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South China Sea
The Guardian briefing

How China's artificial islands led to tension in the South China Sea

Beijing is attempting to build artificial islands, while other states in the region are looking to the US to flex its military muscle on their behalf


A satellite image of an airstrip under construction in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Photograph: Digital Globe/AFP/Getty

Julian Borger in London and Tom Phillips in Beijing
Tuesday 27 October 2015

What’s the story?

Over the last two years China has dramatically stepped up land reclamation work on reefs and atolls it claims in the Spratly Island chain in the South China Sea, also claimed by the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei. Chinese ships have been dredging new harbours, while cranes have been erected in an attempt to build artificial islands atop submerged reefs. There is evidence of airstrips being built. The US has protested that the work is illegal and destabilising and for months the Pentagon has been pushing the White House to take a firmer stance.

Washington has said it will ignore any Chinese claim for territorial waters based on new man-made islands, and has flown a surveillance plane with television crews to film the dredging work, sparking bitter Chinese complaints and dark talk in the Chinese press about a coming conflict.

On Tuesday, the US upped the ante once again by deploying a warship to sail through a 12-nautical mile zone around two artificial islands in the archipelago. China responded by accusing the US of “provocative actions” – but there was no immediate sign of any military response from Beijing.

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What are the issues?

On one level, this is a struggle over natural resources. There are believed to be vast oil and gas fields beneath the sea bed, as well as substantial fisheries. The Spratlys and Paracels also straddle one of the world’s busiest shipping channels. It is also about what kind of world power China is going to be under its president, Xi Jinping, who has an interpretation of China’s global role that puts naval strength at the forefront. In a recently published defence policy doctrine, Beijing puts great emphasis on its burgeoning navy and its mission to “safeguard national territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and maintain security and stability along China’s periphery”.

There are legal issues, but China’s standing is weak. Other countries’ have equally strong, if not stronger, historical claims. Beijing is also ignoring the UN Convention on Law of the Sea and dodging multilateral negotiated solutions, preferring to create “facts on the sea”. That raises the question of how far Washington is prepared to go in calling China’s bluff. Its decision earlier this year to fly over the Spratlys to film the island-building work was intended to galvanise its allies into concerted action to counter Beijing’s moves, but the states of the region are looking to the US to take the lead in flexing military muscle on their behalf. Tuesday’s naval mission indicated that Barack Obama and Xi Jinping found little common ground during recent talks about the situation in the South China Sea and that Washington now feels it is time to up the ante.

Finally, the geopolitical competition is a disaster for a delicate ecosystem of coral reefs and tropical sealife, one of the richest and most diverse in the world.



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How can I find out more?

Some of the most detailed discussion of the South China Sea can be found on the South Sea Conversations(1) website, run by Andrew Chubb an Australian academic. The South China Sea website(2) has a comprehensive set of maps of the conflicting territorial claims. This BBC summary(3) has a concise timeline of events and a useful map of the UNCLOS-based division of the Spratlys, compared with the extent of Chinese territorial claims. The European Union Institute for Security Studies(4) produced this issue brief last year on the ecological consequences for the South China Sea.


theguardian.com

links suggested by the authors for further references:

(1)  https://southseaconversations.wordpress.com/about/
(2)  http://www.southchinasea.org/maps/territorial-claims-maps/
(3)  http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13748349
(4)  http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Alert_30_South_China_Sea.pdf

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