China's Sovereignty over the South China Sea Islands: A Historical Perspective

Abstract

Shortly after I wrote my article on the territorial disputes over the South China Sea Islands in 1996, which was published in Hastings International and Comparative Law Review in 1997, I began to engage in follow-up studies of the same subject matter on an on-and-off basis. My plan was to undertake extensive research and writing projects that would yield a few research papers and eventually lead to a scholarly book. Largely due to the lack of funding, among other reasons, I had to cut short my plan. Nevertheless, thanks in part to a research grant from the University of Hong Kong, I was able to reduce part of my follow-up studies to three draft papers. The first of these, titled "Territorial Aspects of the South China Sea Islands Disputes," was presented at a conference in New York City in February 1997, and was later published in a book by Martinus Nijhoff Publishers in 1998. The second paper, also finished in 1997, was in Chinese, and was tided "Lun £hongguo dui Xisha Qundao heNansha Qundao de £kuquan" (On China's Sovereignty over the Xisha and the JVanska Islands). The rnird one, drafted between 1998 and 1999, was presented at an international seminar held in Macau in April 1999 and included in a collection of conference papers. In writing the present article, I