Today there is a growing struggle over sovereignty in the South China Sea—over who controls the Spratlys, as well as another island group closer to China and Vietnam called the Paracels, and other tiny “land features” that barely jut out from the waves—and indeed the sea itself. It is a battle over a host of critical matters—oil and gas resources, both known and purported; a substantial part of the world’s fishing resources; control of the world’s most important sea lanes and, potentially, the trade that goes through it. It is also about national identity, a shifting strategic balance, and the
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