Posts tagged south china sea

Submitted for your consideration are the Spratly Islands and the South China Sea. The competing territorial claim situation there is just another border dispute in the millennia-long “Land Control Epic.” This one deserves your attention, even if only as an academic exercise because it’s one of the more interesting case studies in political power in recent times. It deserves your consideration economically because of trillions of dollars of trade and natural resources hinging on the outcome. It deserves your attention in a practical sense because if a hot war starts between America and China, this will be the spark.

via https://thearcmag.com/chinese-island-building-and-you-a650baa91b8b

The speed and scale of China’s island-building spree have alarmed other countries with interests in the region. China announced in June that the creation of islands — moving sediment from the seafloor to a reef — would soon be completed. “The announcement marks a change in diplomatic tone, and indicates that China has reached its scheduled completion on several land reclamation projects and is now moving into the construction phase,” said Mira Rapp-Hooper, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington research group.

So far China has built port facilities, military buildings and an airstrip on the islands. The installations bolster China’s foothold in the Spratly Islands, a disputed scattering of reefs and islands in the South China Sea more than 500 miles from the Chinese mainland.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/30/world/asia/what-china-has-been-building-in-the-south-china-sea.html?_r=0