First a “scholarly seminar,” then a state-media op-ed, then a coast guard vessel and a talking point about “indisputable sovereignty.” Manufacturing a dispute where none exists does not create one. It only tells us what Beijing intends.
On the law: a boundary line drawn between two colonial powers in 1898 does not erase a province Spain formally organized in 1783. Basco is named after the governor-general who established it. But title does not rest on old maps — it rests on the continuous, effective display of state authority. Batanes has six municipalities. Ivatans vote in our elections, pay our taxes, sit in our Congress, and serve in our armed forces and in this Coast Guard. That is what sovereignty looks like!
On “ancient fishing”: the 2016 Arbitral Award already settled that historic fishing generates no sovereignty. Beijing cannot reject that ruling and then borrow its logic when convenient.
On Austronesian kinship: the argument defeats itself. Austronesian peoples span Madagascar to Rapa Nui — Taiwan’s own indigenous peoples among them. If shared ancestry conferred title, the map of Asia would be redrawn a dozen times over, and not in Beijing’s favor.
To the author: you need not fly to Basco to find out who the Ivatans are. Just ask your own Ambassador Jian Quan. He went there himself and paid a courtesy call on the local government — a duly established local government of the Republic of the Philippines!
