Taiwan Reaffirms South China Sea Claims After Philippines Submits Scarborough Shoal Chart to UN

Taipei, Aug 2026 : Taiwan on Sunday reaffirmed its sovereignty claims over islands in the South China Sea after the Philippines submitted an official nautical chart of Scarborough Shoal to the United Nations, reigniting territorial differences involving Taipei, Manila and Beijing.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) said disputes in the South China Sea should be addressed peacefully and in accordance with international law and the law of the sea. It also called for Taiwan to be included in multilateral mechanisms aimed at resolving disputes in the region, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reported.

The statement came after the Philippines submitted an official nautical chart of Scarborough Shoal to the UN last week as part of efforts to reaffirm its position over the disputed feature.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs said the submission was made under Article 16 of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Manila said the convention requires coastal states to publicise official charts showing the baselines from which the breadth of their territorial seas is measured.

The move has drawn objections from both China and Taiwan, which also maintain claims over the disputed shoal.

Scarborough Shoal is known as Bajo de Masinloc in the Philippines, Democracy Reef in Taiwan and Huangyan Dao in China. The feature has long remained a source of tension among the three sides, with competing claims over sovereignty and maritime rights.

China strongly rejected the Philippine move. On July 31, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised Manila’s delimitation of what it described as the “baselines of the territorial sea” of Huangyan Dao, declaring the action “illegal, null, and void.”

Beijing said the Philippine move represented a serious challenge to China’s territorial sovereignty and violated international law, including the UN Charter and UNCLOS.

China maintained that Huangyan Dao was inherently Chinese territory and asserted sovereignty over the feature and its surrounding waters. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said Beijing had continuously and peacefully exercised sovereignty and jurisdiction over Huangyan Dao.

It also rejected the Philippine argument concerning the historical status of the disputed feature, saying that the territory of the Philippines had been defined through a series of international treaties and that Huangyan Dao had never formed part of Philippine territory.

Beijing further described Manila’s territorial claim as having no basis under international law and reiterated its rejection of the Philippines’ position.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also criticised the Philippines’ earlier decision to initiate arbitration concerning the South China Sea. Beijing argued that Manila’s unilateral action violated fundamental principles of international law, including pacta sunt servanda and estoppel.

China additionally cited UNCLOS, a bilateral agreement between China and the Philippines and the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in arguing against the Philippine position.

Taiwan, meanwhile, has stressed that disputes in the South China Sea should be managed through peaceful means and according to international law. Taipei’s call for participation in multilateral dispute-resolution mechanisms reflects its position that it should not be excluded from discussions concerning territories and maritime areas over which it maintains claims.

The latest developments highlight the continuing complexity of territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea, where overlapping claims and competing interpretations of international law remain a major source of regional tension.

(The content of this article is sourced from a news agency and has not been edited by the Mavericknews30 team.)