Depending on how it chooses to enforce and interpret its nine-dash line, China might also attempt to shut the U.S. navy out of the South China Sea. The Chinese argue, controversially, that states are entitled to stop foreign navies from sailing through an exclusive economic zone that stretches two hundred miles out from their coasts. If China were able to control all the islands and reefs in the South China Sea, it could create a legal claim for shutting the U.S. military out of those waters.14 Given that, according to Hillary Clinton, some 50 percent of the world’s merchandise trade passes
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