By Andrew Forbes

During ongoing negotiations over the past several years, rival claimants to the Spratly Islands have agreed loosely to 'increase cooperation' in the South China Sea. Officially, however, Beijing, the most powerful and least flexible claimant nation, remains adamant in its assertion that the Spratlys are "an inalienable part of the Chinese motherland". Under these circumstances, perhaps it is time to consider the historical foundations of China's claim - indeed, whether Beijing has legitimate interests in the region at all.

In July, 1977, when Teng Hsiao-ping first emerged as China's leader following the death of Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese foreign minister, Huang Hua, reconfirmed that China's claim to the South China Sea was "non-negotiable" in the strongest terms. At the same time he commented:
The territory of China reaches as far south as the James Shoals, near Malaysia's Borneo territory... I remember that while I was still a schoolboy, I read about those islands in the geography books. At that time, I never heard anyone say those islands were not China's... The Vietnamese claim that the islands belong to them. Let them talk that way. They have repeatedly asked us to negotiate with them on the issue; we have always declined to do so... As to the ownership of the islands, there are historical documents that can be verified. There is no need for negotiations since they originally belonged to China.

China’s Quest for Energy Security from the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea to the Caspian Sea Basin

By Tarique Niazi

ABSTRACT

This article attempts to explore the ecological dimensions of strategic interests by examining China’s Asia-wide quest for key natural resources and safe seaways for their shipment. It takes a close look at three cases – one in the Indian Ocean region, the South China Sea region, and the Caspian Sea region – to explain interaction between natural resources and China’s emerging strategic interests in Asia. The article shows that Beijing’s quest for key natural resources underlies its economic and strategic alignments with the respective nations of Indian Ocean, South China Sea and Caspian Sea regions. The article implies that International Relations (IR) Theory and policy makers pay very close attention to the anchorage of strategic interests in the struggles over access and control of critical natural resources.

By James Holmes

Perhaps blinkered by its focus on the immediate threats from the Middle East and North Korea, America is passively allowing a very dangerous course of events to unfold elsewhere, in another region vital to our national interests. Unless we awaken, and take action, we may someday find ourselves facing an even more formidable set of problems than our current struggle for survival in the War on Terror.

In April I traveled to Beijing to deliver a paper on "'Command of the Sea' and the Proliferation Security Initiative" at an annual symposium on maritime security held by the Ford Foundation and the China Institute for Contemporary International Relations. I left China troubled about the future of the Asia—Pacific region. Why? For what might seem like an odd reason: Many influential naval strategists in China today are followers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, the influential maritime thinker of the Theodore Roosevelt era.

That could portend friction in the Asia—Pacific region or, in the extreme case, military conflict.

By Dimitris Liakopoulos
Global Jurist Topics
1 December 2004

Abstract

The Spratly islands comprised an area of hundred and fifty features in the South China Sea (SCS) and on of the littoral States which have obtained their claims to sovereignty to them. The present article analyses under the rules of international law of the sea, the rules that govern the regime of islands. We should take in consideration that all the boundary States has claimed to sovereign over ths islands. China has put forward much documentation supporting the chinese claim based on historical and discovery occupation in the region. Taiwan demonstrates legal bases of claims in the SCS establishing a physical presence on the Spratlys after the japanese withdrawal after world war II. Other States that includes activities in the area of SCS is Vietnam, Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia. There is also explained that a discusses of a continental shelf, the maritime zones, the purpose of the boundary solution has involved also another point of analysis: the protection of the environment in the Spratly region and especially after the 1997. Governments of the region should have start to think and act seriously on environmental questions as a new consequences of various crisis in the last years.