The danger in the South China Sea
Five years ago, I did a posting which pointed out:
“We think of the Middle East as the most likely location for global conflict, but the South China Sea is the scene of many worrying developments. China has declared that it views the South China Sea as a “core” interest and is beginning to deploy more military muscle in the area, while the United States continues to insist that it has a “national interest” in freedom of navigation in the Sea.”
Meanwhile the situation has become much more tense, largely as a result of the more interventionist approach being adopted by China which is building a range of artificial islands and deploying a sizeable naval force in the region.
China is bound by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which it has ratified. The law states that sub-sea structures, such as reefs, cannot be claimed as sovereign coastline and that building artificial structures on top of them does not turn them in to sovereign territory either.
Yet China has reclaimed or built upon no less than seven reefs and laid claim to almost all of the South China Sea. It takes an aggressive stance towards anyone trying to sail or fly near those reefs as you can see from this new BBC report. It is only a matter of time before there is an international incident in these disputed waters.