The cleverest thing and the nine-dash line

IT is a series of dashes, nine in all, that presents and outlines in a vague way, China's claim on the South China Sea (SCS). The nine-dash line encroached on the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf of the Philippines. Before China revealed its intentions in the SCS, the significance of the dashes was a cartographic puzzle.

According to the arbitral tribunal that resolved the case of the Philippines vs. China, what has become known as the "nine-dash line" first appeared on an official Chinese map in 1948. In that year, the Ministry of the Interior of what was then the Republican Government of China published a "Map Showing the Location of the Various Islands in the South Sea." A similar line had also appeared in privately produced cartography as early as 1933. In its original form, the map featured 11 dashes. The two dashes in the Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam were removed in 1953, making it a "nine-dash line." The line has appeared consistently in that nine-dash line form in official Chinese cartography since that date. The length and precise placement of individual dashes, however, do not appear to be entirely consistent among different official depictions.