evidence: It is noted that "Chinese activities in the South China Sea dates back 2000 years ago". Further, "China was the first country to discover, name, explore and exploit the resources of the South China Sea Islands and the first to continuously exercise sovereign powers over them". Following the end of World War II, stating that China actively resumed its activities over the area and by 1948, after conducting necessary surveys and renaming the islands, it was able to publish "an official map which displayed a dotted line in the South China Sea". The People's Republic of China, founded on 1 October 1949, maintained sovereignty of China over the South China Sea and officially pronounced as part of its 1958 Declaration on the Territorial Sea and 1992 Law of the People's Republic of China on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone that "the territory of People's Republic of China includes, among others, the Dongsha islands, the Xisha islands, the Zhongsha islands, and the Nansha islands". See the Position Paper of the People's Republic of China, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1217147.shtml, para.4. [...] China first expressed its intentions regarding the South China Sea in the international arena in its 4 September 1958 Declaration on China’s Territorial Sea. Although paragraph 1 clearly indicates that China considered the Pratas Islands, Paracel Islands, Macclesfield Bank, and Spratly Islands to belong to its territories, the declaration provided no legal explanation. Its sole purpose was, it seems, to define the limits of its sovereignty as a pure fact.