Many are complaining about the Chinese naming several seamounts in an area that is part of the continental shelf of a country named after a king who died 420 years ago in a nation 11,000 kilometers away. This should win some sort of an award for irony.
Throughout history, the person—and by extension the home country—who “discovered” a place got the privilege of giving it a name, not unlike what we would do with a friendly stray cat that shows up on our doorway.
Christmas Island—part of the Australian territory in the Indian Ocean—was named on Christmas Day in 1643 by English sea Capt. William Mynors of the East India Co. Interestingly, that is the only thing we know about Mynors.
Christmas Island in the northern Line Islands, which is part of the Republic of Kiribati, was named by British Captain James Cook who visited it on Christmas Eve in 1777. This Christmas Island was actually discovered by a Spanish explorer, Hernando de Grijalva, in 1537, but he was not famous like Cook who went on to also “discover” eastern Australia, the Hawaiian Islands, and—more or less—New Zealand. It is good to be first, but maybe being more important helps with naming privileges, too.
The current discussion about the seamount naming has, of course, turned a little ridiculous with some frivolous or serious—depending on your point of view—about a name change for the Chinese word siomai. Except that dumpling is also called shumai and in Mongolia from where this delicacy came, it is named hohhot after the city where it supposedly was first cooked.
Names are important, though. In 1989 the military government officially changed the English translations of the country itself: “Burma” became “Myanmar.” Problem here is that many do not recognize the authority of the military government to do that because it took power by an armed coup d’état. In 2016 democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi said that foreigners could use either name as long as they came in with US dollars to spend. OK, we added that last part about the currency name of choice.
India also became serious about using precolonial names for Bombay back to Mumbai, and Calcutta changed to Kolkata. However, this was not on the priority list since it took until 1995—48 years after independence—for the Mumbai name change and Kolkata was resurrected in 2001.
Names are important. The disputed islands East China Sea are called the Senkaku Islands by Japan, Diaoyu Islands in China and the Diaoyutai Islands by the government of Taiwan. In the West, these rocks are called the Pinnacle Islands as a loose translation of the Japanese name. Again, it comes down to the idea that, if you own, you get to name it.
Part of the current situation is that the Philippines does not legally “own” the Benham/Philippine Rise area as it does Manila Bay, for example. The Chinese mapped out the Jinghao Seamount and Tianbao Seamounts during a survey in 2004. The Philippine government did not lodge a claim on the area with the United Nations Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf until 2008. The claim was approved in 2012.
But, of course, China is continuing its troublemaking and bullying in the region, claiming the Philippine Rise area as a so-called Chinese second-chain islands even if there are no islands within the Rise. However, the moment the claim was approved in 2012, the Philippine government should have acted and it failed to do so. It is hard to blame the thief if you are foolish enough to leave your front door unlocked.