of Borneo, as well as Taiwan and large sections of the South China Sea.
Malaysia criticized China’s unilateral claims to its maritime territory on Wednesday. The map has no binding effect on Malaysia, according to the statement. Malaysia has consistently rejected any foreign party’s claims to sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction over Malaysia’s maritime features or maritime area based on the 1979 Map, according to the statement, referring to a Malaysian map depicting Malaysia’s territorial waters and continental shelf boundaries.
India also protested ahead of the Group of 20 conference in New Delhi next week, which Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to attend.
“We reject these claims because they are without foundation,” said Arindam Bagchi, spokesman for the External Affairs Ministry, in a statement on Tuesday. Such Chinese actions simply complicate the resolution of the boundary dispute.
The foreign ministry of the Philippines also published a statement condemning the new map. “This latest attempt to legitimize China’s purported sovereignty and jurisdiction over Philippine features and maritime zones has no basis under international law,” the statement said, adding that a 2016 judgement by an international tribunal in The Hague “invalidated the nine-dashed line.”
The image also placed the Taiwanese mainland and outlying islands within China’s U-shaped “nine-dash line,” which covers the majority of the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
On Wednesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry urged all parties involved to maintain objectivity. It is “a routine practice in China’s exercise of sovereignty in accordance with the law,” Wang Wenbin, a spokeswoman, stated. We hope that all parties involved can remain neutral and cool, and avoid over-interpreting the situation.
This map was created using the drawing method of national boundaries from China and other countries. The map is expected to exacerbate tensions in the South China Sea and along the 3,000-kilometer Sino-Indian frontier in the western Himalayas, where tens of thousands of soldiers are stationed on both sides.
“It will raise eyebrows and will do nothing to alleviate already simmering tensions in the South China Sea and along the Sino-Indian border,” said Collin Koh, senior fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.
Nonetheless, given their observations of Beijing’s behavior in recent years, India and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are unlikely to regard this latest development as a fresh or exceptional event.
India has issued a protest though Vietnam is sure to issue a statement in response. At the same time, I don’t see any divergence from what various parties consider to be business as usual in the South China Sea and along the Sino-Indian border, according to Koh.
In the South China Sea, Koh anticipates that the littoral governments would continue to participate in actions to establish sovereign rights in their exclusive economic zones.
For example, Malaysia’s national oil company Petronas announced last week the start of gas production at its Timi field, located roughly 200 kilometers off the coast of Sarawak – well within China’s “nine-dash line.
According to some commentators, the release of the new map is an attempt by Beijing to divert attention away from the country’s deteriorating economic situation. The release, which comes just days after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi met on the sidelines of the BRICS meeting in South Africa.
