[ISL] "China building artificial islands in the Pacific, stoking tensions with neighbours"

[rfmcdonald]

The National Post's Matthew Fisher notes how China is, among other things, building artificial islands in the South China Sea to support its claimed maritime boundaries against Southeast Asian neighbours. Remarkable process, dubious goals.

To support part of its brazen — some might say preposterous — claim to about 85 per cent of the South China Sea, Beijing is building artificial islands on tiny outcroppings, atolls and reefs in hotly disputed waters in the Spratly Archipelago.

To do so, the Chinese have been using formidable seaborne dredges to haul up huge amounts of sand and coral from the ocean floor, and bulldozing what is brought to the surface onto at least six of the far-flung lumps of rock.

The growing outposts are part of a chain of more than 700 islets, none of which rises more than four metres above sea level. The string of promontories is closest to the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei, in that order. But it is China, with a coastline more distant than any of the others, that has seized and is expanding on scraps of what little high ground there is.

[. . .]

To back what it says belongs to China, Beijing has been expanding islets in waters that are clearly within the 200-mile (320-km) exclusive zone of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. It has also sent its coast guard to prevent Chinese boats being arrested for illegal fishing and to warn off fishing boats and sailors from countries with territorial claims.

The Chinese actions seriously complicate an already murky legal situation. There is no clear definition or consensus in maritime law about when or if a piece of rock that rises just above the surface can become part of a country’s sovereign territory through expansion by artificial means.