Main Cause of the South China Sea Dispute: China's Claim

The various conflicts between the claims of the littoral states of the South China Sea are, with one exception, easily solvable. The claims of Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia are made within the principles and parameters set by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). They can be easily resolved by mediation or arbitration. There is only one outlier in these debates, China. Where other states claim zones of ocean off their coasts, China claims the ocean in toto. (See also my blog on the South China Sea, June 30, 2011.)

No other state in recent history has made such preposterous claims, and even brazenly called them "rightful, justified" on account of "Chinese sovereignty". It is as if Japan were to have claimed all of the Eastern Japan Ocean, or Russia to have claimed the entire Black Sea or the whole Baltic, or for the UK to have claimed the North Sea. This unprecedented quality is also the reason why reading the documents put out by the Chinese Foreign Ministry in defense of its stance has very little interest in this case. The global community spent years debating this in the 1970s, and China like most other states ratified UNCLOS. Only UNCLOS just does not recognize such claims. 

China puts its own case down to the rights said to be due to it because of its sovereignty. But the reason all of China's neighbors claim their respective shares of the ocean according to UNCLOS is also their sovereignty. The only thing that differs is that China has a bigger territory and a vastly bigger population. China's coastline on the South China Sea is very small, especially compared to its claim.


No one has heard such curious claims in modern times. Yet most commentators are too polite to say so. It might have been possible to suffer this foolish posture if it were not for the fact that a huge share of international maritime trade passes through the area. For one littoral state to take control of it all would be an unacceptable grab. The danger is that China has shown its ambition to be just that kind of grab, and that it is prepared to use violence to defend its provocative claims. 

(On October 29, 2015, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague gave its first decision in the case raised by the Philippines against China. The court concluded that it was indeed competent to decide in this case, thus deciding in favor of the Philippines. The court now proceeds to the substantive part of the case.)