The Spratly Islands Case Study

First off, The Spratly Islands are part of an archipelago which contains more than 100 small islands or reefs, they are surrounded by rich fishing grounds and by potential gas and iron deposits.

They are claimed in their entirety by China, Taiwan and Vietnam, and small portions are claimed by Malaysia and Philippines. The Islands are located in Southeastern Asia, midway between Vietnam and the Philippines. (CIA, 2015)

Yet, some countries have been claiming the Spratly Islands as far back as 1979, such as Malaysia who currently has control over 3 of the Islands but also claims the whole chain. Malaysia argues that the archipelago is part of its continental shelf (Cushing, Day, & Heinzig, 1996), this means that the islands share the same underwater

Additionally, Brunei, like Malaysia claims that the southern part of the Spratly chain lies on its continental shelf and therefore its territory and resources belong to them.

Taiwan has maintained a garrison on the island Taiwan calls Taiping Island, one of the biggest islands in the Spratly archipelago, since 1956.

Taiwan asserts that the archipelago was discovered by Chinese navigators, was used by Chinese fisherman for centuries, and was under the administration of China since the 15th century, finally the Kuomintang sent a naval expedition to the islands and took formal possession in 1946, and left a garrison on the largest island of Taiping. (Cushing, Day, & Heinzig, 1996).

However, China and Vietnam are the main competition in the

Keith Bradsher of the NY Times notes that The Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that it had lodged a protest with China on April 4th, regarding the Chinese activity, but Beijing had rejected the protest. (Bradsher, 2014) This dismissal of the protest by Beijing no doubt links to what Hua Chunying, a military spokeswoman said, which was that China has the right to build in the Spratly’s because they are Chinese territory, “China has indisputable sovereignty over Nansha (Spratly) Islands” (Wong & Ansfield, 2014), this illustrates that China believes they are the true and rightful owners to the Spratly archipelago and is possibly the reason they are moving forward with such