The Stake in the South China Sea.

The Stake in the South China Sea.

Geographical and Geopolitical Considerations.

Introduction

The South China Sea is among the most complex geographical and geopolitical ocean spaces in the world with highly contested territorial and marine jurisdiction claims. This document, therefore, aims at providing the geographical and geopolitical background to the highly conflicting national maritime claims made by the South China Sea littoral states.

This documentation thus outlines the key characteristics of the coastal geography of the South China Sea, the implications of its semi-enclosed nature and the baselines that have been defined along its coasts. Among the features that may cause conflict among the sovereignties are insular features. These features undergo an examination concerning their potential maritime claims and role in the delimitation of maritime boundaries. This paper moves further ahead to outline the maritime jurisdictional allegations of the south sea coastal states, including existing maritime boundary agreements and maritime joint development zones, as well as unilateral and historical marine claims.

There are several disputes over the South China Sea. These disputes arise as a result of several geopolitical factors. These factors include the longstanding yet still influential sovereignty imperatives, significant and grooving marine resource interests and energy security concerns, crucial navigational and maritime trade considerations and evolving military and strategic factors.

Geographical Considerations and Claim to Marine Space

Geographical context is one of the primary considerations in the South China Sea. Six claimants border the semi-enclosed sea. These claimants include; the people’s republic of china, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam (Brunei). Two non-claimants are Indonesia and Singapore.

Additionally, Cambodia and Thailand exist along the South China Sea’s gulf of Thailand extension. The limits have been defined to extend southwards from the strait of Taiwan to around 3 degrees parallel of latitude. The total area covered by the sea is approximately three million square kilometres, which is equivalent to about 874,660 square nautical miles. The coastal geography of the South China Sea has by predominant small islands, islets, rocks and refs.

Baseline claims is also a factor. Nationals’ claims to maritime jurisdiction are fundamentally dependent on the possession of land territory with the coast and the geography of the coast concerned. It is evident that the land dominates the sea, and it dominates it by the intermediary of the coastal front. A coastal state’s maritime claims are measured from baselines defined along its coasts. In the absence of other complaints, normal baselines are used coincident with the low-water line along the coast. However, the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea (UNCLOS) provides for several types of straight lines to be drawn as an alternative to normal baselines. The UNCLOS provides the fundamental legal framework for the governance of maritime jurisdictional claims, which has been accepted by the majority of states worldwide, including the South China Sea states. This is due to the increased complexity of these coastal lines making it almost impossible to use the straight baselines. Normal baselines can result in somehow irregular marine limits.

The islands of South Sea China also affect the claims on the coastline significantly. South Sea China is dominated by a myriad of small islands, islets, rocks, cays, shoals and drying reefs. These islands fall into the following groups: parallel islands located to the northeast, which comprises 130 islands, the Pratas islands situated to the northeast of South China Sea and comprising three islands, Scarborough reef, the Natuna Islands in the southwest of south china sea and the Sparty islands. There are high disputes in the south china seas due to the occupation of the islands. Thus there is a law that restricts the occupation of non-occupied islands in the South China Sea. Over an extended period, there is no exact information on how many of the islands exist, thus making it challenging to decide on the occupation of the islands. These lead to increased jurisdictional claims in the maritime region.

There are also some conventional claims to maritime jurisdiction. These claims are much dependent on the UNCLOS set of laws, which agrees on the spatial limits for civil claims to maritime authority, which, by broad definition, extends to a set of distance from the baselines along the coast. The semi-enclosed nature of the South China Sea surrounded by numerous states indicates that the maritime entitlements of these states converge and overlap with each other.

There are also existing agreements that have been set by two individual states in the past and recent times. The examples include the Thailand and Malaysia territorial sea delimitation of 1979 and potential continental shelf delimitation of the same date; the Thailand-Vietnam EEZ agreement of 1997, China and Vietnam agreement in 2000 and many other contracts.

Apart from those, there are also historical claims, unilateral marine claims and extended continental shelf submission.

Geopolitical Considerations.

Sovereignty is one of the significant elements of the South China Sea disputes. They include disputes over territories in the form of islands and also freedom and sovereign rights over maritime space. Territorial states are dependent, at least in part, on the possession of a defined territory.

South China Sea oil dreams or illusions also are a source of dispute among the states that border the South China Sea. This is because of the claims that in the south sea, there are substantial reserves of sea bed energy resources. Words such as potential oil-rich, second Persian gulf and recent incidents involving oil and gas survey and exploration activities tend to improve speculation on the potential of oil in the under the bed of the sea, thus creating lots of disputes between the contesting states.

The South China Sea also contains critical sea lines of communication (SLOCs). Communication being a significant component in growth, therefore, leads to a lot of disputes as the states try to gain full control over the critical sea lines of communication.

There is also sustainable marine living resou9rces which provide great riches for the states. This richness is mainly in terms of biodiversity. The region hosts fisheries that are of global significance.

The evolving military and strategic context also have led to disputes. They are due to the start of the deployment of personnel in the non-occupied islands. This deployment leads to conflicts as those that are affected view it as breaking the set laws.

Conclusion

The South China Sea is complex in terms of its coastal geography. This complexity makes it highly challenging to give marital jurisdictions to a particular state. Thus the region is highly contested for by the bordering states considering its riches and high biodiversity.

References.

Rahman and Tsamenyi, supra note 104, at 319.

Ibid, at 329

Schofield and Storey, supra note 114, at 38-41