The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

The delegates rejected the Soviet amendment by a vote of 46
to 3, with 1 abstention. See U.S. State Department, Conference for
the Conclusion and Signature of the Peace Treaty with Japan, Record of
Proceedings. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, Publication
4392, December 1951, p. 292.
104. The Prime Minister of the newly established Republic of
Vietnam, Tran Van Huu, who attended the peace conference at
San Francisco, claimed Vietnam’s ownership of the South China
Sea islands during his speech at the conference (every delegate
had at least one opportunity to speak at the conference, the big
powers of course got more than their share of the time to speak
there). However, there was no action taken on that claim—it went
unnoticed. See U.S. State Department, Conference for the Conclusion
and Signature of the Peace Treaty with Japan, Record of Proceedings.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, Publication 4392, December
1951, p. 292. By the way, the Vietnam White Paper of 1975
claims that since there was no objection to the Prime Minister’s
claim at the conference, it was endorsed. This interpretation cannot
stand. See also Li Jinming (李金明), “越南在南海声称的领土争
议” (“Vietnam’s Claim on the South China Sea Territory”), 东南
亚之窗 (Window of Southeast Asia), No. 1, 2005, for an analysis of
the issues.
105. A draft was circulated prior to the conference. China also
obtained a copy.
106. Statement by Chinese Foreign Minister Zhou En-lai in
Collected Documents on the Foreign Relations of the People’s Republic
of China (中华人民共和国对外关系文件集), Beijing, China: World
Knowledge Publishing (世界知识出版社), 1961.
107. See Captain Memoir and Vietnam White Paper.
108. International practice gives more weight to effective control
than historical claims. See the Island of Palmas Case ruled by
the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1925 (a dispute between
the United States on behalf of its colony the Philippines and the
Netherlands on behalf of its colony Indonesia) sets the example
of effective exercise of sovereignty taking precedence over the
right of discovery and claim of territorial contiguity (see reference
221