The Bashi Channel Bluff: Fake History, Deniable Claims, and the Batanes Gambit

Lawfare disguised as scholarship

By Louis “Barok” C. Biraogo — July 10, 2026

The Gray-Zone Lawfare Playbook

It reads like a bad joke written by a very serious committee: Batanes—Philippine territory since before most modern nations existed—is actually Chinese, because it sits close to Taiwan, shares a few words with an island across the strait, and someone once sailed past it during the Qing Dynasty. That is the stunning conclusion from a June 30 symposium at Jinan University in Guangzhou, amplified by state-affiliated outlet NewsGD, and signed off by scholars from Nanjing University, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and other prestigious institutions.

The punchline? No official in Beijing has endorsed it. And that silence is not an oversight—it is the entire strategy.

This is not a genuine historical debate. It is gray-zone lawfare in textbook form: state-linked academics float a maximalist claim; state media spreads it; if it sticks, Beijing claims the prize; if it blows up, Beijing shrugs and says “those are just scholars talking.” It is a test balloon tied directly to the Marcos-Takaichi summit announcement that the Philippines and Japan will begin delimiting their exclusive economic zones and continental shelves east of Taiwan—precisely the waters Beijing most needs to keep unconstrained for any future move across the Taiwan Strait.

**Breaking: Academics “Discover” Batanes is China. Mang Pedring Disagrees.** #BashiBluff #CrayolaDiplomacy

Steel-Manning the Maximalist Claim

Let us steel-man the scholars’ case first, because you cannot dismantle a lie you have not taken seriously. Their argument rests on five pillars:

that Batanes fell under Ming-Qing administrative reach of Taiwan Prefecture;
that it is geographically and geologically a “natural extension” of Taiwan’s Orchid Island;
that Ivatan-Tao cultural ties prove deeper political origins;
that the Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain, signed at Paris on December 10, 1898 (Treaty of Paris) set the northern limit “along or near the 20th parallel,” excluding parts of Batanes; and
that Taiwan’s presence “between” Japan and the Philippines makes bilateral delimitation “illegal and invalid” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

It sounds impressive—until you hold it up to actual law.

Palmas Precedent: Continuous Sovereignty Trumps Maps and Myths

Start with the Island of Palmas (or Miangas) Arbitration (Netherlands v. United States) (1928), the very same treaty the scholars cherry-pick. Arbitrator Max Huber ruled definitively: an inchoate claim based on discovery, maps, or vague dynastic reach cannot defeat continuous, peaceful exercise of state authority. Spain formally established the Comandancia Político-Militar de Batanes in 1783; Act No. 1952 (An Act to Provide for the Establishment of the Province of Batanes), enacted May 20, 1909, made it a full Philippine province; it has sent representatives to Congress, held elections, collected taxes, and operated courts ever since. The United States, Commonwealth, Republic—an unbroken chain of sovereignty. Against that, the scholars offer navigation logs and vague assertions of “jurisdiction” with zero documented acts of actual Chinese governance over Batanes in 240 years. That is not a close call—it is not even a contest.

Treaty Text vs. Historical Reality

The Treaty of Paris is also willfully misread. Article III says “along or near the twentieth parallel… through the middle of the navigable channel of Bachi”—anchoring the line to the Bashi Channel, not a rigid latitude. The Treaty between the United States and Spain for the Cession of Outlying Islands of the Philippines, signed at Washington on November 7, 1900 (Treaty of Washington) and the Treaty of General Relations between the United States of America and the Republic of the Philippines, signed at Manila on July 4, 1946 (Treaty of Manila) confirm the intent to include the full archipelago. Philippine Supreme Court precedent in Magallona v. Ermita, G.R. No. 187167, August 16, 2011 drives this home: UNCLOS regulates maritime zones—it does not rewrite territorial title. You cannot mine treaty text to undo what history and administration have already settled.

Geography, Culture, and the Self-Determination Farce

Then there is the farce of geography and culture. Proximity does not equal sovereignty—if it did, half the world’s borders would vanish tomorrow. Geological continuity matters for continental shelves, not land title. And cultural kinship? The Ivatan and Tao share Austronesian roots—so do Filipinos, Indonesians, Malaysians, and many Pacific peoples. That does not mean Manila owns Orchid Island, or Jakarta owns Luzon. Worse still: the scholars invoke the Ivatans as evidence but never once consulted them. Indigenous people are not footnotes in someone else’s territorial claim—their right to self-determination under the Charter of the United Nations (UN Charter) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) should matter more than any academic’s talking point.

