Asian Waters: The Struggle Over the South China Sea and the Strategy of Chinese Expansion

by Humphrey Hawksley

In 2013, the Philippines, infuriated by China’s intrusion at Scarborough Shoal, filed a case with an international tribunal, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Three years later the tribunal found the Nine-Dash Line to be invalid under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and favored the Philippines on nearly every point. China had no entitlement in the disputed areas; it needed to “respect the rights and freedoms of the Philippines.” But, of course, it didn’t. Beijing declared the ruling null and void. By then, with an incredible feat of engineering, China’s island bases were up and running and there was no dismantling of jetties, hangars, and missile silos. Through commissioning regular satellite overflights, Gregory B. Poling at the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative chronicled how far and fast China transformed these seven reefs into thirty-two hundred acres of land to give it a significant military advantage in the region.