The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

by Daniel Yergin

And that is what is happening in the South China Sea, where China is dredging millions of tons of rocks and sand to construct artificial islands atop a series of coral reefs. These new islands become “facts on the water”—and military bases that provide anchorage and missile batteries as well as runways that can handle China’s strategic bombers. While both Malaysia and Taiwan have engaged in territorial reclamation in the South China Sea, the areas involved are very small. Nothing matches the speed and scale on which China is advancing its projects—to date some thirty-two hundred reclaimed acres. These islands would enable China to maintain continuing air patrols over the South China Sea. That, in turn, could permit it at some point to implement an air defensive identification zone over the region—which would inevitably be challenged.