Disputes and diplomacy in the South China Sea: Stephen Hoadley suggests that longer-term resolutions of fundamental disagreements in a key geo-strategic area remain elusive and are probably unachievable.

• Author: Hoadley, Stephen

Long a zone of contention, the South China Sea remains one of the world's flashpoints. Its importance is amplified by the fact that one-third of the world's maritime traffic passes through it. China-US economic and geo-strategic rivalry in particular pose worrying questions for future developments in this area. China's efforts since 2013 to build up selected reefs and shoals into concrete islets have exacerbated earlier tensions. There have, however, been promising diplomatic efforts to manage disagreements that suggest that the protagonists will avoid war in the short-to-medium term. However, the prospects for longer-term resolutions of fundamental disagreements are not good.

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For decades the South China Sea has been a zone of contention. If amplified by the growing China-US economic and geo-strategic rivalry, will the maritime tensions intensify to the point at which armed clashes will erupt, and will they escalate into war? Are there any moderating initiatives that can forestall naval conflict? What are the prospects for resolution of the many conflicting sovereignty claims?

Lying south of China and north of Indonesia, and bordered by Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei, the South China Sea conveys one-third of the worlds maritime traffic by value, including vital oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Japan and South Korea. (1) It is recognised by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, signed in 1982, in force in 1994) as an international waterway, with a common right of transit to be enjoyed by mariners of all nations. The Law of the Sea also assigns 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) resource rights to the bordering states.

Nevertheless successive governments of China, both Nationalist (from 1932) and Communist (from 1949), have claimed the sea in its entirety. Their claims are based on an alleged history of Chinese exploration, transit, fishing, and sporadic sojourns. Their claim is expressed in the so-called 'nine-dash line' or 'U-shaped line' on Chinese maps.

But the claimed maritime territory is not specified by geographic data-points. It is only indicated by dashes superimposed on maps produced by officials in Beijing and Taipei. And it seriously overlaps the EEZ claims by the five littoral states. Hence the dispute.

Until 1982, when the Law of the Sea Convention was signed, the dispute was latent. It became manifest after preliminary exploration found evidence of hydrocarbons in the seabed, and demand for exclusive fishing rights increased as traditional grounds were depleted by unregulated exploitation of marine life.

The economic rise of China stimulated a nationalist resurgence which rejected the 'Century of Humiliation' perpetrated by the Western imperial powers (and latterly by...