UK professor's book backs China's South China Sea position

A symposium on the History and Sovereignty of South China Sea was jointly held by Beijing Society of International Law, School of Law of Beijing Institute of Technology, and New Star Press in Beijing on March 20.

The History and Sovereignty of South China Sea is a book about findings on the South China Sea that Anthony Carty, a British professor of international law now working at Beijing Institute of Technology, collected from primary source materials in national archives mostly in the United Kingdom and France, and some in the United States. The academic results show that China's position in the South China Sea is reasonable.

In the preface, Professor Carty claimed he conducted the research independently over the past decade without commissions or feedback from Chinese authorities.

At the symposium, Prof. Carty mentioned that legal advising and political decision-making were influenced by political pressures and strategic considerations rather than purely legal perspectives, especially the strategic interests of powerful nations. He expressed the will to promote equitable solutions to the South China Sea issue through his research.

Li Shouping, president of the Beijing Society of International Law, and dean of BIT's School of Law, said the research of Prof. Carty would inspire scholars to rediscover the importance of archival research in international law.

Gao Zhiguo, president of the Chinese Society of Law of the Sea, and former judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, stressed the significance of digging in official archives in The History and Sovereignty of South China Sea, which is a great inspiration to the discipline construction of international law in China.

Zhang Haiwen, director of the Institute for Marine Development Strategy, mentioned the re-recognition of the value of archives, especially official archives, being used as historical evidence in international law dispute settlement.

The History and Sovereignty of South China Sea has been released in Chinese so far and the English version will be released by the New Star Press.