Brief Guide the Timeline of South China Sea(Island Dispute) - Atiya Shakira

The South China marine is a small sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is curvet in the north by the shores of South China in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Philippines (mainly Luzon, Mindoro and Palawan), and in the south by Borneo, eastern Sumatra and the Bangka Belitung Islands, encompassing an area of around 3,500,000 km2 (1,400,000 sq mi). It communicates with the East China Sea via the Taiwan Strait, the Philippine Sea via the Luzon Strait, the Sulu Sea via the straits around Palawan the Strait of Singapore & the Java Sea via the Karimata and Bangka Strait. The armlets of Tonkin is both part of the South China Sea, and its shallow waters south of the Riau Islands is also known as the Natuna Sea.

The South China Sea disputes involve both island and maritime claims by several sovereign states  within the region, namely Brunei, the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China  (ROC/Taiwan), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. An estimated US$3.37 trillion worth of global trade passes through the South China Sea annually, which accounts for a third of the global maritime trade. 80% of China's energy imports and 39.5 percent of China's total trade passes through the South China Sea.

The South China Sea is a sector of tremendous economic and geostrategic importance. One-third of the world's maritime shipping passes through it, carrying over US$3 trillion in trade each year. Huge oil and natural gas reserves are believed to lie beneath its seabed. It also occupy  lucrative fisheries, which are crucial for the food security of millions in Southeast Asia.

The South China Islands, collectively comprising several archipelago clusters of mostly small uninhabited islands, islets (cays and shoals), reefs/atolls and seamounts numbering in the hundreds, are subject to competing claims of sovereignty by several countries. These claims are also reflected in the variety of names used for the islands and the sea.

China's actions in the South China Sea have been described as part of its "salami slicing" strategy and since 2015 the United States and other states such as France and the United Kingdom have conducted freedom of navigation operations  (FONOP) in the region. In July 2016, an arbitration tribunal constituted under Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) ruled against the PRC's maritime claims in Philippines v. China. The tribunal did not rule on the ownership of the islands or delimit maritime boundaries. Both the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan) stated that they did not recognize the tribunal and insisted that the matter should be resolved through bilateral negotiations with other claimants. On September 17, 2020, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom issued a joint note verbal recognizing the PCA ruling and challenging China's claims. 

              Geography:

As maintained to the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) Limits of Oceans and Seas, 3rd edition (1953), it is located.

• South of Chinese mainland, 

• South of Hainan, 

• West of Taiwan;

• East of Vietnam;

• West of the Philippines;

• East of the Malay Peninsula, up to the east entrance of Strait of Singapore, and south of the Bintan and Bantam Islands;

the northeast coast of Sumatra;

and north of the Bangka Belitung Islands and Borneo.

However, in its unapproved draft 4th edition (1986), IHO proposed the Natuna Sea, thus the South China Sea southern boundary was shifted northward, from north of the Bangka Belitung Islands to north and northeast of Natural Islands.

States and territories with borders on the sea (clockwise from north) include: the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Great rivers that move into the South China Sea include the Pearl, Min, Jiulong, Red, Mekong, Rajang, Pahang, Agno, Pampanga, and Pasig Rivers.

       Islands and seamounts:

The South China Island occupy over 250 small islands, atolls, cays, shoals, reefs, and sandbars, most of which have no indigenous people, many of which are naturally under water at high level & some of which are permanently submerged. The features are: 

• The Spratly Islands

• The Paracel Islands

• Pratas Island and the Vereker Banks

• The Macclesfield Bank

• The Scarborough Shoal

The Spratly Islands spread over an 810 by 900 km area covering some 175 identified insular features, the largest being Taiping Island (Itu Aba) at just over 1.3 kilometres (0.81 mi) long and with its highest elevation at 3.8 metres (12 ft).

The largest terrific feature in the area of Spratly Islands is a 100 kilometres (62 mi) wide seamounts called Reed Tablemount, also known as Reed Bank, in the northeast of the group different from Palawan Island of the Philippines  by the Palawan Trench. Now completely submerged, with a depth of 20 metres (66 ft), it was an island until it sank about 7,000 years ago due to the increasing sea level after the last ice age. With an area of 8,866 square kilometres (3,423 sq mi), it is one of the largest submerged atoll structures in the world.