evidence: Last week in the Taipei Times ("Stars and Stripes over Pratas Island," Nov. 5, page 8), I mulled an historical footnote about a small US Navy force in World War II that once captured Pratas Island (東沙島, now administered by Taipei) and claimed it as "American territory." For readers unfamiliar with Taiwan’s idyllic south sea atolls, Pratas Island is a 1.6km-long jade-green isle with a working lagoon harbor set, jewel-like, into Pratas’ 24km-wide circular atoll, equidistant from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Luzon whence it commands the deep blue waters of the South China Sea’s northern approaches. A Taiwanese coast guard base on the island is quite modern and can be busy. So, although Pratas is little known, it is neither an isolated nor inconsequential territory. Indeed, China declares that Pratas is its sovereign territory, a laughable assertion of even more questionable validity than any hypothetical American claim (given the phrasing of the peace treaties that ended the Pacific War and the US’ role as both primary victorious power and the sole occupying power of defeated Japan). But set that aside. [...] Indeed, Chinese officials had made several complaints about the Langseth in the run-up to the April 1, 2009, meeting in London between the new American president Barack Obama and Chinese General Secretary Hu Jintao (胡錦濤). This clearly was a Chinese tactic to strong-arm a neophyte US president, who had no idea what "Pratas Island" was, into ordering the US government to restrict its survey activity in the Western Pacific.