Geopolitical Hotspots in South China Sea

The Spratly Islands are made up 14 islands and located in the South China Sea. The islands were first sighted by George Mead in the 1870's. Then in 1947 Thomas Cloma (a Philippine citizen) explored the Islands and claimed a large amount of islands and reefs. The Scarborough Shoal was discovered in 1784 by Captain D'Auvergne. Both the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal produce rich fishing ground and substantial quantities of hydrocarbon reserves.

The map above shows the location of the Spratly Islands. As you can see it is in the center of the South China Sea. This explains why the land is so contested. China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines all fight for this land.

In 2014 China took action of

The Map above shows the Nine Dash Line. After WWII, Japan lost control of the sea and China quickly tried to claim it by creating the Nine dash line. The reason they created this line was because the Chinese felt they have historical claims over the south China Sea since ancient times. This is seen as unfair to the other countries considering China is trying to claim land that is over 3000 Kilometers from the Chinese mainland. This also seems unfair considering the Nine Dash Line covers ninety percent of the south China sea.

This dispute was relatively small until China claimed and launched a large scale reclamation program in 2013 on seven locations in the islands. The picture above shows some of the work that was done to just one of the pieces of land. They added military facilities on the claimed territories. Over the years, China had just added Naval, air, and missile systems on the seven islands. China showed that they didn't really care what other thought about their Nine Dash Line, they had an agenda and they were going to get things done.

The Scarborough Shoal (shown above) was originally administered by the Philippines until in 2012 when China took over. During this time the Philippines had a defense treaty with the US. The Philippines then turned to US for help to regain the land. The US' way of helping was to verbally protest instead of physically getting involved like the Philippines wanted them to. This did not sit well with the Philippines ending their relationship with the US. The Philippines then turned to China to try and negotiate. China knew all along the Philippines were weak and used this to their advantage giving them all the rights for resource extraction and fishing. All they had to do was sign agreements promising infrastructure investments in the Philippines.

Other countries were not too happy with China having the Scarborough Shoal and a good amount of the Spratly Islands so they took them to court. The court of arbitration settles disputes in international treaties between countries. The Court looked at the definition of an island which was included that fact that the land must have human habitation or economic life. China then tried to use their Military interacting in Woody Island to defend this point about human habitation. This did not work because the court countered this by saying this was only sustained due to continued delivery of supplies from outside. This led to the seven Chinese assets in the Spartly islands becoming rocks or low tied elevations instead of an island. This was huge because an island has different sets of laws then low tied elevation and rock. Even with this result in court China doesn't care about what the court say they are sticking to what they think and that is that the seven assets are islands. This shows once again China feels they are strong and the rules shouldn't apply to them.

The map above shows the land owned by each country in the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. The Orange spots indicate land owned by Vietnam, the blue spots indicate land owned by the Philippines, the yellow spots indicate land owned by Malaysia, and the red spots indicate land owned by the Chinese. This map also highlights the main areas battling for control over the Scarborough Shoal and Spratly Islands.

Conclusion

In conclusion we see the amount of work China had to go through to claim land on the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal. China didn't just fight because of the rich fishing grounds and substantial quantities of hydrocarbon reserves. While those are good things the land possess the he real reason they fought so hard is because these lands give them direct access to the Ocean. Everyone knows China wants to be a Superpower. All superpowers throughout history like France, Japan, Britain had this direct access and could make moves whenever they wanted. Superpowers like Germany and the Russian empire loss power pretty quickly because they didn't have access to the Ocean. They had to depend on the countries permission to access the ocean.

Bibliography

Diplomat, R. (2016, March 30). Why China might seek to occupy scarborough shoal. Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://thediplomat.com/2016/03/why-china-might-seek-to-occupy-scarborough-shoal/

Geopolitics of the south china sea - youtube. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcFiJwpvmq0

(n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2021, from https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-navy-sails-past-disputed-artificial-islands-claimed/story?id=60993256