英國人在1877年首先在南沙群島的南威島和安波沙洲進行鳥糞開採，並獲得英國駐婆羅洲代理總領事特里車（William W. Treacher）之採礦許可。1930年代法國宣布占領南沙群島，引發英國之抗議，並曾就此一問題與法國交涉；惟英國遭法國反駁其領有南沙島礁在國際法上站不住腳，指其未派官治理及實質控制。直至1947年英國在準備參加舊金山和會時，才主張日本應放棄南威島和安波沙洲。1949年英國進而主張日本應放棄西沙群島和南沙群島，且應開放主權給英國、法國和未來對於該群島有興趣的國家。英國對於南沙群島的立場，成為「舊金山和約」規定的條文，導致今日南沙群島的諸多糾紛。

The British had gone to the Spratly Island and the Amboyna Cay to collect the Guano in 1877, under the license from the Deputy Consul-General of British Borneo. Later, France claimed the ownership of the Spratly Islands in 1930, which aroused the opposition of the U.K., and the British government negotiated the territorial disputes with the French government. Instead, the French government argued that the U.K. had not sent her officers to govern those islands (the Spratly Island and the Amboyna Cay) and thus without de facto control over them. There had been no settlement of the negotiation. In 1947, when the U.K. prepared for the San Francisco peace conference, she decided that the defeated Japan should abandon its claim and title of the Spratly Island and the Amboyna Cay. In 1949, the U.K. further asked for Japan's renouncement of the Paracels and Spratly Islands, and thus opening up the power vacancy of the South China Sea to the U.K., France or other interested countries. As the events turned out, the arguments of the U.K. were realized as the articles of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and the then position of the U.K. had and have actually influenced the current situations in the South China Sea.