From Austronesian Kinship to Territorial Claims: Chinese Scholars Push Batanes Islands into New Sovereignty Dispute

On June 30, Jinan University in Guangzhou, China, hosted a seminar on the sovereignty of the Batanes Islands. Participants cited geography, ethnicity, colonial history, and treaty boundaries to claim that the Batanes Islands are a natural southern extension of Taiwan and should legally belong to what China refers to as the "Taiwan Island." The Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) immediately shot back, stating that Philippine sovereignty over Batanes is "established and is not subject to debate," rejecting any revisionist territorial claims made under the guise of academic research.

Beijing has not yet officially adopted this claim, and the dispute currently remains at the level of friction between Chinese academic institutions and the Philippine government. However, the seminar can hardly be dismissed as isolated remarks by independent scholars. The official press release from Jinan University listed participants from Nanjing University, Zhejiang University, Xiamen University, Ocean University of China, the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The university noted that the conference serves "major national strategic needs" and "national maritime rights." This phrasing gives the seminar the flavor of policy trial-ballooning, prompting Manila to swiftly elevate its response level.

Cultural Proximity Does Not Equate to Territorial Sovereignty

The arguments of the Chinese scholars began with geography and ethnicity. They asserted that the Batanes Islands, situated in the southern segment of the Ryukyu-Taiwan island arc, represent a natural southern extension of Taiwan. Furthermore, they pointed out that the native Ivatan people of Batanes share Austronesian heritage with Taiwanese indigenous peoples, making their cultural affinity closer than with other ethnic groups in the Philippines.

Indeed, a deep history of human exchange exists between the Batanes Islands and the southern tip of Taiwan. Both the Ivatan and the Yami (Tao) people of Orchid Island speak languages belonging to the Austronesian language family, and genetic, linguistic, and archaeological research has confirmed ancestral ties and historical migration routes between the two populations. The out-of-Taiwan hypothesis of Austronesian expansion into northern Philippines and the Pacific is well-supported by extensive academic literature.

The flaw lies in the leap of logic. Shared ancestry, linguistic similarities, and cultural exchanges do not automatically establish territorial rights under modern international law. The maritime culture binding the Tao and the Ivatan across the Bashi Channel proves long-standing interactions among island communities, not that any modern state has sovereign claims over the other’s homeland. If ethnic kinship were enough to redraw borders, the frontiers of many Southeast Asian and Pacific nations would plunge into endless disputes.

Furthermore, this narrative converts "Austronesian kinship between Taiwanese indigenous peoples and the Ivatan" into "Batanes belongs to Taiwan," and then subsumes Taiwan into the territorial claims of the People's Republic of China. These three separate propositions involve entirely distinct historical, political, and legal questions; they cannot be bridged purely by cultural ties to form a single chain of territorial entitlement.

A Colonial Clash in 1783

The Batanes Islands lie north of Luzon and south of Taiwan, where the Ivatan people had established villages, maritime trade, and their own political order long before European colonial forces arrived. The English navigator William Dampier, who visited in 1687, recorded his observations of the area and found no trace of Chinese administrative rule. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) has used these records to refute claims of Ming or Qing dynasty jurisdiction asserted by Chinese scholars.

The Spanish colonial government incorporated the Batanes Islands into Cagayan Province in 1783 and established local governance. This history, however, was not one of peaceful "effective occupation." Colonial officials forced residents to change their settlements, attire, and governance, while requisitions of food and timber were common. Aman Dangat, a local leader of Sabtang Island, led a rebellion and was subsequently executed by Spanish authorities in 1791. Today, the NHCP honors his struggle for indigenous rights with a historical marker.

This story actually weakens the claim that the Batanes Islands were never under Spanish jurisdiction. That the Ivatan resisted Spanish rule confirms Spanish presence; the existence of resistance does not mean the colonial government never established administrative authority. Subsequently, Batanes participated in the Philippine Revolution and secured representation in the Malolos Congress and successive Philippine legislative bodies. The Philippine government presents this history of political participation as evidence of continuous exercise of sovereignty.

