'Chinese religious sites discovered in disputed SCS islands'

Amid heightened tensions with the US over the South China Sea, China today beefed up its claims over the disputed areas citing 'archaeological evidence' about religious sites developed by Chinese in the past.
Chen Jinguo of the Institute of World Religions of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) claimed to have found Chinese religious sites on islands in the South China Sea, providing more evidence of China's sovereignty over the area, official media reported.
With historical documents, archaeological findings and 50 photos from four years of field study, Chen believes that Chinese people built a lot of religious sites on the islands besides their most important cultural features and the centres of fishermen's everyday life.

The evidence was published in his thesis on "Religious Cultures of the World".
China claims that its case on sovereignty on almost all of the South China Sea was based on historical evidence in the forms of maps from several dynasties in its long past.
The claims have been strongly refuted by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan which in recent years acquired US backing for their case.

Yesterday, Chinese and US ships had their first major face off at the artificial islands built by China in the disputed areas when an American warship sailed through it to assert its freedom of navigation against which Beijing has lodged a strong protest saying it is a grave provocation.

Chen said claims of sovereignty over the islands are based on historical occupation and so some countries have destroyed religious sites and added "historical" features of their own, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Japanese Yoji Nishizawa occupied the Dongsha Islands in 1906 on the pretext of "discovering" them, changing their name to the Nishizawa Islands and destroying Chinese temples there, it added.
Historical documents, archaeological findings, field studies and oral information have all recorded Chinese religious sites, an important basis for China's claim of sovereignty, Chen said.