China has launched a campaign to preserve historical sites on the disputed Woody Island, or Yongxing Island in Chinese, as Beijing looks to cement its territorial claims in the South China Sea.
A team of conservation scientists and technicians from the Hainan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology spent six days reinforcing a monument that marked China’s takeover of the Paracel Islands, known as the Xisha Islands in China, after World War II, according to the government of the city of Sansha.
The monument was erected in 1946 by the Kuomintang (KMT) government, which sent naval expeditions to Woody Island to make a claim over the Paracels and the Spratly Islands, which China calls the Nansha Islands, after Japan’s surrender at the end of the war. The island was then named after one of the navy warships, the Yongxing.
In 2012, Beijing established Sansha on Woody Island to administer its territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea.
The Paracel Islands, to which Woody Island belongs, are known as the Hoang Sa Islands in Vietnam, which also claims the contested archipelago.
The Spratly Islands are claimed, in whole or in part, by China and a number of Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
According to the Sansha government, Chinese scientists and technicians reinforced the monument with specialised tools and cleaned its surface, which had seriously decayed in the salty and humid air.
“The Xisha Recovery Monument ... stands as a powerful testament to China’s restoration of sovereignty over the South China Sea islands following the illegal occupation by Japan during World War II,” the statement said, adding that similar preservation work would be carried out on other historical sites on the island.
Zhao Yu, with the relics and archaeology institute, said the team would carry out regular maintenance in the future to “mitigate the impact of the island’s unique climate”.
Beijing has ramped up efforts to excavate and preserve artefacts and structures in a bid to consolidate its claims in the disputed South China Sea. These were dealt a blow in 2016 when an international tribunal in The Hague denied China’s claims to “historic rights” over the sea in a lawsuit brought by the Philippines – a ruling Beijing has rejected.
Beijing has also invested heavily in underwater archaeology in the South China Sea as a way to demonstrate its sovereignty by confirming the history and presence of Chinese people in the strategic waterway. -- SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
In 2022, Chinese scientists and engineers used mass surveillance technologies to discover the wreckage of three ancient merchant ships. More than 60 artefacts, including pottery, porcelain and copper coins, were retrieved from depths of up to 3,000 metres (9,843 feet), according to state broadcaster CCTV.
In 2023, an archaeology centre was established in Hainan, the southern island province that oversees the Spratlys and the Paracels, to house the underwater artefacts from the South China Sea.
Li Qun, then director of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, said at the time that the centre’s establishment was “of special importance for passing on Chinese traditional culture and safeguarding national sovereignty, security and maritime rights, and interests”.
