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

by Daniel Yergin

The clash over the South China Sea is about islands and “territorial waters.” It revolves around three issues: First, who owns the tiny “land features” that protrude out of the waters of the South China Sea? The importance of this question is that jurisdiction over the waters flows from “land features.” This question of sovereignty is primarily an issue between China and the nations of Southeast Asia. China says its claim to sovereignty is rooted in history, which it succinctly set out in a December 2014 paper: “China has indisputable sovereignty over the South Sea Islands and the adjacent waters. Chinese activities in the South China Sea date back to over two thousand years ago. China was the first country to discover, name, explore, and exploit the resources of the South China Sea and the first to continuously exercise sovereign power over them. From the 1930s to the 1940s, Japan illegally seized some parts of the South China Sea islands during its aggression against China. At the end of the Second World War, the Chinese government resumed exercise of sovereignty over the South China Sea islands.”