China agitates neighbors as it maps out territorial claims

On August 28, China’s Ministry of Natural Resources published a “standard map” of China, which amounted to a unilateral assertion of whatever territory it wants to claim. Beijing said the new version was introduced to “eliminate problem maps”, but China has succeeded only in upsetting numerous neighbours.
So far, five ASEAN countries have issued public statements denouncing China’s creative cartography. In the following order, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brunei have complained. These five Southeast Asian states are all in dispute over China’s excessive territorial claims in the South China Sea.
Interestingly, China’s controversial – and legally baseless – Nine-Dash Line that is vaguely emblazoned on maps over the South China Sea is now a thing of the past. Instead, it has grown into ten dashes! The Natuna Islands of Indonesia appear within the dashed line, for example, while the new tenth dash runs to the east of Taiwan, supposedly cementing the democratic nation as “belonging” to China. One might even interpret that Chinese claims extend up to and including part of Japan’s Ryuku Islands.
Manila angrily retorted, “The Philippines rejects the 2023 version of China’s standard map … This latest attempt to legitimize China’s purported sovereignty and jurisdiction over Philippine features and maritime zones has no basis under international law, particularly the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”
Likewise, Taiwan Foreign Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu said, “No matter how the Chinese government twists its position on Taiwan’s sovereignty, it cannot change the objective fact of our country’s existence.” The Permanent Court of Arbitration ruled in 2016 that China’s ambiguous Nine-Dash Line is inconsistent with international law. This new map thus represents a slap in the face for the international community; the Hague had already decreed the Nine-Dash Line was meaningless, but it has brashly taken it a step further by adding an extra dash.
More than that, China seems to be claiming the new dashes as its legitimate “international border”.
This is hegemonic behaviour in the extreme. It stands in stark contradiction to Chairman Xi Jinping’s claim last week at the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg that “hegemonism is not in China’s DNA”. This is yet further evidence that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) and Xi’s words are utterly devoid of integrity, if not bald-faced lies. Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu told the world at June’s Shangri-La Dialogue, “Mind your own business”, when quizzed as to why China’s military engages in unprofessional behaviour when other nations’ militaries pass by in international waters.