UNCLOS as Shield, Not Sword — And Beijing’s Self-Contradiction

The UNCLOS objection is equally slippery. Articles 74 and 83 of UNCLOS require “opposite or adjacent coasts”—but the Philippines and Japan are delimiting their own entitlements, not Taiwan’s. The correct rule is simple: you cannot negotiate rights you do not have, but you also cannot be barred from negotiating rights you do hold—and you certainly cannot treat a third party’s presence as a permanent veto. Any final line must include a savings clause protecting unadjudicated claims, but that is a procedural safeguard, not a death sentence for the talks.

Most embarrassing of all is the internal contradiction. Just three years ago, China’s own Consulate General in Laoag visited Batanes, met the governor, and publicly called it “the northernmost province of the Philippines.” Now scholars say Philippine administration “lacks legal basis.” You cannot have it both ways—unless you are not trying to be consistent, only trying to create options.

Cui Bono? The Stakeholders and the Real Stakes

So who gains? The scholars get visibility; state planners get a plausible pretext for increased coast-guard patrols east of Taiwan; and Beijing gets to test whether the world will let a new narrative take root without ever having to defend it in court.

For the Philippines, the risks are clear: dismiss this as “just a joke” and you let it normalize. Overreact and you play into the “encirclement” narrative. The disciplined path is threefold: publish the full evidentiary dossier—Spanish decrees, provincial laws, administrative records, the consulate visit; demand formal clarification from Beijing—are these official views or not?; and proceed with the Japan talks, but build in explicit protections for third-party rights so no one can later claim you “disposed” of something that was never yours to give.

For Japan: keep negotiating—do not let deniable academic noise derail legal certainty. For Taiwan: speak up—Beijing is using your supposed historical ties as a bridge to claim territory that never belonged to you, let alone them. For the United States: stand by the alliance, but do not turn every provocation into a deployment spectacle—deterrence works best when it is steady, not frantic.

And for the Ivatans: stop being props. Their security, their homes, their future should be the starting point, not an afterthought.

The Rock Does Not Ask Permission

This claim will not win in any courtroom. But lawfare is not about winning today—it is about making sure no one remembers the rules tomorrow. If we let “Batanes is disputed” become the new baseline, we have already lost the first battle.

The rock does not need Beijing’s permission to stay Philippine. It only needs Manila to keep standing on it.

May the rule of law rise on the third day.

Key Citations

A. Legal & Official Sources

Island of Palmas (or Miangas) (Netherlands v. United States). Award of the Tribunal, Permanent Court of Arbitration, 4 Apr. 1928, pca-cpa.org/en/cases/94/.
Act No. 1952: An Act to Provide for the Establishment of the Province of Batanes. Philippine Legislature, 20 May 1909, lawphil.net/statutes/acts/act1909/act_1952_1909.html.
Treaty of Peace between the United States of America and the Kingdom of Spain (Treaty of Paris). Signed at Paris 10 Dec. 1898, Official Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines, http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1898/12/10/treaty-of-peace-between-the-united-states-of-america-and-the-kingdom-of-spain-treaty-of-paris-signed-in-paris-december-10-1898/.
Treaty between the United States and Spain for the Cession of Outlying Islands of the Philippines. Signed at Washington 7 Nov. 1900, elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/35/13045.
Treaty of General Relations between the United States of America and the Republic of the Philippines (Treaty of Manila). Signed at Manila 4 July 1946, en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Manila_(1946).
Magallona v. Ermita, G.R. No. 187167. Supreme Court of the Philippines, 16 Aug. 2011, lawphil.net/judjuris/juri2011/aug2011/gr_187167_2011.html.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. 10 Dec. 1982, United Nations, http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf.
International Maritime Organization. “United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.” International Maritime Organization, 10 Dec. 1982, http://www.imo.org/en/ourwork/legal/pages/unitednationsconventiononthelawofthesea.aspx. Accessed 10 July 2026.
Charter of the United Nations. 26 June 1945, United Nations, http://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/full-text.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 16 Dec. 1966, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights.