Although the Spratly and Paracel Islands don’t look like much—they’re little more than outcroppings of rock in the South China Sea, after all—they are the subject of serious debate in the international community, and a number of countries are becoming exceptionally territorial over their claims to the islands. These islands are known by a number of different names, depending on the country; for the purposes of this discussion, and in the interests of relative clarity, the English name for these islands—the Spratly Islands—will be used exclusively in the text to refer to these islands. Other islands, like the Paracel Islands, will also be referred to by their English name. In all, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam all lay claim to some or all of the islands in the South China Sea.
The South China Sea is a very important geopolitical tool for countries in Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. There are issues related to control of the South China Sea, which has led to increasing geopolitical struggle for control in the region. To understand how China’s role in the disputes regarding islands like the Spratly Islands and the Diaoyu islands has become formative in regional politics, it is first very important to understand why so many countries are fighting for control of the region and for these often uninhabited islands. One of the reasons why the dispute has been so problematic for the international community as a whole is because there are many countries in the region that have historical claims to these islands, and some claim only a few of the islands but not the whole chain. In addition, some of these countries are very far removed from the islands themselves; this is why it is very important to understand the claims of countries like China before focusing in on the legitimacy of the claims of each of these countries. One of the main reasons why these islands are—and remain so heavily—disputed is because they are extremely rich in natural resources. They also serve an extremely important purpose in the development of shipping lanes and the territorial control of shipping lanes in the South China Sea and the Gulf of Tonkin.
If any one nation were to gain control over these particular islands, it would likely mean little for the Asia-Pacific region. However, the current conflict has become such an important issue in regional affairs that it has become a kind of symbolic conflict: the countries that lay claim to these islands have a number of historical disputes with each other, and these disputes now hinge on the control of the waters and the islands that dot the South China Sea. Interestingly, the two most powerful combatants in the struggle for control of these islands—Japan and China—are the two countries that are geographically very far from the islands themselves. Understanding their claims is very important to determining whether their claims are legitimate and relevant in the modern day.
China operates on the conceptualization of the “nine-dash line.” This line, which firs appeared in 1947, is historically used to demark the area of the South China Sea that China has controlled since the end of World War II. However, there are problems with this demarcation: the lines that were drawn on the map are in conflict with the coastal waters of a number of other sovereign nations—many of which have tried to invoke maritime law to protect their interests and claims in these areas. China has significant interests in these waters because they are the perfect shipping routes for the country, and ideally, China would like to maintain control over these routes in the future.
Japan’s defeat in World War II was incredibly important for the development of new coastal and territorial lines in the region. During this time, maritime law was overwritten by the United States and China, allowing China to take control of their desired shipping passages in the South China Sea. However, other nations began to claim control over these islands almost immediately; today, Vietnam continues to claim control over at least some of the Diaoyu Islands, as well as some of the unnamed islands that fall within China’s “nine-dash line” (although that line was recently expanded past the nine dashes and to a total of eleven today).
Nations who oppose China’s claim to the area are disputing China’s ability to claim these waters using the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in the hopes that these countries can use maritime law to protect their interests against the growing Chinese maritime power in the region. Because China has been building up such significant international power in recent years, which has given it a new type of international clout that it can use against less powerful countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Malaysia. China claims that because it was the first to discover these islands historically, it has the right to claim them as part of Chinese territory.
The difficulty with this assertion arises, of course, because there are very few people living on these islands; they are of little territorial value insofar as colonization is concerned, and thus serve a focus primarily related to trade and commerce, which weakens the Chinese claim that these islands are Chinese and have always been such. The Paracel Islands are particularly interesting, because there are historical remains on these islands, and there are written Chinese records associated with these islands that go back thousands of years. Whether or not historical records indicate that the Chinese settled on these islands is only part of the modern debate, of course, and more consideration must be had.
In addition, although China has continued to assert sovereignty over these islands in the South China Sea since acquiring them in 1947, the country has not always had the ability or the will to enforce sovereignty in these areas. The claim that China has to these islands came long before the current maritime laws were in place, and well before any kind of international community existed to govern these kinds of conflicts—indeed, even today, the international community has done a poor job of moderating this conflict, preferring to allow the affected nations to deal with these issues themselves.
The question remains regarding China’s claim to the Spratly Islands and all the other islands in the South China Sea—as well as some of the islands that are closer to Japan, like the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands. Although the Chinese claim on these islands seems to be a historically sound one, the world that exists today is very different than the one that existed in 1947 when the rules governing this area were designed and written. Although it might seem fair to provide China with the rights to these islands, this action is not consistent with modern maritime law. In addition, it is not necessarily a good precedent to allow the Chinese to establish man-made islands as colonial sites in the South China Sea; this undermines the current maritime law system.
Unfortunately, despite China’s claims, many of these islands should not belong to the country. China is very far from many of these islands, and because there are few people living on them, there is no sociological reason why China needs to control these islands. They are political power tools, and it is the responsibility of the international community to establish protections for smaller, less powerful nations to ensure that their sovereignty and their rights regarding maritime law are maintained. China has a long history of pushing international boundaries, and this is likely to be another important regional issue in years to come. The international community should remain aware of the issue to ensure that the Chinese government does not overstep international law and inadvertently raise regional tensions and cause a war.
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