What’s in a name? Google has renamed a shoal located between the Macclesfield Bank and Luzon island in the South China Sea on their maps as Scarborough Shoal.  They had previously identified the hazard to navigation by its Chinese name, Huangyan Island.  Why does this matter to anyone?

The shoals, consisting of an atoll and a series of rocks and shallows, covering 58 square miles of the South China Sea, is claimed by China, Taiwan and the Philippines. In recent years, the South China Sea has become an area of conflict between China and its neighbors over conflicting claims over rights to fishing and oil reserves. The Philippines had complained to Google that the use of the Chinese name could suggest Chinese sovereignty, which the Philippines and Taiwan deny.  Of the at least seven names used to identify the shoals, Scarborough is the most diplomatically neutral. Indeed, it is the one name not used by any of the three nations which claim sovereignty over the rocks and islands that make up the shoal. The name is one of the more recent given to the shoals, named after the East India Co. tea-clipper which was wrecked there in September 12, 1784.

The Philippines claim sovereignty over the shoals dating back to at least 1734, when they first appear on a chart identified as Panacot Shoal. The Chinese counter that the Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing went to the shoals in 1279, under the Yuan dynasty, as part of an empire-wide survey called “Measurement of the Four Seas,” and that the waters around shoals have been fished by Chinese fisherman for centuries.  The Taiwanese claim that the shoal is part of the Zhongsha Islands, which are claimed by both Taiwan and China. South-China-Sea-controversy.html

Regardless of what you call them, the shoals have been effectively under Chinese blockade since 2012.  See our post from April 2012, Standoff in the South China Sea – Philippine and Chinese Ships Face-off at Scarborough Shoal.