Pratas Island,, United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency also known as the Tungsha Islands or the Dongsha Islands (), is a coral island situated in the northern part of the South China Sea administered as part of Cijin District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan."Taiwan also has complete control of the Pratas Islands, which it calls Dongsha, centered on an atoll in the northern section of the South China Sea about 340 kilometers (211 miles) southeast of Hong Kong. Taiwan has designated the area a marine national park, but still operates a small airport there, maintains a garrison and operates a fishing boat aid station. China also claims Pratas, but has made no moves to dislodge the Taiwanese presence." It is located about southeast of Hong Kong.Pratas Islands , vm.nthu.edu.twPratas Island Airfield, Federation of American Scientists, www.fas.org It has an area of about , including of lagoon, and is the largest of the South China Sea Islands.Note that Woody Island in the Paracel Islands has a land area of 210 ha, which is greater than Pratas Island's 240-64=176 ha. Also, the PRC's land reclamation activities during 2014 & 2015 have created an "island" of ~230 ha at Fiery Cross Reef. It is the location of the Dongsha Airport.
There are three undersea features in the waters associated with Pratas Island: Pratas Atoll, North Vereker Bank and South Vereker Bank. The atoll is circular, and the crescent-shaped Pratas Island occupies its western part. Below the ocean's surface to the northwest () of Pratas Island, North Vereker Bank rises to below sea level and South Vereker Bank to below sea level.
There are numerous oil wells to the west of the banks.Nautical Chart 93006, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, via www.oceangrafix.com In 2007, the Dongsha Atoll National Park was established on the island. The People's Republic of China claims the island, atoll and banks as part of Guangdong Province.
Pratas Islands
Pratas Atoll is also called Pratas Reef.
Tungsha IslandSovereignty over the Spratly Islands "Tungsha Island" (Tung-sha Tao) () is the Wade–Giles-derived romanization of the Mandarin Chinese name for the island, and Dongsha Island (Dongsha Dao) is the pinyin-derived name. A smaller island with the same Chinese character name is located in the Taiwan-administered Dongyin Township in the Matsu Islands in the East China Sea., United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
The area including the island, atoll and banks is also called the Pratas Islands (), the Tungsha Islands and the Dongsha Islands. Despite these names, Pratas Island is the only island; there is no group of islands. in The Diplomat described the other entities as "essentially rocks".
On May 29, 1945, the American submarine USS Bluegill occupied the island after shelling Japanese positions there in January, raising an American flag, claiming it for the United States, and proclaiming it Bluegill Island. Giving the island a new name, and claiming it for the U.S., was done independently by the Submarine's commander without support from the United States government, although the landing was acknowledged by the Commander, Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet Merrill Comstock in his report to the Pentagon. The U.S. government took no effort to further pursue this and never formally claimed the island.
History The East Indiaman was wrecked on Pratas Island on or about 22 October 1800 with the loss of all aboard. At the time the island was known to British sailors as "Perates". In 1851, the British screw sloop wrecked on the south-east bend of Pratas Atoll while going to the aid of another wrecked vessel; the crew were all saved. Decades later, the boilers and parts of the machinery of the wreckage of HMS Reynard remained visible on the atoll.
In 1859–1861, there was a correspondence between the British Colonial Office and the Hong Kong colonial authorities about building a lighthouse on the main island on the atoll. Despite an offer by a British businessman in Xiamen (Amoy) to build it, it was decided that the cost was too great and the matter lapsed. It is clear from the correspondence that no one supposed the atoll to be a part of any known jurisdiction, so negotiations might have been required to ensure that any construction would be legal.UK National Archives, CO 129/75, pp.309-316
One consequence of that initiative was that, in 1858, the Royal Navy survey ship completed the first detailed survey of the atoll, resulting in the Plan of the Pratas Reef and Island, J. Richards and others, April 1858, being published by the British Admiralty.Biblioteca Digital Hispanica, http://bdh.bne.es/bnesearch/detalle/bdh0000070710 On the resulting chart three positions are proposed for a lighthouse: on Pratas Island, on the north-east corner, or on the southern edge near where HMS Reynard had stranded. In the north-east corner of the lagoon the chart notes "Anchorage for junks", indicating regular use by fishing and other small vessels taking shelter. The chart's rubric noted that the available safe draft for vessels entering was only , so it was restricted to relatively small vessels only.
In 1866, naturalist Cuthbert Collingwood visited Pratas Island and later published a description of it.
In 1908–1909, a Japanese businessman named Nishizawa Yoshizi (西澤吉次) established a guano collecting station. He destroyed the Dawang Joss House (大王廟), dug up graves and poured the bone ashes of Chinese fishermen into the sea, and renamed the atoll "Nishizawa Island".CCVIC News: "挖我渔民祖坟，并将该岛改名为"西泽岛"。我渔民梁盛等向政府控诉西泽罪行"地方志："驱逐中国渔民,毁渔船,掘渔民祖坟百余座,拆渔民建的大王庙和兄弟所" After a diplomatic confrontation, Chinese sovereignty was re-established, and Nishizawa withdrew, after being compensated by the Guangdong provincial government, and after paying compensation for the destruction of a Chinese fishermen's shrine.
