Administration Office For Xisha Islands, Zhongsha Islands and Nansha Islands - History

History

Given approval by the State Council on 24 March 1953, the "Guangdong Province Paracels, Spratlys, and Zhongsha Islands Authority" was established as a county-level administrative division on Yongxing (Woody) Island, the largest in area among the disputed South China Sea Islands. During the Cultural Revolution, when Revolutionary Committees were being set up across the country, it was upgraded to the "Guangdong Province Paracels, Spratlys, and Zhongsha Islands Revolutionary Committee" on the 4 March 1959. On the 22 October 1981 the original Authority was restored. Administration was transferred to Hainan on National Day, 1984, when the Hainan Administrative Region was established, followed by the establishment of Hainan Province on the 13 April 1988. On 19 September 1988, it was officially changed to the "Hainan Province Paracels, Spratlys, and Zhongsha Islands Authority". On 25 December 2006, Woody Island census-town's first-ever Residents' and Fishers' Congress was held. three representatives at the township and village levels were selected to represent the census-town's Neighborhood Committee of the North and South Villages. The Neighborhood Committee began work on Woody Island the following day with an office at the Border Guards of the Paracels' Police Station. They were the first ever actual subdivisions created within the county-level authority.

The prospect of the establishment of a "city" on Woody Island was first mooted on 19 November 2007 in a report by Mingpao, a Hong Kong-based newspaper, through a telephone interview with a Mr. Zhang of the Propaganda Department of Wenchang, Hainan. This report claimed that a county-level city was to be established by the PRC State Council in November 2007 to administer three disputed archipelagos in the South China Sea: the Paracel Islands, Zhongsha Islands and the Spratly Islands. This was to replace the county-level Paracels, Spratlys, and Zhongsha Islands Authority. That the city of Wenchang would provide supplies and logistics to the to-be-established city. The article also stated that Wenchang's municipal party secretary Xie Wenzhang had announced a similar decision at the municipal congress on the 26 October. It was referred to simply as "City X". The article finally concluded with the possibility of the opening of tourism onto Woody Island as a next step. However, until June 2012 there had been no official announcement of a decision by the Chinese government.

On 23 July 2012 the Chinese Central Military Commission announced it had authorised the People's Liberation Army Guangzhou Military Command to form a "garrison command" in Sansha City. The troops would be responsible for managing the city's national defence mobilisation, military reserves and carrying out military operations.

On 24 July 2012, China officially established the city of Sansha in Yongxing Island.