None of that happened prior to Japan taking over the Spratly Islands, and Japan didn’t have to fight anyone for it, until the French took it by force in 1933. So if you want to say someone trying to keep the Spratly Islands as the spoils of war, it would be the French.
It matters as the Spratly’s wasn’t part of Taiwan but annexed by Japan by force. It also matters as there are several claimants.
You can’t claim on one hand Taiwan was illegally annexed then on the other hand insist to keep the spratly’s which were also illegally annexed.
1933 (The Montevideo Convention): Signed by nations in the Americas, Article 11 of this treaty explicitly established that signatories would not recognize territorial acquisitions achieved by force
Japan annexed the Spratly’s in 1939.
Japan didn’t annex the Spratly Islands in 1939, they controlled the islands since the 1920s. They only placed it under Kaohsiung’s jurisdiction in 1939.
No.
The Spratlys and the Paracels were conquered from France by Japan in 1939.
Which the French took from Japan in 1933. You are going in circles.
Are you sure about that??
You can’t see the contradiction in claiming spratlys while also claiming ROC annexed Taiwan?
No one was living or operating on those islands, if they are even that, until the Japanese. Prior to that it was basically international waters, and everyone could fish and sail through the region. So if you are against people unilaterally annexing any territory, then just follow the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruling, and the Spratly atolls are international waters. If you think they are islands, then the first country to actually occupy the Spratly Islands, without using force, is Japan.
Japan didn’t occupy them before France. Both China and Japan protested when France annexed them… but neither occupied the islands.
You are looking at the wrong issue though. You can’t claim on one hand to be a victim of imperialism then also insist to be enriched by the same imperialism… it would be coming to the process of self-determination without clean hands.
Japanese government and private businesses were operating on the islands, that’s why the French send ships to drive them out.
From French wikipedia page for the Spratly Islands:
L’empire du Japon fit alors des réserves, car, à son avis, si depuis 1917 des Japonais exploitaient des gisements de phosphates (guano) dans l’île principale, Itu Aba, il n’avait jamais été remarqué qu’un seul Français s’y fût installé. Fort de cette constatation, Tokyo, notifia à l’ambassadeur de France, le 31 mars 1939, que les Spratleys, habitées par des Japonais, étaient placées sous la juridiction nippone et rattachées administrativement au territoire de Formose ; l’occupation était assurée par un détachement de police.
The Empire of Japan then expressed reservations, because, in its view, while Japanese people had been exploiting phosphate (guano) deposits on the main island, Itu Aba, since 1917, it had never been noted that a single Frenchman had settled there. Based on this observation, Tokyo notified the French ambassador on March 31, 1939, that the Spratlys, inhabited by Japanese people, were placed under Japanese jurisdiction and administratively attached to the territory of Formosa; the occupation was ensured by a police detachment.
Japan gained Formosa and Pescadores permanently through an international treaty. Since when have I complained about that?
The ROC on the other hand was appointed by the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers to administer Taiwan until a formal peace treaty with Japan, which it failed to do, and illegally annexed the island the moment American navy carried Chen Yi to the island, and then continued to pillage and massacre the people of Taiwan, and draft men to fight in China’s civil war. None of that is sanctioned by a treaty.
Individuals exploiting resources is not occupation.
‘Occupation’ being legally an original means of peaceably acquiring sovereignty over territory otherwise than by cession or succession, it was a cardinal condition of a valid ‘occupation’ that the territory should be terra nullius – a territory belonging to no-one – at the time of the act alleged to constitute the ‘occupation’.
The Spratly Islands, until Japanese people began living and working on it, were terra nullius in the truest term of the word. Japan was the first to have occupied it, and had people living on it, until the French sent gunboats to drive out the original inhabitants but again did not have anyone living on them, which Japan eventually took back, and this time attached a small armed force to protect it.
It is not that different from how the French came to own the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, or the British owning Pitcairn island, aside from the fact that no international court ever ruled that those aren’t actually islands.
Who said they were living there? I’m guessing it wasn’t fulltime occupation. And those individuals were not state actors.
Thanks for asking Gemini, but the French clearly said they only surveyed the Spratly Islands in April of 1930.
La France avait fait reconnaître l’archipel, le 13 avril 1930, par la canonnière « La Malicieuse ».
Vietnam probably has the strongest claim.
Japan had people living on the islands first. If anyone gets to claim the islands by terra nullius, it would be the Japanese.
Japan’s claims was
大正6年以来 我が国人は何国人にも先立って巨額の資本を投下し恒久的諸施設を設けて同島嶼の経済的開発に従事し来った
Since 1917, the Japanese people were first before anyone else to invest in building permanent structures on these islands to develop Spratly Islands’ economy.
The japanese didn’t claim the islands under such. They weren’t there fulltime. It was only after the french took them that china and japan showed interest.
A bit like Taiwan in that regard… no one wanted it until the dutch took it.
Why does that matter? When the French took it the island wasn’t terra nullius, since the island was inhabited by people clearly belonging to a state, and the French used force to remove them, and the state immediately lodged a protest against French action.
Not true. The Japanese were there for guano mining and fishing. It’s not like the Spartly Islands were used as whaling stations where there’s a clear whaling season. Every day is guano season, and there are permanent settlements on the island even if people do get rotated out. Mining did slow down during the great depression, but the island was still occupied.
Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Researchers at the Institute for National Defense and Security have the same conclusion.