IN THE KNOW 2

Here are some facts the South China Sea, the maritime rules governing its waters, and major players embroiled in disputes within it.

Geography

The South China Sea covers an area of more than 1.7 million square kilometers (648,000 square miles), containing more than 200 mostly uninhabitable small islands, rocks and reefs. It borders China and Taiwan to the north, Vietnam to the west, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, and Singapore to the south and southwest, and the Philippines to the east.

Strategic importance

The shortest route between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, South China Sea has some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. More than half the globe’s oil tanker traffic passes through it. Most shipping is of raw materials, such as crude oil from the Gulf to East Asian countries. The sea holds valuable fishing grounds, and as-yet largely unexploited oil and natural gas fields.

Disputes

Six parties are involved in a complex set of historically based territorial disputes in the sea—Brunei, China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China’s claims, the broadest, cover all of the Spratly and Paracel Islands and most of South China Sea.

China’s military occupies all of the Paracels and some nine reefs in Spratly Islands, including Johnson South Reef, Hughes Reef and Subi Reef.

Vietnam occupies dozens of Spratly atolls and reefs and has military bases on several more.

Taiwan holds Itu Aba Island and Ban Than Reef in the Spratlys. Former President Chen Shui-bian visited Itu Aba in 2008 with a naval flotilla. Taiwan has built an airport there.

Malaysia has built an air strip and diving resort on Layang Layang, also known as Swallow’s Reef. The Malaysian Navy maintains a base here too. The other atolls that Malaysia occupies are Ardasier Reef, Marivales Reef, Erica Reef and Investigator Shoal.

The Philippines occupies several Spratly Islands, most significantly Thitu, which it renamed Pagasa (Hope).

Brunei occupies none of the islands.

Responses

The biggest military skirmishes occurred in 1974, when China attacked and captured the western Paracels from Vietnam, and in 1988, when China and Vietnam fought a brief naval battle near the Spratly reefs, in which more than 70 Vietnamese sailors died.

In 2002, the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and China signed a nonbinding Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in South China Sea, urging the claimant states to exercise restraint and avoid activities that might escalate tension, such as construction of military facilities and holding war games.

International law

The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) allows coastal states to establish sovereignty over two areas.

Territorial seas—adjacent waters spanning a maximum of 12 nautical miles from their coastlines, including the coastline of offshore islands.

Exclusive economic zones (EEZ)—extending 200 nautical miles from the coast.

The Unclos says overlapping claims should be resolved through ad hoc arbitration or submission to international courts.

United States, other countries

The United States has not ratified the Unclos, objecting to a clause on seabed mineral exploration. But when accused by China of illegal trespass, the United States has referred to its provision for states to conduct intelligence-gathering activities in EEZs.

China has signed and ratified the Unclos. Beijing says all the islands have been Chinese since ancient times.

Malaysia says its claims to territories and maritime areas in the South China Sea are in accordance with principles of international law and as depicted in a map it published in 1979, which defined the country’s continental shelf boundaries.

In 1978, then President Ferdinand Marcos issued a decree claiming the entire territory as part of the Philippines, redrawing the country’s map. Manila is a signatory to the Unclos and has passed a law asserting its claims on the Spratlys.

Taiwan claims the Spratly, Paracel and Pratas Islands in its Constitution.

Hanoi has ratified the Unclos. In 2009, Vietnam and Malaysia presented a joint submission to the Unclos on their claims which underlines the point that while China prefers to deal with the competing claimants on a bilateral basis, others have been pushing for a multilateral approach to the disputes.

Brunei claims part of the South China Sea as its EEZ, a section of which includes Louisa Reef. Reuters