The Boundaries of the Treaty of Paris Do Not Establish Rights for China

Another core claim from the Chinese seminar centers on the 1898 Treaty of Paris between Spain and the United States. Article III of the treaty defined the ceded territory of the Philippines, using the 20th parallel north as its northern limit, with some islands of the Batanes group lying north of this line. Chinese scholars thus argue that Batanes was excluded from the territory Spain ceded to the U.S., meaning Washington had no legal right to hand the islands over to the Philippines.

This treaty interpretation issue is not new; Taiwanese scholar Chen Hurng-yu wrote an article in 2021 examining whether the Batanes Islands fell outside the boundaries drawn in the Treaty of Paris. However, ambiguities in treaty boundaries do not automatically validate Chinese sovereignty over the Batanes. Even if one argues that the U.S. did not acquire some islands under the 1898 treaty, it remains necessary to prove that China ever established sovereignty, exercised effective control, or received international recognition—criteria for which public archives offer no supporting evidence.

Furthermore, the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Washington in 1900, under which Spain ceded any and all islands belonging to the Philippine Archipelago lying outside the lines described in the Treaty of Paris. The treaty text was explicitly designed to address omissions or ambiguities in the 1898 treaty boundaries. The press release of the Chinese seminar highlighted the northern latitude limit of the Treaty of Paris but ignored the 1900 supplementary treaty, nor did it explain when the Chinese government ever established administrative, judicial, or military rule in the Batanes.

While treaties are important in international law concerning territorial disputes, long-standing, peaceful, and public state administration carries significant weight. Since the late 18th century, successive Philippine governments have established administrative offices, conducted elections, designated legislative representatives, and administered justice and public services. The residents of Batanes have continuously participated in political life as Philippine citizens. These facts are far closer to the core of modern sovereignty determination than geological island arcs or ethnic similarities.

Strategic Location Robs Academic Narratives of Simplicity

Located approximately 160 kilometers from Taiwan, the Batanes Islands sit in the Luzon Strait, which connects the South China Sea and the Western Pacific. This vital shipping lane serves as a key transit point for merchant vessels, warships, and submarines entering the Western Pacific, making it a highly sensitive sector in Taiwan Strait conflict simulations. In recent years, the Philippines has conducted joint military exercises with U.S. forces in Batanes, integrating the locality into U.S.-Philippine defense planning.

Weeks before the seminar, the Philippines and Japan announced the start of negotiations on exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and continental shelf boundaries. China criticized this development, and Jinan University framed its seminar as the "Sovereignty of Batan Island under the Context of Japan-Philippine Delimitation." The university’s press release ultimately labeled the Japan-Philippine talks a "political performance" serving geopolitical interests, proving that the academic discussion is not just a benign exploration of ancient migrations, but a deliberate effort to weaken the legal basis of the Philippines' maritime claims from Batanes.

Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro subsequently condemned the Chinese scholars' claims as "baseless" and "absurd," warning that such narratives could reflect a larger strategic agenda. The DFA's response was more restrained, urging scholars to engage in faithful, good-faith research rather than advocating for territorial revisionism.

Currently, this controversy does not represent an official territorial claim from the Chinese government. Equating an academic seminar directly to Beijing's state policy lacks definitive evidence. However, words used in Jinan University’s press release—such as "our country's Taiwan Island," serving "national strategic needs," and "safeguarding national maritime rights"—make it difficult for the Philippines to treat the meeting as a mere academic exercise.

The Austronesian cultural link between Batanes and Taiwan should have served as a valuable tool for understanding thousands of years of migration and exchange among maritime peoples. Yet, when cultural affinity is weaponized into territorial claims, it leaves the realm of historical research and enters the arena of geopolitics. The physical location of these islands remains unchanged; what has changed is how history is deployed—some use it to trace shared origins, while others brandish it to redraw modern borders.