VietNamNet Bridge – China’s “cow tongue” line is a product of delusion that makes the whole civilised world, including Chinese scholars, feel shocked.

Many Chinese scholars even admitted that they feel ashamed when they are asked to explain the “cow tongue” line to their international counterparts.

In 2009, China officially announced a map with the “cow tongue” line. Immediately, a famous commentator of Feng Huang Wei Shi warned that China created their own catastrope and the international community would never let it occur.

Several other scholars, including Li Ling Hua believe that the U-shape line was arbitrarily drawn and based on zero backgrounds.

Commenting on the “cow tongue” line, American professor Mark J.Valencia pointed out that China’s territorial claims in the East Sea are always ambiguous and not earnest.

On December 4, 1950, Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou Enlai, on behalf of the Chinese Government, declared that China agreed with the Cairo Declaration jointly released by Great Britain, the United States and the Republic of China on December 1, 1943.

According to the Declaration, “Japan shall be stripped of all the islands in the Pacific which she has seized or occupied since the beginning of the first World War in 1914, and that all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Manchuria, Formosa, and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China.” This means that Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spartly) archipelagoes had no relations with Chinese territory.

In 1953, China approved a new “cow tongue” line with nine dashes instead of eleven dashes. Once again, China provided no clear legal grounds for this new line.

On May 6, 2009, Vietnam and Malaysia jointly submitted to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf in accordance with Article 76, paragraph 8, of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, information on the limits of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured in respect of the southern part of the East Sea.

One day later, China sent an diplomatic note, attached with a U-shape map or the “cow tongue” line covering nearly 80 percent of the East Sea, to the United Nations Secretary General. By that time, the whole world knew about China’s ambition to grasp control of the East Sea.

In March 2010, China made the whole world startle by declaring that the East Sea is China’s core internet. In response to the declaration, a Chinese magazine ran an article saying that China had no clear and consistent stance.

On June 25, 2014, China added one dash to the newly-issued vertical map. This map with a ten-dash line has been strongly rejected by both Vietnam and the Philippines.

China’s publication of the vertical map and illegal installation of the drilling rig Haiyang Shiyou-981 in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone only sparked criticism and condemnation across the world, even in China.

Chinese people need to reflect on why their words and actions are so frightening to other countries, said Yang Hengiun, a Chinese independent scholar who once worked in the Chinese Foreign Ministry and as a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC.

VGP/VNN