Archived Great Discussion Series

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is intergovernmental organization created by mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It established an international framework for law over the sea. It was sign on December 10, 1982.

This Declaration saw the turning over of the sovereignty of Hong Kong on December 19, 1984.

An international tribunal ruled Tuesday that China's nine-dash line -- drawn on a map dating from the 1940s that claim large stretches of the South China Sea -- has no legal basis.

Since 2014, China has been building islands in the middle of the South China Sea. What were once underwater reefs are now sandy islands complete with airfields, roads, buildings, and missile systems. In less than two years, China has turned seven reefs into seven military bases in the South China Sea, one of the most contentious bodies of water in the world.

It’s a territorial argument that’s been raging for centuries, but recent hostilities in 2015 have ramped up the tension between nations. Welcome to WatchMojo News, the weekly series from https://www.WatchMojo.com

China claims they aren't military bases, but their actions say otherwise.

China’s militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea is worsening tensions in an already highly disputed region...

MiniDocumentary from 2014

////"We call our Kalayaan Island group the submerged Saudi Arabia of the Philippines." Eugenio Bito-Onon is mayor of a seemingly innocuous islet municipality, home to just 150 residents. But with the region crosshatched by important shipping lanes, the undersea bed replete with oil and gas, and the marine life furnishing vast fishing grounds, the surrounding waters are simmering with tension. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei all lay claim to a portion of the territory, in a little-known diplomatic contest that for decades has regularly brought the area to the brink of war, and put it firmly off-limits to Western media. "China is doing a lot of things besides bullying our fishermen and small navies", explains the mayor as he points out a Chinese development on a small atoll known as 'Mischief Reef'. Here, the only way to secure the land is to occupy it. So as competing claimants continue to build, could this high-stakes game of island Monopoly erupt into a fully fledged conflict?

Mini documentary from 2012
Bordered by ten nations and including some of the world’s most important shipping lanes and fisheries, the South China Sea is a vital region. Critically important mineral resources, including oil, are thought to be there in large quantities as well.

Whose South China Sea is it, anyway?

China’s claim to the South China Sea is based in history, dating back to records from the Xia and Han dynasties

BEIJING — On July 12, the ad hoc South China Sea arbitration court set up by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration as unilaterally initiated by the Philippines is expected to announce its decision. The Chinese government has once again expressed its firm position of non-recognition and non-acceptance of any decision by that court, emphasizing that “the Ad Hoc Court has no jurisdiction whatsoever over this case and other related issues and therefore it should not proceed with arbitration nor make any decision thereupon.”

Rival countries have wrangled over territory in the South China Sea for centuries, but tension has steadily increased in recent years.

The South China Sea is a critical commercial gateway for a significant portion of the world’s merchant shipping, and hence is an important economic and strategic sub-region of the Indo-Pacific. It is also the site of several complex territorial disputes that have been the cause of conflict and tension within the region and throughout the Indo-Pacific.

War with the US under Donald Trump is “not just a slogan” and becoming a “practical reality”, a senior Chinese military official has said.

By Manuel Mogato and Martin Petty | MANILA
China's support for finalizing a code of conduct in the hotly contested South China Sea is generating some hope in Southeast Asia of settling disputes, but those working out the terms remain unconvinced of Beijing's sincerity.

The South China Sea channels a third of the world’s shipping and is rich with islands,
fisheries, oil and gas deposits. It is also one the most disputed areas in Southeast Asia and has
the most potential for armed conflict.

A woman wearing a hat representing a Philippines Navy boat with other protesters during a demonstration in front of the Chinese Consulate in Manila on Tuesday.

Chinese dredging vessels are purportedly seen in the waters around Mischief Reef in the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.

PLA soldiers on parade in China (file image) Reuters

The various claims to the South China Sea.

Donald Trump told The Washington Post that he may have military parades in America like this one in North Korea in 2015. Ed Jones/AFP/Getty

By Charles M. Blow for The New York Times. January 19, 2017 [x]