TALES FROM CHINA | Observatory 'built' on Panatag; astronomer in 2 places at same time - Carp
MANILA - Could a 13th century Chinese astronomer have built an "observatory" more than 12 meters high and several meters wide, on the Philippines' Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal, which juts a mere 1.2 meters above water at high tide?
This was the claim made by the Chinese embassy web site to buttress Beijing's claim on the area it de facto occupied in 2012, and from which it routinely drives away Filipino fishermen.
The answer to whether that claim is at all possible is "No," on two counts - on sheer physical impossibility, and on China's own conflicting accounts - according to Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who cited in a recent lecture the absurdity of Beijing's claims.
It's just one of many, Carpio said, that Beijing has been using to boost its "baseless' nine-dashed line claim, the anchor of its steady expansion in the South China Sea.
First, there's the sheer physical impossibility, granting astronomer Guo Shoujing, indeed, visited Panatag (Scarborough) in 1279 and erected an observatory there.
Here's why. In his lecture at a forum organized by the nationalist group P1NAS at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila on June 25, Carpio flashed onscreen an image of a 12.6-meter high stone observatory situated in Henan Province, which, he said, is "the only extant astronomical observatory among the 27 that Guo Shoujing built during the Yuan Dynasty."
Image below is that of the Gaocheng Observatory:
Subsequently, Carpio reminded his audience of that iconic photo - with a solitary Philippine flag standing - of South Rock, already the biggest rock on Scarborough Shoal, and yet is just 1.2 meters above water at high tide.
"No more than 6 to 10 people could stand on it," Carpio said of South Rock.
"To be operated, the observatories of Guo Shoujing have had to be manned everyday, since measurements have to be taken everyday. It was physically impossible to erect, or operate, such an observatory on Scarborough Shoal," Carpio argued.
Certainly, he added, "the massive astronomical observatories that Guo Shoujing erected in other places in China could not possibly fit on the tiny rocks of Scarborough Shoal."
To prove the physical impossibility of that, he showed this hypothetical image of a huge observatory balancing itself on a tiny rock:
Was Guo Shoujing in Paracels or Scarborough?
Even if one were to suspend judgment on the physical ludicrousness of an observatory on Panatag's (Scarborough) South Rock, Beijing itself had sent out two conflicting claims about where the famed astronomer really went, Carpio pointed out.
In its Embassy web site in Manila, "China claims Scarborough Shoal because the shoal is allegedly the Nanhai Island that Guo Shoujing visited in 1279 and where he erected an astronomical observatory," Carpio told his PLM audience.
The web site states: "Huangyan Island was first discovered and drew [sic] into China's map in China's Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368 AD). In 1279, Chinese astronomer Guo Shoujing performed surveying of the seas around China for Kublai Khan, and Huangyan Island was chosen as the point in the South
China Sea."
And yet, Carpio continued, "in a document entitled 'China's Sovereignty Over Xisha and Zhongsha Islands Is Indisputable' issued on January 30, 1980, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially declared that the Nanhai island that Guo Shoujing visited in 1279 was in Xisha or what is internationally called the Paracels, a group of islands more than 380 NM from Scarborough Shoal."
China issued this official document, Carpio explained, to "bolster its claim to the Paracels and to counter Vietnam's strong historical claims to the same islands."
Here are the exact words from this Chinese official document, published in Beijing Review, Issue No. 7 dated February 18, 1980: "Early in the Yuan Dynasty, an astronomical observation was carried out at 27 places throughout the country. xxx According to the official History of the Yuan Dynasty,
Nanhai, Gou's observation point, was "to the south of Zhuya" and "the result of the survey showed that the latitude of Nanhai is 15°N." The astronomical observation point Nanhai was today's Xisha Islands. It shows that Xisha Islands were within the bounds of China at the time of the Yuan dynasty."
In all, Gou Shoujing was supposed to have built 27 astronomical observatories, 26 on the mainland and one on an island in the South Sea (Nanhai), Carpio said, quoting official reports, but the problem is, China cannot seem to make up its mind on which island that was: the Paracels claimed by Vietnam, or the Philippines' Scarborough (Panatag) Shoal.
When it needed to box out Vietnam from the Paracels, it claimed the astronomer had gone to Xisha (Paracels). But, more recently, Beijing claims the astronomer went to the Philippines' Scarborough Shoal, where he did the impossible feat of erecting a massive observatory on a slender, 1-meter tall rock.
Carpio -- who has done decades-long extensive research on the law of the seas and the South China Sea issues, and stresses in all lectures that his views are his own and do not reflect the Philippine government's -- said that "China cannot now claim that Scarborough Shoal is the South Sea island that Guo Shoujing visited in 1279, because China had already declared in 1980 that Gou Shoujing visited the Paracels where he erected that astronomical observatory."
