South China Sea Islands disputes (Essay Sample)

South China Sea Islands disputes Introduction Similar to most territorial disputes, the South China Sea dispute is an extremely complex as well as being multi-layered. This disturbing reality exists at the backdrop of the fact that China has sovereignty over the disputed sites, and thus, other countries have sought to offend this unquestionable truth (Lohschelder, 2021). It should be underlined from the onset that the contested status of the territorial attributes are embedded on one hand in deep seated colonial history, and the development of legal regimes rooted within the international law governing the islands on the other hand. The region around South China Sea is defined by geostrategic importance. Odgaard (2002) records that South China Sea has a vast wealth of natural resources. This has attracted the appetite of multiple states which has culminated into uneasy tensions. The six primary claimants comprise of China, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Taiwan (Mirski, 2015). It is instructive to underline that the claim of sovereignty advanced by these intruding states is hinged on domestic politics compounded by the rise of nationalism by some of the claimant states. This paper discusses the biggest political issue facing East Asia by exploring the current dispute in South China Sea Islands.
Figure 1: indicating territories of South China Sea dispute, Source: (Mirski, 2015) Overview of South China Sea Islands disputes At present, the most direct and viable economic benefits associated with South China Sea is fishing. However, as aforementioned earlier South China Sea has vast natural resources which has attracted offensive claim of sovereignty by claimant states such as Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Brunei, among others. As cited in Lohschelder (2021) hydrocarbon resources are still unquantifiable. But, Hyer (1995) argues that the main attraction with regard to Paracels and Spratlys, key areas of the South China Sea has remained the geostrategic importance. It should be noted that the South China Sea is regarded as the gateway for accessing the world ocean. As such, this is the nexus for navigation alongside forming a security fence with regard to the various littoral states. This is informed by the increasing need to achieve maritime security including freedom and safety of navigation for not only the littoral states but also sea users. Such reasoning has been used by interested parties to ...