No Maritime Security Without Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs)

The South China Sea has suffered from a lack of maritime security for many decades, due mainly to rival sovereignty claims and military occupation of the Paracels and Spratlys, fishery disputes, oil exploration, and pressures from a nationalist public opinion. Diminishing fish stocks have led to more aggressive fishing both farther out at sea and near other countries’ coasts. Illegal fishing methods have been used. China has imposed fishing bans in disputed areas. Environmental risk has increased with the enormous growth in sea based transportation. Piracy has plagued some areas. For more than a hundred years, navies have sought to balance each others’ power projecting capacity in the area, and power has shifted between various naval powers. Blown up reports on enormous possible value of resources in the South China Sea have led to widespread popular misunderstandings. People often imagine that the South China Sea is full of islands when the truth is that it consists almost uniquely of water. While the area covered by the Paracels and the Spratlys most of their land features are just reefs, shoals and tiny islets that barely deserve to be called islands. In the 1920s there were reports that these islands had enough guano to produce fertilizer for all of China’s agricultural needs over many decades. Since the 1950s there have been huge expectations for oil reservoirs, based on the rich deposits off the coast of Brunei and East Malaysia. Much of this oil has now been taken out. There can be little doubt that it belonged to Brunei and Malaysia. No one knows if similar finds can be made in the unexplored parts of the South China Sea.