Chungsha

The Chungsha group, also known as Macclesfield Bank, just southeast of the Sisha, consists merely of a group of underwater reefs and sandbanks.

1956, Theodore Shabad, “The Kwangtung-Kwangsi Hills”, in China's Changing Map: A Political and Economic Geography of the Chinese People's Republic, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 169

The Chungsha Islands are shoals submerged by the sea. China's sovereign rights over them have always been taken as a matter of course.

1974, Jerome A. Cohen, Hungdah Chiu, People's China and International Law: A Documentary Study, volume 1, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, published 2017, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 343

The 1958 Declaration also mentions Macclesfield Bank (Chungsha) between latitude 15° and 17° but it is doubtful whether these formations can qualify as base-points at all since they are submerged features and not true islands.

1978, Derek W. Bowett, “The China Sea”, in The Legal Regime of Islands In International Law, published 1979, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 293

The Macclesfield Bank is not a group of islands, but an extensive submerged atoll situated southeast of the Paracel Islands. Water depths range from 4 to 45 fathoms over the bank. Although the features lie below the surface of the sea, the People’s Republic of China has claimed these “islands,” which it terms the Chungsha Islands.

1985, Daniel J. Dzurek, “Boundary and Resource Disputes in the South China Sea”, in Ocean Yearbook 5, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 272

In August 1951, Zhou Enlai, then foreign minister of the People's Republic of China (PRC), proclaimed the "inviolable sovereignty of the People's Republic of China over Spratly Island and the Paracel archipelago." He went on to insist that "the whole Spratly archipelago, and the Chungsha [Macclesfield Bank], and Tungsha [Pratas] archipelago have always been Chinese territory."

1989, A. James Gregor, “Conflict in the South China Sea”, in In the Shadow of Giants: The Major Powers and the Security of Southeast Asia, Hoover Institution Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 91