After World War II, in 1947 and 1948, the Nationalist government, drawing directly on Bai Meichu’s 1936 map, promulgated a new map showing China’s control over the Spratlys as well as the Paracel Islands, and going all the way down to the James Shoal, off the coast of what today is Malaysia. This delineation, said an official statement at the time, was followed by Chinese “government departments, schools, and publishers before the anti-Japanese war, and it was also recorded on file in the ministry of interior. Accordingly, it should remain unchanged.”
