Deep Danger: Competing Claims in the South China Sea       

The waters of the South China Sea are dotted with hundreds of atolls, reefs, and small islands—only one of which has sufficient fresh water to qualify, under traditional international law, as capable of supporting human habitation. Nonetheless, these land features and the 1.35 million square miles of water that surround them are the subject of competing territorial claims by China and Taiwan (whose claims appear to encompass the entire South China Sea and all of its land features) and by five Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, though Indonesia’s claim is limited to waters at the sea’s extreme southern tip).                                                  (The Viet-Studies/The Current History)

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