Nine dashes don’t make a legal claim
If you sail on it, you own it – apparently. No one is making a surprised face about Beijing’s immature reaction to the Hague ruling that the Nationalist government’s nine-dash line is nine dashes of spuriousness. Wait, Nationalist? Yes, because that was made up in 1944 (I believe) by the previous regime, which lingers on in Taiwan; and yet the present imperial government has resurrected a claim made by a discredited regime that still has a claim to the mainland, but no power or legitimacy there. What a confusing place the world is. I’ve also read that the alleged archaeological evidence which establishes the Empire’s flimsy claims to the South China Sea was planted there about a century ago. I’d assume that Chinese vessels have sailed across the seas for centuries, but if that’s the basis for a claim, then every maritime nation could claim every bit of sea one of their ships has ever traversed. And if the logic of the Empire’s claim is applied, it’s perfectly legitimate to claim