MANILA, Philippines (Update 2, 3:01 p.m.) — Distancing itself from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Beijing insisted that artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea have been named a long time ago.
Speaking at the 2019 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Chinese Ministry of Defense Security Cooperation Center director Senior Colonel Zhou Bo, talked about the artificial islands in the South China Sea.
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Collin Koh, maritime security research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, shared Zhou’s pronouncements at the annual security forum.
“(I)f they are artificial islands, where did their names come from?” Koh tweeted June 1, quoting Zhou.
British journalist Bill Hayton, associate fellow at the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, said that some of the islands in the South China Sea have Chinese and English names.
Hayton noted that what the Chinese called Jin Yin Dao or Money Island in the Paracel chain was named after William Money, an English naval captain in the East India Company.
Another example was Lin Yang Jiao or Antelope Reef in the Paracels, named after a ship of the British East India Company.
Both the Money Island and Antelope Reef also have Vietnamese names — Dao Quang Anh and Da Hai Sam.