Territorial disputes in the South China Sea facts for kids

Map of various national outposts in the Spratly Islands in 2008

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea involve conflicting island and maritime claims in the region by several sovereign states, namely Brunei, the People's Republic of China (PRC), Taiwan (Republic of China/ROC), Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The disputes involve the islands, reefs, banks, and other features of the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands, Scarborough Shoal, and various boundaries in the Gulf of Tonkin. The waters near the Indonesian Natuna Islands, which some regard as geographically part of the South China Sea, are disputed as well. Maritime disputes also extend beyond the South China Sea, as in the case of the Senkaku Islands and the Socotra Rock, which lie in the East China Sea.

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 percent of China's energy imports and 39.5 percent of China's total trade passes through the South China Sea. Claimant states are interested in retaining or acquiring the rights to fishing stocks, the exploration and potential exploitation of crude oil and natural gas in the seabed of various parts of the South China Sea, and the strategic control of important shipping lanes. Maritime security is also an issue, as the ongoing disputes present challenges for shipping.

In 1932, France formally claimed both the Paracel and Spratly Islands. China and Japan both protested. On 6 April 1933, France occupied the Spratlys, announced their annexation, and formally included them in French Indochina.

In 1947, the Republic of China, the government of then China, announced the majority of the South China Sea was its territory. In 1949, the incoming government of China, which overthrew the Republic of China in the Chinese Civil War, announced that it had inherited this claim.

In 2013, the PRC began island building in the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands region. According to Reuters, island building in the South China Sea primarily by Vietnam and the Philippines has been going on for decades on a small scale; while China has come late to the island building game, its efforts have been on an unprecedented scale as it had from 2014 to 2016 constructed more new island surface than all other nations have constructed throughout history and as of 2016 placed military equipment on one of its artificial islands unlike the other claimants. A 2019 article in Voice of America which compared China and Vietnam's island building campaign in the South China Sea similarly reported the reason why Vietnam in contradistinction to China has been subject to little international criticism and even support was because of the slower speed and widely perceived defensive nature of its island-building project.

China's actions in the South China Sea have been described as part of its "salami slicing"/"cabbage wrapping" strategies, 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 Taiwan stated that they did not recognize the tribunal and insisted that the matter should be resolved through bilateral negotiations with other claimants. In January 2022, the United States Department of State called China's claims in the South China Sea "unlawful."

Disputes in the South China Sea region

The disputes involve both maritime boundaries and islands. There are several disputes, each of which involves a different collection of countries:

1. The nine-dash line area claimed by the Republic of China (1912–1949), later the People's Republic of China (PRC), which covers most of the South China Sea and overlaps with the exclusive economic zone claims of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
2. Maritime boundary along the Vietnamese coast between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
3. Maritime boundary north of Borneo between the PRC, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, and Taiwan.
4. Islands, reefs, banks and shoals in the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands, Pratas Island and the Vereker Banks, Macclesfield Bank, Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands between the PRC, Taiwan, and Vietnam, and parts of the area also contested by Malaysia and the Philippines.
5. Maritime boundary in the waters north of the Natuna Islands between the PRC, Indonesia, Taiwan and Vietnam.
6. Maritime boundary off the coast of Palawan and Luzon between the PRC, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
7. Maritime boundary, land territory, and the islands of Sabah, including Ambalat, between Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
8. Maritime boundary and islands in the Luzon Strait between the PRC, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

See also

In Spanish: Conflicto territorial en el mar de la China meridional para niños

• Continental Shelf
• First island chain
• Great wall of sand
• North Borneo dispute
• South China Sea
• South China Sea Islands
• Spratly Islands
• Spratly Islands dispute
• Senkaku Islands
• Senkaku Islands dispute
• Territorial claims in the Arctic
• Territorial claims in Antarctica
• Chinese expansionism
• 21st Century Maritime Silk Road