The Economic and Geopolitical Importance Of The Disputed South China Seas

The tensions remain high in the disputed South China seas, but to understand the conflict one first has to take a history less.  China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of world trade ships every year, a fifth of it heading to and from US ports. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan also claim parts of the South China Sea. Beijing is building seven man-made islands on reefs in the Spratly Islands, including a 3,000-metre-long airstrip on one of the sites, according to satellite imagery of the area.

Beginning in the mid-1800s, colonial powers such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, Russia and Japan successively became involved in carving out spheres of influence or de facto sovereignty over enclaves of Chinese land territory in such a way that the country, weak in naval power, didn’t place any priority on asserting or protecting a maritime frontier.

It wasn’t until an 1887 treaty with France delimiting a sea border with the French protectorate of Tonkin that China began to take any action to demarcate and defend an ocean frontier. It’s regularly asserted by some scholars, media commentators and other analysts that China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea. But that is based on a misunderstanding of the so-called nine-dashed line that China has repeatedly included in maps of the South China since 1947.

The Spratly Islands are a small group of mostly uninhabited islands in the South China Sea. Several countries in the region, have made claims to sections of the islands. China has by far made the largest complaints while covertly building artificial islands to bolster its land claim.

 

In 1968, oil was discovered in the region] The Geology and Mineral Resources Ministry of the People’s Republic of China has estimated that the Spratly area holds oil and natural gas reserves of 17.7 billion tons. The South China Seas is one of the heaviest shipping lanes in the world. During the 1980s, at least 270 ships passed through the Spratly Islands region each day. More than half of the world’s supertanker traffic, by tonnage, passes through the region’s waters every year. Tanker traffic through the South China Sea is over three times greater than through the Suez Canal and five times more than through the Panama Canal; 25% of the world’s crude oil passes through the South China Sea.

China’s actions in the South China Sea, including construction on the islands as well as military exercises nearby, have angered several international powers, including the United States. The U.S. has denounced Chinese activity in the region, continuing to treat the area as international waters and sailing U.S. Navy ships through regions that the Chinese have claimed are sovereign.

Chinese authorities have continued construction of several military-grade airstrips in the disputed South China Sea region despite warnings from international leaders, the Associated Press reported Sunday. The ongoing construction on the group of territories referred to as the Spratly Islands could quadruple the number of airstrips available to the Chinese military in the region as the nation continues to assert its sovereignty.

The construction of the airstrips as well as other military bases could have “significant impact on the local balance of power,”

This geopolitical problem gained friction when China began building artificial islands in the South China Sea and took under its territory a major piece of the sea, which it separated with the Nine-Dash Line. This is a made-up line by China, also seen on the world map, which signifies the area in the South China Sea under China’s controls. However, the US has opposite thoughts, as Washington claims that the South China Sea is part of international waters and China has no right to govern any part of it. The United Nations Convention on Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) advocates similar rules that no country has any control on a region of high tide.

If China’s expansion in the South China Sea remains unguarded or if the US takes forceful measures, then US-China relations may become combustible, hence leading to a US-China conflict that may not bode well for the South East Asian region.

A second point is a legal question as to whether military activities can be restricted in so-called exclusive economic zones, which give countries rights over the exploration and use of marine resources within 200 nautical miles of their coast. Some states, such as China and India, claim that other states cannot carry out military activities in or over their exclusive economic zones without consent.

Any assumption that China has somehow expanded its maritime claims because it now feels more powerful is not borne out by the facts. One of many things that have changed about the disputes is China’s willingness to act robustly, as most states would, to defend pre-existing sovereignty claims that have been in place for at least 66 years.