In December 1930, the schooner (Sweden) ran aground on a coral reef off Pratas Island and was wrecked.
On 22 May 1944, the Japanese gunboat was torpedoed and sunk by the US submarine , in the South China Sea off Pratas Island at , while towing the disabled passenger-cargo ship Tsukuba Maru. Casualties are unknown but her commanding officer was killed.
Japanese naval personnel occupied Pratas Island during World War II. The Japanese Navy used the island as a weather station and listening post. On May 29, 1945, at 10:22 AM, a landing party consisting of Australian commandos and US naval personnel from the submarine raised the US flag, declared the island a United States territory, and named it Bluegill Island. The landing party destroyed a radio tower, weather station, fuel and ammunition dumps, and several buildings. They encountered no resistance because the Japanese had left the island prior to the arrival of Bluegill.ISSUU - SS-242_BLUEGILL_Part2 by Richard PekelneyFeuer, A.B. (2005) Australian Commandos: Their Secret War Against the Japanese in World War II. (Stackpole Books). pp.78-84.
Pratas Island was later restored to Guangdong Province of the Republic of China (ROC).Sovereignty over the Spratly Islands, The China Post, 22 June 2009 On September 12, 1946, the navy of the Republic of China took over and garrisoned Pratas Island.
On 6 June 1949, the ROC established the Hainan Special Administrative District (海南特別行政區), which included Pratas Island.
In autumn 1954, the senior ROC politician Chiang Ching-kuo visited the island and made an inspection.
On 9 June 1960, during Typhoon Mary, the Hong Kong cargo ship was driven against Pratas Reef and wrecked. Her 55 crew took to the liferafts and were rescued by the USS Yorktown (CV-10).
While underway in the South China Sea on 18 July 1965, the USS Frank Knox ran aground on Pratas Reef, and was only freed on 24 August after a very difficult salvage effort.USS Munsee (ATF-107) and the USS Franx Knox (DD-742), NavSource, accessed 20 January 2016.
On 13 April 1996, the jurisdiction of the Taiwan Kaohsiung District Court was extended to include Tungsha Island (Pratas Island).
In May 1999, Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh visited the island and hung an address plate on the island's fishing service station. On 21 December 2000, ROC President Chen Shui-bian visited the island with Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh. On 28 July 2005, President Chen Shui-bian again visited the island and inaugurated the Fifth Maritime Patrol Squad of the Coast Guard Administration.
In January 2007, the ROC government designated the Pratas atoll as the Dongsha Atoll National Park, the first marine national park in Taiwan.
On 8 January 2013, an office of Chunghwa Post was established on Pratas Island.
In September 2020, the PRC conducted air drills over the waters between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island that intruded into the ROC air defense identification zone (ADIZ). The planes were issued radio warnings by the ROC military until they left.
On 15 October 2020, a regular civilian charter flight by Uni Air had to abandon its trip from the main island of Taiwan to Pratas Island when Hong Kong air traffic controllers told the captain of the aircraft that there were "dangerous activities" happening below and that the Uni Air aircraft could not enter the Hong Kong Flight Information Region (FIR). The transcript of the conversation between the pilot and air traffic control was released by the ROC Civil Aeronautics Administration. The next day, the ROC Minister of National Defense Yen Teh-fa called on PRC not to "disrupt the order of international aviation". On 20 October, Deputy Chief of the ROC General Staff, Lieutenant-General Li Ting-sheng (李廷盛), visited Pratas Island. He made an inspection of the living facilities of the military personnel and gave them instructions. On 26 October, the same Uni Air aircraft made the round trip flight between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island.
On 27 October 2020, a Y8 PRC military aircraft entered ROC air defense identification zone (ADIZ) between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island for the twenty-first time that month. On 28 October, Zhu Fenglian of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the PRC was asked whether, in light of PLA military exercises in Fujian and Guangdong, there was or was not a plan to take Pratas Island from the ROC. Feng responded that she did not have to answer hypothetical questions. On 2 November, eight Chinese PLAAF aircraft breached the ROC ADIZ above an area of sea near Pratas Island. On 3 November, Y-8 plane entered the ADIZ of the ROC in the area between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island. On 4 November, the ROC Minister of National Defense, Yen Teh-fa, stated in a legislative hearing that since January 2020, 276 PRC military planes had entered the airspace between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island, activity that Yen associated with plans by the PRC for a creating its own ADIZ in the South China Sea. On 6 December, a PRC air force Y-8 plane entered the Taiwan ADIZ between the main island of Taiwan and Pratas Island, the fifth day in December that PRC military aircraft entered Taiwan's ADIZ.
Geography
Pratas Island is located from mainland Kaoshiung, southwest of Taipei, southeast of Hong Kong and south of Shantou, Guangdong in the northern part of the South China Sea (). An international team of researchers conducted a comprehensive population genetic analysis of 11 marine species sampled from the island. They concluded that Dongsha Atoll is an important regional stepping-stone that promotes genetic connectivity among South China Sea reefs, as marine larvae can potentially reach a large number of reefs in the northern South China Sea. The protection of the island and surrounding reefs by the Taiwanese government as Dongsha Atoll National Park may therefore benefit the entire region.